Help! is the quinary album for the quixotic quartet, and their quirky second film. It was released on 6 August 1965, eight months after previous LP Beatles for Sale. The seven tracks on side one of the vinyl double as the soundtrack to the film. Singles "Help!" and "Ticket to Ride" are found on this side. Across the fourteen tracks, there is a diverse range of music styles exhibited. McCartney-penned "I've Just Seen a Face" can be considered to be country. Bob Dylan's influence on Lennon shows up again in "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away", a composition also found in the film.
Harrison hadn't contributed a song to an album since "Don't Bother Me" on With the Beatles in 1963. The youngest member offers two tracks this time around - "I Need You", which has its own sequence in the film, and "You Like Me Too Much". A stand-out song from this album (though on side two) is "Yesterday", notable for being recorded solely by McCartney and orchestral musicians without the other three Beatles present. The iconic song has since gone on to be the most-covered of all time. In addition, Help! was the last Beatles album to contain any cover songs - "Act Naturally" (which was Starr's vocal contribution) and "Dizzy Miss Lizzy".
The album cover features the four with their arms spelling out a word in flag semaphore. The idea was to have "HELP" spelled out, however when the cover was photographed, the four letters did not look appealing. The end result, found on the cover, does not spell out anything (it actually spells NUJV) - it was chosen simply for its graphic appeal. The outfits worn on the cover are from a sequence in the film where they are playing around in the snow and during the "Ticket to Ride" sequence.
The feature film, which was released on 29 July, was directed by Richard Lester, who also directed the group's first film A Hard Day's Night. It was filmed entirely in colour, with locations for filming including the Swiss Alps and the Bahamas.
Unique to this Beatles album: it is the last album to feature cover songs - "Dizzy Miss Lizzy" and "Act Naturally" (though Let it Be's "Maggie Mae" is an exception).
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