‘Help!’: The Beatles song John Lennon wrote during his “fat Elvis period”
Despite being adored by millions, John Lennon was crippled with prangs of self-doubt. Everything he touched with The Beatles was celebrated by music lovers and critics alike, which could have allowed him to let his ego expand to the size of a small country. However, Lennon didn’t get drunk from his success, and behind closed doors, he was insecure.
Lennon largely kept these dark feelings to himself during the 1960s while The Beatles were active. Rather than explain how he felt from his perceived ivory tower, the singer-songwriter put on a brave face and tried to escape his insecurities. However, as much as he wanted to run away from these emotions, it crept into his lyrics, which was always the one place where Lennon felt at ease and comfortable being himself.
In 1965, Lennon was among the most recognisable faces on the planet. The Beatles had become a cultural entity that had become more than a band but a movement, and the weight of their success rested heavily on Lennon’s shoulders. As a result, during the calendar year mentioned above, Lennon suffered a period of personal turmoil that manifested in his appearance, which he coined his “fat Elvis period”.
Lennon dreamt of sitting at the top of the musical mountain while playing several shows a day in Hamburg only a few years prior. However, in a short space of time, he soon learned that fame and life in the limelight wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be in his imagination. Lennon later admitted, “The whole Beatles thing was just beyond comprehension. I was subconsciously crying out for help.”
Once The Beatles ended, Lennon eventually managed to return to somewhat of a normal existence. Of course, he was still in the public eye, but Lennon had the space to take a step back and reflect on his previous headspace. During one of his final interviews, Lennon singled out their song, ‘Help!’, from the film of the same name, stating it captured his darkest hour.
He told Playboy’s David Sheff: “When ‘Help!’ came out, I was actually crying out for help. Most people think it’s just a fast rock ‘n’ roll song. I didn’t realise it at the time; I just wrote the song because I was commissioned to write it for the movie. But later, I knew I really was crying out for help. So it was my fat Elvis period.”
When Lennon wrote ‘Help!’ he was only 25, but the Beatle felt old and weathered. He explained: “You see the movie: he – I – is very fat, very insecure, and he’s completely lost himself. And I am singing about when I was so much younger and all the rest, looking back at how easy it was.”
In addition to being in his “fat Elvis Period”, Lennon was also deeply insecure about his songwriting. His doubts worsened when journalist Maureen Cleave questioned why he didn’t write songs with more than one syllable, and her comment stuck in his mind when he penned the lyrics for ‘Help!’
Lennon told Sheff: “So in ‘Help!’ there are two- or three-syllable words, and I very proudly showed them to her, and she still didn’t like them. I was insecure then, and things like that happened more than once. I never considered it before. So after that, I put a few words with three syllables in, but she didn’t think much of them when I played it for her, anyway.”
He may have been a vital part of the most successful band on the planet, but Lennon didn’t believe in his talents and was a victim of imposter syndrome. Despite wearing his heart on his sleeve in the emotional lyrics for ‘Help!’, nobody read between the lines to understand his struggle was hiding in plain sight. Thankfully, Lennon’s self-proclaimed “fat Elvis period” didn’t last forever; however, he remained critical of his own artistry until the end, which was a curse and a blessing.
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