With a Little Help from My Friends
From Free net encyclopedia
Current revision
"With a Little Help from My Friends" is the title of a 1967 song written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney and recorded on the Beatles album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The song was written for and sung by Beatles drummer Ringo Starr.
John and Paul insisted that Ringo sing the song, including the high note at the end. Ringo agreed on one condition: they must change the introduction to something other than "What would you do if I sang out of tune? Would you throw a tomato at me?" His reason for the change was so that fans would not actually throw tomatoes at him should he perform it live. What raised his concerns was likely that 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.
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 finished recording the song the same day that they posed for the Sgt. Pepper album cover.
An early working title for the song was "Badfinger Boogie", which later became the inspiration for the name of the band Badfinger.
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".
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. See also the album, With a Little Help from My Friends by Joe Cocker.
Billy Shears was Ringo 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."
External link
| The Beatles |
|---|
| John Lennon | Paul McCartney | George Harrison | Ringo Starr Pete Best | Stuart Sutcliffe |
| Management |
| Brian Epstein | Allen Klein | Apple Records |
| Production |
| George Martin | Geoff Emerick | Norman Smith | Abbey Road Studios |
| Official Studio Albums |
| Please Please Me (1963) | With the Beatles (1963) | A Hard Day's Night (1964) | Beatles for Sale (1964) | Help! (1965) | Rubber Soul (1965) Revolver (1966) | Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967) | Magical Mystery Tour (1967) | The Beatles (1968) | Yellow Submarine (1969) | Abbey Road (1969) | Let It Be (1970) |
| Films |
| A Hard Day's Night (1964) | Help! (1965) | Magical Mystery Tour (1967) | Yellow Submarine (1968) | Let it Be (1970) |
| Related Articles |
| History | Discography | Bootlegs | Long-term influence | Beatlemania | Beatlesque | Fifth Beatle | Paul Is Dead | British Invasion | Yoko Ono | 1960s | Apple Corps |