Help! Was a step forward from the doldrums of Beatles For Sale. Though Lennon wasn’t feeling any more cheerful- the title track was his most explicit cry of pain yet, and then there was the cryptic, Dylan-saturated You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away- it featured only two covers and George was back with a brace of contributions.
As ever, the material proved malleable enough to easily accommodate whatever stylistic interpretation others chose to impress upon it.
While Continental acts, who continued to regard the boys as loveable moptops, changed little beyond translating the lyrics into their native tongues, Americans had different ideas. The Sunshine Company transformed Harrison’s I Need You into a shimmering psychedelic bliss-out; in the 70’s, former Greenwich Village folkie Tim Rose followed Joe Cocker’s Help From My Friends example to the letter with a tortured reading of You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away; and proto-Metal quartet Vanilla Fudge applied their “slow-it-down, amp-it-up, stretch-it-out” aesthetic to Ticket To Ride.
And so,on to Scrambled Eggs, or Yesterday as it became better known. A song ranking only slightly behind Happy Birthday To You in its ubiquity. We could have filled several ‘casts with different versions of this alone but settled on Eyes Of Blue a Welsh R’n’B turned prog combo who also went the full Fudge route and gave us a preposterous version which for reasons known only to themselves chucks in a few bars of The First Noel.
To come down to Earth and round matters off, we head back to the Cavern with a version of Dizzy Miss Lizzy from local rivals King Size Taylor And The Dominos.
Next time, things start to get a little strange……
1 The Damned-Help
2 Renee Martel-Un Certain Soir (The Night before)
3 Tim Rose-(You’ve Got To) Hide your Love Away
4 Sunshine Company-I Need You
5 The Ray Hamilton Orchestra-Another Girl
6 Five Man Electrical Band-You’re Gonna Lose That Girl
7 Vanilla Fudge-ticket To Ride
8 Buck Owens-Act Naturally
9 Bryan Ferry-It’s Only Love
10 Les Faux Frères-Une Fille Pour Deux Garçons (You Like Me Too Much)
11 The Mirza Men-Tell Me What You See
12 The Dillards-I’ve Just Seen A Face
13 Eyes Of Blue-Yesterday
14 King Size Taylor And The Dominos-Dizzy Miss Lizzy