Help! [US]

One week after Parlophone Records in the U.K. released the Beatles' fifth British album, Help!, a 14-track LP containing seven songs performed by the group in the motion picture of the same name, and seven other new recordings, Capitol Records in the U.S. released what it billed as the original motion picture soundtrack to the film, containing the seven movie songs, but deleting the other tracks in favor of excerpts from the instrumental score composed and adapted by Ken Thorne. Since the beginning of the Beatles' recording career, their releases at home in England had differed markedly from the records that came out in America, not only early on when Capitol, like Parlophone (a subsidiary of the major label EMI), declined its options on Beatles discs, leading to their being licensed to such companies as Swan and Vee-Jay, but also after Capitol assumed responsibility for U.S. versions as of the single "I Want to Hold Your Hand" at the start of 1964. Standard record company practice differed in the two countries. In Britain, songs issued on singles were usually not repeated on LPs; in America, they frequently were. British LPs tended to have 14 songs; American ones only 11 or 12. As a result, Capitol reconfigured and retitled Beatles releases for the U.S.; where Parlophone put out Please Please Me (1963), With the Beatles (1963), A Hard Day's Night (1964), and Beatles for Sale (1964) prior to Help!, Capitol, using much the same material, squeezed out Meet the Beatles! (1964), The Beatles' Second Album (1964), Something New (1964), Beatles '65 (1964), The Early Beatles (1965), and Beatles VI (1965). (It's even more complicated than this, of course, but space does not permit a more complete discussion.)Still, the rearranging of Help! for U.S. release was a special case, a different concept altogether from the British version. Capitol executive Dave Dexter, Jr. earned a producer's credit for mixing the material up, and the changes were apparent right at the start. The album began not with a Beatles performance, but with a version of "The James Bond Theme," reinforcing the idea that the movie was a spoof of the James Bond films. The theme was given a slight Indian flavor, also presaging a major element in the film. Then the track segued into the Beatles' title track. The lively Paul McCartney-sung "The Night Before" was followed by another score cue, "From Me to You Fantasy," a Thorne arrangement of the Beatles' "From Me to You" combined with some ominous instrumental music and more Indian instruments. The Beatles' "You've Got to Hide Your Live Away" and "I Need You" came next, and then the instrumental "In the Tyrol," which borrowed from Richard Wagner's overture to the third act of Lohengrin. "Another Girl" was followed by "Another Hard Day's Night," nothing less than a version of "A Hard Day's Night" as played on Indian instruments. "Ticket to Ride," already a number-one single, gave way to "The Bitter End/You Can't Do That," more symphonic background music adapted in part from the Beatles composition. And after the final Beatles track, "You're Gonna Lose That Girl," came "The Chase," another all-Indian piece. As this description suggests, the soundtrack to Help! can actually be seen as the earliest instance of the influence of Indian music on a Beatles record.The alterations were not restricted to the music itself. The LP was released in a gatefold sleeve, leading Capitol to charge an extra dollar to consumers. It also had some odd differences. In the photograph on the cover, the members of the Beatles appeared in a different order than they did on the British cover -- left to right -- George Harrison, Ringo Starr, John Lennon, and Paul McCartney, instead of Harrison, Lennon, McCartney, and Starr. (It has been suggested that, in their physical positions, they are spelling out H-E-L-P in semaphore signals and that the U.S. order thus mixed the letters up. This is not true, although photographer Robert Freeman did try the idea at first.) Also, the song known as "You're Going to Lose That Girl" elsewhere is rendered here as "You're Gonna Lose That Girl," a more slangy, American way of putting it, and what Lennon actually sings. One may have to be a Beatles fanatic to care about such things, however. (Not that there aren't tens of millions of those, of course.) For most music fans, the American version of Help! is clearly inferior to its British counterpart. ~ William Ruhlmann, Rovi