The Beatles released their LP / Soundtrack LP "Help!" on Aug. 6, 1965 in the UK….
Written by megarock on August 6, 2018
The Beatles released their LP / Soundtrack LP "Help!" on Aug. 6, 1965 in the UK. It would be released in the US one week later. The UK version contained fourteen songs. Seven of these, including the singles "Help!" and "Ticket to Ride", appeared in the film and took up the first side of the vinyl album. The second side contained seven other releases including the most-covered song ever written, "Yesterday".
The American release was a true soundtrack album, mixing the first seven songs with instrumental material from the film. Of the other seven songs that were on the British release, two were released on the US version of the next Beatles album, Rubber Soul, two were back-to-back on the next US single and then appeared on Yesterday and Today, and three had already been on Beatles VI.
The album cover features the Beatles with their arms positioned to spell out a word in flag semaphore. According to cover photographer Robert Freeman, "I had the idea of semaphore spelling out the letters "HELP". But when we came to do the shot, the arrangement of the arms with those letters didn't look good. So we decided to improvise and ended up with the best graphic positioning of the arms." On the UK Parlophone release, the letters formed by the Beatles appear to be "NUJV." The slightly re-arranged US release on Capitol Records appeared to feature the letters "NVUJ", with McCartney's left hand pointing to the Capitol logo. The Capitol LP was issued in a "deluxe" gatefold sleeve with several photos from the film and was priced $1 more than standard Capitol releases at the time.
How many of you have both of these covers in your collection?
How many of you still play this LP?
Happy 53rd Birthday to The Beatles LP "Help"!!
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Tagged as 1965 6 Aug Beatles LP released soundtrack UK