The album The Beatles got tired of making: “Disenchanted with their success”
While it’s well documented that throughout their short existence in the spotlight, The Beatles were undoubtedly the biggest stars in the world, having released 12 studio albums in only seven years, you do have to wonder how often a sense of fatigue would kick in for the Fab Four. The rigorous recording schedule that was imposed upon them wasn’t the only thing they had to deal with throughout large chunks of that period either, as they were constantly touring until they retired from the road in 1966 and were in high demand for recording for television and radio broadcasts at the time as well. That’s without mentioning the movies they made to boot.
Despite being continually praised throughout their career, it is often debated whether the band ever truly had a low point in their discography. Some might argue the first four or five albums aren’t as good as what would come after, while others might say that Let It Be was a bit of a drab way to finish things off, even though Abbey Road was recorded later. Even so, there are still signs of their brilliance across all of the releases they would put out in their brief but formidable run.
George Martin, the band’s longtime producer and the man responsible for pushing the group’s sound further after their initial run, did think, however, there was one particular album where the exhaustion really kicked in for the group. Citing some of the aforementioned reasons for their tiredness, Martin said that there was a particular point in their career arc where members were struggling with the demands of being so high-profile that it was beginning to show while they were working in the studio.
Speaking in an unearthed 1993 interview, he noted that Help! was the album where things began to feel fraught with difficulty, and the pressure of fame was taking its toll on the band. “During the recording of Help!,” said Martin, “I was aware they were getting a little bit disenchanted with their success.” He would further expand on this, saying that the pressure was so great that they were being pressed into finishing multiple tracks in the space of one day.
“When we recorded ‘Yesterday’,” Martin continued, “we actually recorded two other songs the same day. It was a treadmill that the Beatles were still able to cope with, but they were getting a little bit frayed around the edges at this time,” going on to say that the fact that the group were busy would have been “an understatement”
It’s still a beloved album, and alongside the title track, Help! is notable for having other memorable tracks from their career on it such as ‘Yesterday’ and ‘Ticket to Ride’, although some of the lesser discussed tracks from the album are also worthy of being discussed as being some of their most impressive as well. Tracks like ‘The Night Before’ and ‘I’ve Just Seen A Face’ don’t suggest an act that is pressured to continually outdo themselves.
That being said, there are moments such as the derivative cover to close the album in ‘Dizzy Miss Lizzy’ that shows little ambition to progress in their sound, and having a typically good-natured but underwhelming Ringo song in the middle of the album in ‘Act Naturally’ is always capable of bringing the overall quality of a Beatles record down, as harsh as that might sound.
Help! is still a remarkable record when compared to the output of their peers at the time, and while it might be slightly rough around the edges and have a handful of duds within its tracklist, it’s still an important moment in the band’s history and a record that seemingly gave them the kick up the backside they required to outdo themselves on the landmark release of Rubber Soul later in the same year. If they were showing exhaustion around the release of Help!, then they certainly weren’t when it came to recording the follow-up.
