Ian Leslie: belief

Transcript context

…Yes, the song. It does sound to me truly joint, the way, say, “From Me to You” is truly joint. Whereas a John song is . . . I don’t mean to sound negative, but John melodies are more monotonous in the sense that “I Am the Walrus” or parts of “In My Life” just run on and push on. “Help,” to me, has some Paul-like chord changes, but I’m not sure. What’s your view? Yes, it could be. It is always very hard to tell because they were so . . . Their principal influences, apart from Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly and girl groups and doo-wop, and everything else — Bob Dylan — their principal influences were each other. So, they’re stealing things from each other all the time. You might be right. It might have been a Paul contribution, or it might be just John saying, “Let me run Paul software in my head now. What would he do? ” The thing that I think we do know that Paul contributed to “Help” was those backing vocals, “and now those days are gone. ” The backing vocals act as this countermelody, and they do this odd thing, which is quite unusual, which is they start before the lead line. The backing vocals announced the line, and then John comes in and sings, and it creates this lovely effect, as if John’s friends are anticipating his thoughts. It creates this incredible empathy. I think that’s one of the most powerful effects of that song. I have another hypothesis — tell me if you agree. Now, I’m not talking here about pieced-together bits like side two of Abbey Road or “Cry Baby Cry,” but genuine joint composition. I think of “Baby You’re a Rich Man” as maybe the last genuinely joint John-Paul composition.…

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