“My Friends Have Got Away” by The Beatles is an incredibly simple and effective song. It’s just about the simplest thing that nearly every song by The Beatles could be made to sound like. But they pulled it off and made it sound great! Here’s what The Beatles actually did with this song.
George Martin, the co-writer, sang and played bass for this track: He had no idea of the incredible emotion that lay behind this simple yet profound melody. He just knew that John Lennon wanted the song to be a hit. The lyrics were perfect. Everyone knew them already, but they hadn’t managed to fit it in at the time.
Many people think: that The Beatles wrote this song because they wanted to sing their own version of it. This is true. John Lennon did play keyboards in the band, and he did write the melody for the song. But the actual words were done by his friend, Martin Luther King, who was a young man just starting out in his career.
Martin Luther King: a man with a very radical and unique style of speaking, wanted to include certain words that referenced black history, and other things. He would have included “freedom” instead of just “la”, which was his preference. And he wanted the lyrics to have a powerful impact, so that people would listen to the song and be moved. He hoped that his inclusion of the word “freedom” would resonate throughout America and have that powerful effect.
In a way: “My Friends Have Got Away” did achieve that goal. It made sense to include the lyrics of this song at that time. Then again, it’s easy to look back now and wonder if they were ever meant to be used in the first place. Maybe people weren’t so politically correct back then.
Maybe those “little friends” really are not friends at all: Or maybe they were just walking down the street, looking for someone to talk to. Maybe they’re just afraid to try new things. We’ll never know. But one thing is for sure, we do have a lot of great American music these days, and that’s a good thing.
At least we can take solace in the fact that: whatever those guys were going through, we’re much tougher people than they were. Still, when we hear these days’ songs, there’s always a little voice inside us that says, “Man, this is some inspiring lyrics!” And we sing along with it. We feel inspired by our fellow Americans, and we want them to continue to inspire our children and our nation. That’s the true American spirit.
The Little Help from My Friends lyrics still ring true, even today: There’s always a purpose to every little bump in the road, no matter how big or small. And sometimes that purpose is to help out a friend or a fellow human being, even if we don’t fully understand what they’re going through.
Sometimes those bumps become the bridges that connect us to each other, so let’s just hope they stay that way.
