With a Little Help from My Friends

John Lennon and Paul McCartney completed work on the song in mid- March 1967. ^[1] They deliberately selected rhymes that would be difficult to replace with others in meaning. The first line sounded like this: “What would you do if I sang out of tune? Would you stand up and throw tomatoes at me? ” There is a known case when, after George Harrison ’s commentary“ I liked jelly babies ”, fans threw marmalade over the band’s performance. Ringo Starr changed this line, as it is not related to the words of George, and, consequently, to the incident .

The song is written as a dialogue between Starr and the other three Beatles, in which the latter ask questions, and Ringo answers them, for example

Recording began on March 29, 1967 ^[2] .

With A Little Help From My Friends was written to be sung by Ringo Starr, and was known during this session only as Bad Finger Boogie .

From the very beginning, it was conceived as a song into which the title track of Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band will directly go, and the recording began with the line of Billy Shears .

The Beatles began by recording a rhythm track for ten takes, the last of which was the best. It had Paul McCartney's piano on track one, George Harrison's rhythm guitar on track two, Starr drums and a bell played by John Lennon on track three, and George Martin played the organ on track four.

A special mix, numbered as the eleventh double, was made to free up space on the film for further overlays. Starr then added his lead vocals to tracks three and four with backing vocals by Lennon, McCartney and Harrison. This session ended at 05:45, and the recording of the song was completed the next day.

Recording continued the next day (March 30) ^[3] . Overlays were added to the second track of the film, starting with the snare drum and timpani in the intro and the bass guitar (played by Paul McCartney), lead guitar (George Harrison) and tambourine (Ringo Starr) during the main part of the song.

Then the track with the lead vocals of the previous day was erased and replaced by the vocal harmonies of McCartney and John Lennon and the guitar that filled the place before the second verse. The organ and vocal overlays for the performance of Billy Shears were added to tracks three and four, and the song was completed.

The session ended at 07:30 in the morning of March 31. Later that day, the song was mono.

Dubly the first (false start) and second (instrumental version) is available in the anniversary re-release of the album.

Ringo Starr - vocals , drums , tambourine
Paul McCartney - backing vocals , piano , bass
John Lennon - Backing Vocals , Cowbell
George Harrison - backing vocals , guitar
George Martin is an electronic organ

Like the other songs from this album , “With a Little Help from My Friends” found hints of drugs . Due to suspected drug propaganda, three songs (“With a Little Help from My Friends”, “ Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds ” and “ A Day in the Life ”) were removed from the official version of the album, distributed in Southeast Asia . Instead of them on “Sgt. Pepper's ... ”included songs from The Beatles ' next album,“ Magical Mystery Tour ”-“ The Fool on the Hill ”,“ Baby, You're a Rich Man ”and“ I Am the Walrus ” ^[4] .

• Soon after the release of the song, the then little-known singer Joe Cocker recorded his version of the song in blues style, which became a real springboard of his career ^{[5] [6]} and a visiting card for many years.
• Twelve-year-old Darcy Lynn Farmer performed “With a Little Help from My Friends” in the finals of the “There are Talents in America” competition in 2017 and won.