Deconstructing Help! - The Beatles (Isolated Tracks)

"Help!" is a song that John Lennon, despite being notoriously critical of his work, always enjoyed. He once recalled, "They were the ones I really wrote from experience and not projecting myself into a situation and writing a nice story about it, which I always found phoney. The lyric is as good now as it was then."

The song was fully conceived on April 11th during a writing session at John's home in Kenwood. It was then brought into the studio on April 13th, 1965. The video above features snippets from the first eight takes, including some discussion about George's guitar before take four. It was decided that he would overdub the descending guitar lines at a later date. Help! took nine takes to complete, with the rhythm track consisting of John on a 12-string acoustic guitar, George on electric guitar, Paul on bass, and Ringo on drums. Afterward, the group overdubbed two vocal tracks, one of which also included Ringo’s tambourine, filling up the four-track tape machine.

However, the group still needed to overdub George’s descending guitar lines. To make room, both vocal tracks were bounced down onto a single track, opening up space for the overdub. This technique, which was relatively new at the time to the Beatles, would later become commonplace. With that, George recorded the descending guitar lines.

However that wasn't all. In the actual movie Help! the song is shown without a tambourine. Although that may not be the only reason the tambourine was recorded on a vocal track. So in order to remove the tambourine from the mix the group had to rerecord their vocals. So on May 24th, the group returned to the studio to rerecord their vocals, a revision that is only heard on the mono version of the song. This makes the mono version distinctly different from the stereo mix.

The U.S. soundtrack mix of the song includes a strange James Bond style opening.

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Intro (0:00)
Studio Chatter [Take 1 String Breaks] (0:16)
Studio Chatter [Take 4 Discussion About George's Guitar] (1:03)
Studio Chatter [Take 4 Discussion About Tapping] (1:46)
Studio Chatter [Take 5 - 9] (2:17)
Drums (2:48)
Tambourine (5:04)
Bass (6:01)
Vocals (8:18)
Single Track Vocals Track 1 [Verses Only] (10:34)
Single Track Vocals Track 2 [Verses Only] (11:36)
Vocals [Mono Version] (12:37)
John's Guitar (14:43)
George's Basic Track Guitar (16:59)
Overdubbed Electric Guitar (18:20)
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John Lennon - Lead Vocals, Rhythm Guitar (1964 Framus Hootenanny 5/024 Acoustic 12-String)
Paul McCartney - Bass Guitar (1963 Hofner 500/1), Backing Vocals
George Harrison – Lead Guitar (1963 Gretsch 6119 Tennessean), Guitar Solo (1961 Sonic Blue Fender Stratocaster?) Backing Vocals
Ringo Starr – Drums (1964 Ludwig Super Classic Black Oyster Pearl), Tambourine
#thebeatles #paulmccartney #georgeharrison #johnlennon #ringostarr #help