With a Little Help from My Friends
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| "With a Little Help from My Friends" | ||
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| Single by the Beatles | ||
| from the album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band |
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| Released | September 30, 1978 | |
| Recorded | Abbey Road Studios February–March 1967 Live 8, July 2, 2005 |
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| Genre | Rock | |
| Length | 2 min 44 s | |
| Label | Parlophone R6022 | |
| Writer(s) | Lennon-McCartney | |
| Producer(s) | George Martin | |
| Chart positions | ||
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| the Beatles singles chronology | ||
| "Back in the U.S.S.R." (1976) |
"Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" / "A Day in the Life" | "Beatles Movie Medley" (1982) |
| Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band track listing | ||
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| Yellow Submarine Songtrack track listing | ||
| "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" (9) |
"With a Little Help from My Friends" (10) |
"Baby You're a Rich Man" (11) |
"With a Little Help from My Friends" (originally titled, A Little Help from My Friends) is a song written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, released on the Beatles album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in 1967. The song was written for and sung by Beatles drummer Ringo Starr.
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[edit] Origins
The song was written specifically as Starr's track for the album. It was briefly called Bad Finger Boogie, later the inspiration for the band Badfinger. Lennon and McCartney deliberately wrote a tune with a limited range - except for the last note which must have been a strain on Starr's voice. Speaking in the Anthology, Starr insisted on changing the first line which originally was "What would you do if I sang out of tune? Would you throw ripe tomatoes at me?" He changed the lyric so that fans would not throw tomatoes at him should he perform it live. (In the early days, after George made a passing comment that he liked jelly babies, the group was pelted with them at all of their live performances.)[1]
The song's composition is unusually well documented as Hunter Davies was present and described the writing process in the Beatles' official biography.
The song reads like a conversation between the singer and a group of people. For example, "Would you believe in a love at first sight/Yes I'm certain that it happens all the time". In the preceding quotation from the lyrics, the other three Beatles sing the first line, with Starr answering in the following one.
The band started recording the song the same day that they posed for the Sgt. Pepper album cover (30 March 1967). The session finished at 7:30 the following morning.
[edit] Billy Shears
Billy Shears was Starr's alias on the Beatles' 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Billy Shears is mentioned in the title song and, implicitly, as the singer of the segued-into "With a Little Help from My Friends." The cheering between the songs was taken from a recording of the Beatles in concert. They had stopped touring by then.
[edit] Cover interpretations
The song has been number one on the British singles charts three times; once when it was recorded by Joe Cocker in 1968, a second time when it was covered by Wet Wet Wet in 1988 and finally when it was sung by Sam and Mark in 2004. A second recording of Cocker singing the song was made at Woodstock in 1969 and can be seen in the documentary film about the concert, "3 Days of Peace and Music". The drummer on the 1968 Joe Cocker hit single version of the song was Procol Harum's B.J. Wilson. In 1976, Jeff Lynne of ELO recorded the song for the evanescent musical documentary All This and World War II.
[edit] Joe Cocker version
Joe Cocker's version was a radical re-arrangement of the original, in a much slower blues tempo, in a different key, using different chords in the middle eight, and a lengthy instrumental introduction (featuring memorable guitar lines from Jimmy Page). It was used as the opening theme song of the American television series The Wonder Years.
[edit] Wet Wet Wet version
| "With a Little Help from My Friends" | ||
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| Single by Wet Wet Wet | ||
| Released | May 1, 1988 (UK) | |
| Format | 7" | |
| Recorded | 1988 | |
| Genre | Pop | |
| Label | PolyGram | |
| Chart positions | ||
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| Wet Wet Wet singles chronology | ||
| "Temptation" (1988) |
"With a Little Help from My Friends" (1988) |
"Sweet Surrender" (1989) |
Wet Wet Wet's version was released on 1 May 1988. The proceeds from sales of the single, which spent four weeks at Number One in the UK chart, were around £600,000, all of which was donated to ChildLine, the UK-based charity for abused children. Billy Bragg's performance of "She's Leaving Home" was the B-side. Keeping his part of the deal, Bragg included "With a Little Help..." as the B-side on his "She's Leaving Home" single.
[edit] Track listings
7":
- "With a Little Help from My Friends"
- "She's Leaving Home" (performed by Billy Bragg)
[edit] Cultural legacy
It became well-known in the late 1980s and early 1990s when Cocker's cover version was the theme song for the television series The Wonder Years.
The song is ranked #304 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
The song was performed by the characters on the Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends float in the 80th Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Since it was public and mainly intended for children, they censored the line "I get high with a little help from my friends" by repeating the preceding line "I get by with a little help from my friends."
The title of the song gave inspiration for the title of a British reality television show 'With a little help from my friends'. In the show, numerous British celebrities would undertake a charitable task while enlisting help from their friends.
In the "English, Fitz, or Percy" episode of Prison Break, Micheal Scofield refers to this song when he says "with a little help from my friends"
[edit] Notes
[edit] External links
- Page about B.J. Wilson and Joe Cocker's recording of the song [1]
- The Beatles, (1978), McGraw-Hill.
| Preceded by "Those Were The Days" by Mary Hopkin |
UK number one single November 6, 1968 (Joe Cocker version) |
Succeeded by "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" by Hugo Montenegro & His Orchestra |
| Preceded by "Perfect" by Fairground Attraction |
UK number one single May 15, 1988 (Wet Wet Wet version) |
Succeeded by "Doctorin' the Tardis" by The Timelords |
| Preceded by "Take Me To The Clouds Above" by LMC vs U2 |
UK number one single February 15, 2004 (Sam and Mark version) |
Succeeded by "Who's David?" by Busted |
| Wet Wet Wet |
| Marti Pellow - Tommy Cunningham - Graeme Clark - Neil Mitchell |
| Other musicians: Graeme Duffin |
| Discography |
| Studio albums: Popped In Souled Out - The Memphis Sessions - Holding Back the River - High on the Happy Side - Cloak & Dagger - Picture This - 10 |
| Singles: See here |
| Live albums: Wet Wet Wet: Live - Live at the Royal Albert Hall |
| Compilations: End of Part One - The Greatest Hits |
| Videos: Video Singles - Live Glasgow Green Free Concert - High on the Happy Side - The Wets at the Castle - Live at the Royal Albert Hall - End of Part One - Picture This: All Around and in the Crowd - Playing Away at Home - The Greatest Hits and More |
