Pantheon - Podcasts for Music Lovers Ugly American Werewolf in London: Help! - The Beatles
Listeners of The Wolf know that despite the fact that The Wolf lived mere yards (or meters) from Abbey Road, he and Action Jackson aren't huge Beatles fans. While he did go through a Beatles stage in high school, it was really an education on how the band evolved and created some amazing music which is still enjoyed and studied today.
However, thanks to a run of 60s rock related movies that ran on Cinemax one night in the 80s, The Wolf became very familiar with Help! as he recorded the movie on VHS and watched it over and over. It was in technicolor, unlike A Hard Day's Night, and showed the boys having fun in exotic locales like Switzerland, The Bahamas, Stonehenge and Buckingham Palace. The seven tunes on the album that were included in the movie all hold up well and are fun to sing along with while you're watching. But the album is the first step moving from being bubble gum pop stars into more respected recording artists.
We review the UK version of the album as the US version is shorter with orchestrated score tunes from the movie. The whole first side of the UK album features beloved songs from the movie like the title track, Ticket To Ride, You've Got To Hide Your Love Away and The Night Before. But the second side also features some Beatles classics like Ringo singing Act Naturally, I've Just Seen A Face and the all-time classic Yesterday.
It's amazing that the boys were all so young (21-24) and were maturing before our eyes as they were now able to write more robust tunes with more mature themes. Bob Dylan had introduced them to marijuana by now and they'd done their first LSD trips which would show up more on an album from later in 1965, Rubber Soul (and after). But this one has one foot in the old, teenage dream Beatles phase and one in the more mature and experimental Beatles. We can't believe it's turning 60 but we went track x track to celebrate.
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