Notes on ...

With a little help from my friends

 by Alan W. Pollack

Key: E Major
Meter: 4/4
Form: Intro | Verse | Refrain | Verse | Refrain |
| Bridge | Verse | Refrain |
| Bridge | Refrain | Outro (with complete ending)
  CD: "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band",
Track 2 (Parlophone CDP7 46442-2)
CD: "Yellow Submarine Songtrack", Track 9 (EMI 5 21481-2)
Recorded: 29th, 30th March 1967, Abbey Road 2
UK-release: 1st June 1967 (LP "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band")
US-release: 2nd June 1967 (LP "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band")
 
1General Points of Interest
 Style and Form
The somewhat campy "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" overture wisely
proceeds directly away to an even more frankly campy, feel-good tune for the second
 track. People take some time to warm up to room temperature and there is no sense
putting the make on them before they have done so. In other words, the likes of "Mr.
Kite" et al would be lost on your partner at this point, so bide your time, eh?
I think of "With A Little Help From My Friends" as similar to "Yellow Submarine"
with its rather purposefully over-simplified musical vocabulary, minus the special effects
 
but with a more advanced antiphonal vocal arrangement, and a much more serious
lyrical subtext added. More on that later.
The form is, yet again, "creatively derived" from standard pop song formats, but is still
unusual if you look at it closely. I was almost going to combine what I've called here the
Verse and the Refrain into one sixteen-measure section; after all, we've seen other
 Beatles' songs in which the ending of the Verse has strong Refrain-like elements — take
a look at "Please Please Me", "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and "Ticket to Ride". I
decided against this parsing of the form because of the way the final Refrain follows the
second bridge all by its lonesome.
 Melody and Harmony
The harmony of the verse and bridge is from relatively straightforward E-Major
 
chords, though the intro, outro, and refrain provide modal contrast.
The verse and refrain melody stays within a very small range of five notes. The bridge
 opens up the top half of the octave range, though the antiphonal "answering" part keeps
reminding you of the melodic floor of the other two sections.
 Arrangement
This is one of the more simply fabricated tracks on "Sgt. Pepper" in terms of a relative
 absence of new-fangled techniques, though Lewisohn points out some details that you'd
otherwise probably never notice:
 the backing track started with Paul on piano and John on cowbell (yes, Ringo on
drums and George on lead guitar);
 George Martin supplies a Hammond organ behind the intro;
 the bass and tambourine were added later along with the vocals;
 
 the crowd noise (taken from "Beatles at Hollywood Bowl") is cranked up at the
start in order to "mask" the edit between the two tracks;

 and the song was tentatively titled "Bad Finder Boogie" at some point.
 But all that color announcer/side-bar minutiae notwithstanding, still, the instrumental
 
arrangement is rather simple.
The vocal arrangement, though, shows a marked step forward in terms of antiphonal
sophistication, not just in terms of variety, but also in terms of the subtle mix of
 declarative and interrogative, both rhetorical and otherwise. At the very least, when you
hum this song to yourself, you sing it as a single melody, not quite noticing how the
single thread in the actual song is divided between solo and chorus:
 Intro: chorus;
 Verse: solo;
 Refrain: solo, but with chorus joining on the third repeat;
 Verse: solo alternates with chorus (both ask question);
 Refrain: all (though solo starts each line by himself) (six measures!);
 Bridge: chorus (questions) alternates with solo (answering);
 
 Verse: chorus (question) alternates with solo (answering);
 Refrain: all (though solo starts each line by himself);
 Bridge: chorus (questions) alternates with solo (answering);
 Refrain: all (though solo starts each line by himself);

 Outro: solo with chorus adding counterpoint.

2Section-by-Section Walkthrough
 Intro
In context of the album, you experience this intro as though it is literally on the
boundary between the title track and our current song. It's only in consideration of the
 
way this phrase recurs for the outro that makes you realize how it really is part of the
current song; oh, you never noticed this outro repeats at the end? :-)
|C |D |E |- |
E: flat-VI flat-VII I
 
[Figure 107.1]
 Verse
  The verse is eight measures long and consists of a single phrase repeated twice:
----------------------------- 2X ------------------------------
|E B |f# |- B |E |
  E: I V ii V I

[Figure 107.2]
The prominent bassline prances around all over the place, but never so much that you
 
lose your clear sense of the simple harmony outlined above.
 Refrain
The first refrain is eight measures long and consists of a short, two-measure phrase
repeated verbatim three times in a row, followed by a final two measures without
 
voices; the latter, well needed in order to balance out the effect of the three-time literal
repeat:
---------------- 3X -----------------
|D A |E |
E: flat-VII IV I
  |B |- |
V

[Figure 107.3]
  The subsequent refrains omit the final two measures, at which point, it is more
 important to keep the pace going than to provide an oasis from possible over-repetition.
 Bridge
The bridge finally opens up the melodic range dramatically ("could it be anybody")
 and provides something akin to a hinted-at modulation in order to relieve the tedium of
being tightly tethered to the key of E:
----------------------------- 2X ------------------------------
|c# |F# |E D |A |
  E: ii V-of-V I flat-VII IV

[Figure 107.4]
The hint of a modulation is toward the key of V (B-Major), though if you've been
 following our studies, it should come as no surprise to find the Beatles leaving a V-of-V
chord begging (on my bended knees) for some kind of fulfillment, only to be deferred.
 Outro
  The outro splices one last iteration of the reprise to a disguised repeat of the intro:
|D |A |C |D |E |
E: flat-VII IV flat-VI flat-VII I
 
[Figure 107.5]
The move from A to C provides a nice cross-relation, and overall, the modal shift at
 the very end here is welcome in light of the way in which most of the body of the song is
so tightly bound to E Major.
  The presentation of the final three chords in 6/4 ("second inversion") is a novel touch.
3Some Final Thoughts
In my humble opinion, the subtext of this song is at least as precociously prescient with
 respect to themes of what are called nowadays "mid life crisis" as is that of "And Your
Bird Can Sing".
Note the opening sensitivity to, and fear of, rejection; the willingness to allow friends
to at least partially fill the place of lover. Deepest and most enigmatic of all is the fine
 
distinction drawn in the bridge between "need" and "want" of a lover, especially with
respect to the relative interchangibility or not of one's ultimate.
With respect to needing anybody, the answer is "I need somebody to love." But with
 respect to can it be anybody, the answer is "I want somebody to love." This won't be the
first time I've quoted Zimmy, but you've gotta dig the parallelism:
"Ruthie said come see here in her Honky Tonk Lagoon
Where I can watch her waltz for free beneath the Panamanian moon.
 
But I said, oh come on now, you know you know about my debutante.
And she said, your debutante knows what you need, but I know what you want."
And, if you want a Zimmy quote that comes even closer to our Boys take: "Like it was
 
written on my soul, "From Me To You".
 Regards,
 Alan (121095#107)

Copyright © 1995 by Alan W. Pollack. All Rights Reserved. This article may be reproduced,
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