What does With A Little Help From My Friends mean?

Beatles: With A Little Help From My Friends Meaning

Album cover for With A Little Help From My Friends album cover

Song Released: 1967


With A Little Help From My Friends Lyrics

What would you do if I sang out of tune
Would you stand up and walk out on me?
Lend me your ears and I'll sing you a song
And I'll try not to sing out of key
Oh I get by with a little help from my friends
Mm I get high with a little help...

  1. 1TOP RATED

    #1 top rated interpretation:
    anonymous
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    May 21st 2014 !⃝

    this simply has to do with a guy trying to live happily without his true love and his friends helping him get by happily. They also help him vent about how much he need s the person he loves (whose either gone forever or is somewhere very far from him). They want to help him find love again but he says it can't be anybody he needs that 'special somebody'.

  2. anonymous
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    Mar 24th 2011 !⃝

    it's at this point when the controversy between the band started, and that this album was a short foreshadowing of that. Think about it, in Sgt. Pepper's, the song before this, it says "So may I introduce to you, the one and only Billy Shears". Well, Ringo rarely sang, he was pretty much the lost Beatle. Then he begins to sing this song. I feel this song is actually about them getting over the hardships of what they've gone through, such as Brien Epstein's recent death at this point.

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
  3. anonymous
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    Mar 19th 2011 !⃝

    I think that everybody over-thinks things like this. What if they just wanted to write a song about friends, and how they're there for you? I don't think there's always a meaning so deep for all songs. Maybe they were high when they wrote it. Maybe they weren't. Only they really know the meaning.

  4. anonymous
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    Mar 9th 2011 !⃝

    This is most definitely about drugs. The 'friends' are drugs that get you by and make all the pain go away. What do you see when you turn out the lights, I believe, refers to a one night stand, which is why the question is posed, do you believe in love at first sight. How could you sleep with this person? I just turn out the lights and it's all good. This is uplifting in a melancholy way. The lead singer is hurt and the only reason why everyone believes that the friends are actual friends is because the other vocalists harmonize in response to his question for help.

  5. bentheboy
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    Feb 25th 2010 !⃝

    The beginning of this song where it talks about singing out of tune is a refrence to Bob Dylan, the "musician who couldn't hold a tune" because the Beatles smoked marijauna for the first time ever with Bob Dylan in New York in 1964.

  6. ihaveawalrusasapet
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    Nov 8th 2009 !⃝

    This song is about how much fun you can have with a friend and how they can really pick you up(get you by)

  7. m320753
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    Sep 15th 2008 !⃝

    I think this song was written when the Beatles were having tough times and were thinking of splitting. Ringo always the sort of loner was assured he would not be an outcast after the breakup and he would remain popular with help from the other 3. It's really not a sad song but one of affirmation , to be sung joyfully

  8. dandan
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    Sep 8th 2008 !⃝

    This is dealing with the relationship of the band, Yoko, and Linda McCartney. The whole group was all easily upset because they were on the road so much. This is also the "Peace and Love" song for the group. I think the line "would do you see when you turn off the lights", " I can't tell you but I know that its mine" has to do with a certain dream in the group probably Lennon he was like that


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