Something About the Beatles – Episode 317: Help! Deconstructions

Host: Robert Rodriguez
Guests: Walter Everett, Jack Petrocelli, Cameron Grider
Original Air Date: January 6, 2026

Episode Overview

This episode is a deep-dive deconstruction of the Beatles' Help! album, focusing on its musical innovations and songwriting craft. Host Robert Rodriguez is joined by music scholars and musicians Walter Everett, Jack Petrocelli, and Cameron Grider from RPM School, who break down select tracks—namely “You’re Gonna Lose That Girl,” “Another Girl,” and “Ticket to Ride.” Using music theory, history, and anecdotes, they reveal the sophistication of Beatles songwriting that even the band wasn’t academically trained to achieve but instinctively mastered.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Album's Place in Beatles Lore

• Help! and Beatles for Sale are described as "between the cracks" albums—“doesn’t get the attention of A Hard Day’s Night, Rubber Soul or Revolver… yet every Beatle album obviously has something great to recommend about it.” (Robert Rodriguez, 01:56)

• The panel highlights how Help! marks a transitional phase musically and technologically for the band, made while they were immersed in “heavy touring and filming schedules – 64 and 65.” (Robert Rodriguez, 01:56)

2. Modulation and Chord Progression Innovations

a. “You’re Gonna Lose That Girl”

• Jack Petrocelli praises Paul McCartney’s likely contribution to the bridge’s “modulation, different key”—“a tool that he started to do at this period… one of the more fascinating chord progressions.”

  “When you look up the songwriting of ‘You’re Gonna Lose That Girl’, it's obviously a Lennon [lyric]... but [McCartney] is finding a nice way to say in a ballad, ‘Sorry, friend, if you don't treat that girl right, I’m just gonna take her away from you.’” (Jack Petrocelli, 11:28)

• The bridge modulates from E to G using a “pivot chord”—with a common tone (A) smoothing the transition, referencing techniques dating back to classical music.

• Chromatic mediant modulation is explored:

  “We’re in F♯ minor…that note is an A, and that A exists in both F♯ minor and D. So that makes the transition smooth. When you have these common tones that exist within chords, that's how you can…pivot.” (Jack Petrocelli, 08:41–09:26)

• Walter Everett notes The Beatles had encountered this technique in “To Know [Her] is to Love [Her]” and it appears again in later work like “Something.” (10:31–11:19)

b. “Another Girl”

• Recorded just days before “You’re Gonna Lose That Girl”—McCartney uses a similar trick: modulating from A via a common tone. “He was kind of using that formula beforehand…” (Jack Petrocelli, 17:21)

c. Modal Exploration

• Reference to earlier Beatles tracks like “If I Fell,” “Things We Said Today,” and “I’ll Be Back” illustrates their growing harmonic sophistication—manipulating key relationships and chord substitutions that evoke jazz and classical traditions.

d. Musicality Without Formal Training

• Petrocelli underscores the Beatles’ ear-based learning:

  “Even though those guys didn’t go to school, what they did is so noteworthy that it becomes an academic course.” (Jack Petrocelli, 06:25)

3. Interplay of Musical Influences

• Call-and-response vocals and doo-wop progressions in “You’re Gonna Lose That Girl” are likened to girl groups (e.g., The Supremes, The Marvelettes):

  “…sort of the girl group version of ‘She Loves You’…in ‘You’re Gonna Lose That Girl,’ if you watch the film Help!, when they’re in that fake studio, McCartney …starts wagging his finger.” (Walter Everett, 12:07)

• The Beatles’ skill for blending R&B, Motown, Stax, and classical influences creates their signature sound:

  “You take all these elements and you put them in the melting pot of the Beatles with their originality and it comes out…” (Jack Petrocelli, 13:15)

4. Instrumentation, Arrangements, and Recording Techniques

a. The Rickenbacker and Instrument Swapping

• Extended discussion on when Paul started using his Rickenbacker bass, its debut in the studio, and how it contributed to the changing texture from Help! to Rubber Soul. (14:29–15:59)

• Misattributions and Beatles swapping instruments are acknowledged:

  “I’m never surprised to hear that Paul played a stringed instrument that I thought was another Beatle.” (Cameron Grider, 17:02)

b. “Ticket to Ride” Deconstruction

• Walter Everett gives a meticulous breakdown of the arrangement, focusing on:

  • Lennon’s songwriting origins (strumming tonic chord),

  • The long six-bar progression,

  • The “anticipation” in Lennon’s vocal melody—a dissonant note (E over B minor) resolved in the next chord:

    “He sings this E over the B minor chord...that E is not part of that chord...that E is dissonant...but anticipates the root of the following chord.” (Walter Everett, 28:15–28:41)

