Ahhh you gotta love the Beatles. I grew up listening to them, and couldn’t pass up the chance to use them for my listening blog. Just because of my nostalgia and love for the Beatles, the song relaxes me and makes me feel happy. However, while you listen and read the lyrics, the song has a slightly darker connotation. It seems positive at first. A person is trying to get through their life, and their friends help. Though with further listening they sing, “I get high with help from my friends.” Then with further analysis, it seems like the song is really about coping with the struggles of life with the use of drugs and getting high.
When you think of that slightly darker meaning of the song, then the sound of the song kinda goes along with it. The instruments aren’t super active. Only in the beginning is there this loud blaring noise (an overlap of various instruments and vocals) that grabs your attention. Then the song mellows out, and that attention grabbing sound never returns. So other than that the song overall is pretty chill, if not a little repetitive - both instrumentally and lyrically. The chorus repeats twice, and since it is quite lengthy, it seems like it never ends.
“With a Little Help from My Friends” is definitely a little darker than most Beatles songs. Actually, I don’t think I even knew it was a Beatles song (despite the fact that I love the Beatles). I think I had only ever heard the version by Joe Cocker because that version is the theme song to the tv series The Wonder Years. So it was really cool to hear the original song.
ReplyDeleteIts always interesting to me when artists use lyrics that seem positive until you look into it more. I like how you talked about the meaning of "With a Little Help from My Friends" and how the sound of the song goes along with it.
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