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| 1. Help! |
| 2. The Night Before |
| 3. You've Got To Hide Your Love Away |
| 4. I Need You |
| 5. Another Girl |
| 6. You're Going To Lose That Girl |
| 7. Ticket To Ride |
| 8. Act Naturally |
| 9. It's Only Love |
| 10. You Like Me Too Much |
| 11. Tell Me What You See |
| 12. I've Just Seen A Face |
| 13. Yesterday |
| 14. Dizzy Miss Lizzy |
Review Its title-track – written as a heartfelt slow ballad – was sped up by Martin and turned into a jittery single to accompany cartoonesque footage of the band footling about on skis up a hill. Self-pity, one of Lennon’s favourite moods, rears its Beatley head on the pop-Dylan of You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away, and Ringo’s highlight is a (pretty well-chosen) cover of Buck Owens’ country hit, Act Naturally. Oh, and the token rock‘n’roll song, Larry Williams’ Dizzy Miss Lizzy, seems dizzy from malnutrition more than anything else.
But this is a Beatles album, so it’s unlikely to not be at least brilliant in places. It contains the most popular song never to be beaten to death by an X Factor contestant, the genuinely beautiful Yesterday. It’s got Ticket to Ride, the song that saw The Beatles take on The Kinks, the Stones and The Who at their own, more rocky game. And Help! itself, while not the pre-primal scream yell of pain that Lennon wanted it to be (such songs would come later), is still a brilliant, pounding single, a cry of despair so full of "woo!"s that you reckon The Beatles are still enjoying themselves.
McCartney’s I’ve Just Seen a Face is another highlight (it’s a song he liked so much that it was one of the few Beatles numbers he performed with his 70s group, Wings), and Act Naturally is so infectious, silly and perfectly 1960s-country that it deserved its number one US singles spot. So, Help! is not as brilliant as some Beatles records, but it’s still pretty brilliant.
--David QuantickFind more music at the BBC This link will take you off Amazon in a new window
When discussing a weaker link amongst Beatles albums, one does not think of Anne Robinson. And this album was way above what most bands were producing at the time and still sounds remarkably fresh and vibrant 40 years later. If you can I would avoid purchasing Beatles compilations. Their original albums are so much more rewarding. They each give a snapshot of where they were at the time. But blink and you’ve missed a few beats as the next album was always different. Other artists have successfully reinvented themselves it is true. David Bowie, Dylan, even The Stones on occasions. The Beatles did it with practically every album.
Other tracks worthy of note here are ’The Night Before’ from Paul, a fast catchy number with great backing vocals. ’I Need You’ is a simple but effective and quite charming Harrisong (check out Tom Petty’s version on Concert For George). ’You’re Gonna Lose That Girl’ is one of those lost Lennon classics that one finds on most Beatles albums. Among the covers, ’Dizzy Miss Lizzy’ is delivered with gusto and ’Act Naturally’ is a suitable vehicle for Ringo’s country vocal (he was to do a whole album of country songs in 1970 after the split entitled ’Beaucoups Of Blues’, to great effect).
A couple of the other songs are a little ordinary but only by this band’s Everest High standards. The title track was a genuine cry for help from Lennon (or so he said later) but is actually one of their less engaging singles. Not that it’s bad or anything. On the whole this album finds The Beatles at or very near their peak. I rediscovered it recently and it was great. It is the kind of album that you forget how good it is. And surely ’Ticket To Ride’ is their most majestic single for their early-mid period.
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