At number 15, The Beatles and "With a little help from my friends":
"With a Little Help from My Friends" (originally titled A Little Help from My Friends) is a song written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, released on The Beatles album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in 1967. The song was written for and sung by Beatles drummer Ringo Starr as the character "Billy Shears"; it is ranked #304 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
Lennon and McCartney deliberately wrote a tune with a limited range - except for the last note, which McCartney worked closely with Starr to achieve.
Speaking in the Anthology, Starr insisted on changing the first line which originally was "What would you do if I sang out of tune? Would you throw ripe tomatoes at me?" He changed the lyric so that fans would not throw tomatoes at him should he perform it live. (In the early days, after George Harrison made a passing comment that he liked jelly babies, the group was showered with them at all of their live performances.)
The song is largely in the form of a conversation, in which the other three Beatles sing a question and Starr answers, for example: "Would you believe in a love at first sight? / Yes, I'm certain that it happens all the time."
The band started recording the song the same day that they posed for the Sgt. Pepper album cover (30 March 1967). The session finished at 7:30 the following morning.
There are numerous interpretations of the the song and it has achieved the number one position on the British singles charts three times; by Joe Cocker in 1968, Wet Wet Wet in 1988 and by Sam and Mark in 2004.
Labels: James G, The Summer of Love Countdown