with a little help for my friend

The second song in Sgt. Pepper's 'With A Little Help From My Friends' is one of my favorite Beatles tunes. Sweety and trippy melody and a very good Ringo voice. Not to forget the marvelous bass playing from Macca. Here are the facts about this song....

Ringo sang lead on this as "Billy Shears," a name chosen because it sounded good. The album was recorded as if Sgt. Pepper was a real band.

This was one of the very last songs Lennon and McCartney sat and wrote together. They were at Paul's house messing around on the piano. (thanks, Mike - Mountlake Terrace, WA. U.S.A)

The original title was "Badfinger Boogie." The Beatles got some use out of the name when they signed a group to their label, Apple Records, and named them Badfinger.

The cheering at the beginning was taken from a Beatles concert at the Hollywood Bowl. The Beatles had stopped touring by the time this was recorded.

This hit #1 on the UK charts 3 times: first by Joe Cocker in 1968, again by Wet Wet Wet in 1988 and finally by Sam and Mark in 2004. (thanks, Bertrand - Paris, France)

John Lennon claimed this was not about drugs, but many people didn't believe him, including US vice president Spiro Agnew, who once told a crowd that this song was a "Tribute to the power of illegal drugs." He said the lines, "I get by with a little help from my friends, I get high with a little help from my friends," "Is a catchy tune, but until it was pointed out to me, I never realized that the 'friends' were assorted drugs!" (thanks, Mike - Mountlake Terrace, WA. U.S.A)

The first line was originally "What would you do if I sang out of tune? Would you stand up and throw tomatoes at me?" Ringo did not want to sing it, fearing that if they ever did it live he would be pelted with tomatoes.

The Beatles finished recording this the night they shot the cover for the Sgt. Pepper album. This continued the "Concept" of the album, but until the reprise of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" at the end, the theme of the fictional band ends with this.

Twelve years after "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and "With a Little Help from My Friends" appeared on the Sgt. Pepper album, they were released together as a 2-song medley and reached US #71 and UK #63. (thanks, Jerro - New Alexandria, PA)