  • The innovative drum pattern—possibly inspired by a Tunisian rhythm McCartney heard while traveling. “It would make this an earlier non-Western influence on the Beatles than the sitar.” The drum pattern is explained as an example of hocket (interlocking rhythms). (Walter Everett, 32:47–34:22)

  • George’s 12-string ostinato matches Ringo’s part, using escape tones:

    “What George does is he listens to Ringo’s drum part…and he plays a note for every one of those hits…He invents this A major triad…except for that pitch, the B. That's not part of the chord...we call that an escape tone.” (Walter Everett, 36:24–37:49)

  • Paul’s bluesy Epiphone Casino solo, using bends and slides, adds “anguished” energy:

    “He plays basically a descending minor pentatonic blues.” (Walter Everett, 45:47)

  • Harrison’s “ticket chord” (G major 7, using a volume pedal), overlays with Ringo’s compressed cymbal crash, creating a wash rather than a sharp accent for “anguish.” (Walter Everett, 51:14)

c. Cumulative Sound Innovations

• Use of electric piano, volume pedals, and innovations in mixing and panning noted as marks of the Beatles’ restless experimentation, especially on Help!.

5. Literary, Personal, and Lyric Analysis

• Exploring Lennon’s shift to a more introverted lyrical perspective on Help!—possibly connected to Dylan’s influence and even Lennon’s first LSD experience.

  “Certainly lyrically, what's happening with Help! is much more of an introverted perspective than a lot of what's come before, certainly to what comes after.” (Jack Petrocelli, 64:38)
  “I wonder if this was his initial reaction to LSD.” (Robert Rodriguez, 63:44)

6. The RPM School Approach

• The guests share how they teach these deconstructions, offering participatory, practical lessons for musicians and non-musicians alike.

  “We have discussions like this...then you can come into class...and that's for musicians and we go over the parts...or you can go into Walt's 45 minutes and get this deeper dive with this analysis.” (Jack Petrocelli, 56:47)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On musical intuition vs. formal training:

  “The Beatles didn’t go to school for this...but you can look at music that goes back to Bach and even those composers that put in all their academic time and their hours, there were reasons why there was protocols and rules for music because it’s how your ear worked.”
  (Jack Petrocelli, 05:37)

• On chromatic mediant modulations in Beatles music:

  “When they covered ‘To Know Him is to Love Him’, that modulates to the chromatic mediant for the bridge. Same relationship. So that’s at least one part of their repertoire that had that module.”
  (Walter Everett, 10:31)

• On “Ticket to Ride” and musical foreshadowing:

  “The anticipation where a pitch does not belong in a chord...but is consonant in the next chord is what this song’s all about. I think I’m gonna be sad…she’s going away to that place, that B minor place, and it’s painful with that anticipation of her leaving.”
  (Walter Everett, 28:41–29:17)

• On evolving Beatles song structure:

  “With each record, there’s always a development...they really started to refine it. So whether that heard this sort of modulation, as you guys had pointed out in some of the previous tunes, you know, from demos, they started to find ways to incorporate it in their original.”
  (Jack Petrocelli, 24:32)

• On performance as learning:

  “The learning never ends, even for us, as we’ve been doing it so many years...we have just as much joy teaching it as people do learning it.”
  (Jack Petrocelli, 59:32)

Significant Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment | |------------|------------------------------| | 01:56 | Introduction & album context | | 04:02–11:19| Harmony & modulation in "You're Gonna Lose That Girl" / "Another Girl" | | 14:29–16:04| Rickenbacker, instrument swaps, and recording timeline | | 27:47–51:14| Deep breakdown of "Ticket to Ride": composition, arrangement, rhythms | | 55:36–56:47| Reflections on the teaching process and RPM School | | 63:08–64:38| Speculation on LSD's influence on "Help!" and Lennon’s state of mind |

Section Summaries

Musical Analysis

In-depth explorations looked not just at what the Beatles played, but how they innovated using harmonic shifts ("chromatic mediant"), blues techniques, and sophisticated call-and-response and rhythmic ideas drawn from multiple traditions. The panel showed how Help! marked the moment where these ideas became more adventurous and self-aware.

Historical Context and Narrative

A running theme is how each Beatles album acts as its own sonic world, influenced by what was happening to the band personally, musically, and technologically—Help! bridging early exuberance and later complexity.

The Human Element

Panelists reflect on the genius of the Beatles’ instincts, the joy and perpetual learning they get from deconstructing the songs, and the value of educating others to play and understand this music in practice, not just theory.

Final Thoughts

The episode is both accessible and sophisticated, offering Help! fans new ways to hear, play, and appreciate these songs. The Beatles, the panelists argue, are enduringly fresh not just because of catchy tunes, but because of ongoing musical curiosity—a quality this show seeks to pass on.

For those interested in participating in further deconstructions or learning to play Beatles music with expert guidance, the RPM School’s upcoming class on Help! begins January 19, 2026 (see rpm-school.com).