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The two songs that John Lennon wanted to re-record: “We did it too fast”

Sun 6 October 2024 16:00, UK

Any artist is capable of falling victim to imposter syndrome. No matter how many times people try to talk them up like they are one of the best in the world, there are just as many who will gladly tell you that everything that they have ever done is garbage and that they’re not sure why people actually like it. John Lennon was normally ruthless when it came to Paul McCartney’s songs in The Beatles, but he felt that ‘Help!’ and ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’ could have afforded to be recorded better.

Then again, The Beatles never operated just how one artist wanted everything to sound. While The White Album saw them breaking up into individual solo artists passing judgment on each other’s tunes, they were still capable of collaboration when the time called for it when tearing through George Harrison’s ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’.

When they first started making hits, though, the entire formula for their songs was about capturing that relentless energy that they were so good at. With George Martin acting as their de facto songwriting coach, many of their greatest hits came from them speeding up the tempo half the time, which made ‘Please Please Me’ go from a fairly drab Roy Orbison ballad to the sound of Beatlemania.

It’s not like ‘Help!’ and ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’ don’t benefit from being sped up a little bit. The latter already had a simple premise that could be stretched into different speeds, and while ‘Help!’ could have worked as a stately ballad, Lennon’s lyrics about paranoia and his own insecurities actually sound a lot more frantic with that driving drumbeat behind him.

While Lennon could be especially harsh when looking back on his Beatles years, he thought that ‘Help!’ and ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’ were a bit too fast for their own good when they were first put out, saying, “I don’t like the recording too much; we did it too fast trying to be commercial… I might do ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’ and ‘Help!’ again because I like them and I can sing them.”

That’s before Lennon wanted to record everything over again. He had always had problems with his own voice, but looking back on the way that their records were mixed, he eventually told George Martin that he had a desire to work over everything he made to improve, going so far as to say that ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ needed some work behind the scenes.

Even though Lennon passed away years before he could put out the equivalent of Sgt. Peppers (Lennon’s Version), we do have glimpses of what those slower tunes would have sounded like. Walls and Bridges kicks off with the ballad ‘Going Down on Love’, which features Lennon calling back to ‘Help!’, and though it wasn’t commissioned by the former Beatle, art rockers Sparks did eventually do a borderline lounge version of ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’.

But while both of those tunes are fine in their own right, each of them robs the song of the power it originally had. Lennon may have preferred the sound of his songs to be more downtempo, but he needed the rest of The Beatles in the studio to make the sounds that made Beatlemania spread like wildfire.