The front cover of With a Little Help From My Friends is the typical characteristic of Joe Cocker with his puddy face molded into distortion beneath a twisted head of hair. Ironically, it is a picture of just Cocker, leading me to wonder, “With a Little Help from My Friends…where are the friends? Why isn't there a picture of Joe Cocker and his buddies in a group hug, all smiles, skipping around in circles, maybe one friend bent over in laughter, looking at the camera as if to say, ‘only if you were in our group of friends, you would get the joke." This isn’t the case and I believe this irony keeps the album sounding honest. This album is all about Joe Cocker and that is understood by the front of the jacket. However, where there is Joe, you best believe there are a collection of musicians and artists (his friends) backing him up when is voice wont stretch as far or taking a step back, allowing him to roam into the oddest of territory.
Flip the cover and you'll see just who managed to come around for a good friend. Cocker was accompanied by an arsenal of whose who musicians: Matthew Fisher, Henry McCullough, Chris Stainton, B.J. Wilson, Stevie Winwood, Mike Kelly, and Jimmy Page. If you recorded with a collection like that, you better name the album something about friends, friendship, or buddy-o-pals. Just below their respective pictures is a listing of each track with detail credits of each person's contribution to the respective song. Notable are the hand full of covers like Dylan’s “Just Like a Woman,” and of course Paul McCartney and John Lenin’s “With a Little Help From My Friends.” Whether Dylan, McCartney, or Lenin were friends were in Cocker's speed dial (or Roladex to be era-correct), their music appears on Cocker's album because of what they meant to him. Through the multitude of talent on the page and in the air, it is made clear that this album was a group effort even if it was to prop up one man.
This particular Cocker album, isn't all around exceptional and perhaps isn't his best work. This album is less about what the music sounds like and more about what it represents. As a result, I am not going to dissect the album but merely point out what makes this album special (insert sentimental line about friendship). The album jumps off to an amazing start with "Feeling Alright," which next to the title track, ”With a Little Help From My Friends,” is my favorite song on the album. "Feeling Alright" does exactly that. It’s boisterous, it’s energizing, and it’s celebratory with soulful back up vocals. It sounds like it was recorded in a room full of people that all agree to feel one way only. Rivaling “Feeling All Right” on the a-side is "Marjorine." It’s a perfect example of how a strong supporting cast can allow an artist room to breathe and explore. Joe Cocker and friends create a schizophrenic rambling of obsession. As a listener you are forced to wonder does this woman exist at all, does it matter that she might not, does it make this man any less vulnerable. Cocker's obsession and fixation of this woman, true or imagined, leaves him vulnerable and the quirky track he sings over helps make some sense of the madness that surrounds her. The song comes to a bouncing conclusion that feels like a fleeting moment of increased chaos. There is resolution in more madness and there will never be clarity regarding Marjorine.
The B-side achieves exactly the same as the a-side, with songs that make up a harsh bark exterior, surrounding those that ooze of sappiness. While heartfeltness is always apart of friendship, the sentimental songs poke holes in the momentum that songs like "Feeling Alright" and "Marjorine" create. The highlights of the b-side are "Sand Paper Cadillac" and the title track, “With a Little Help From My Friends.” "Sand Paper Cadillac" is a doomsy expedition to self-freedom, "my call is to be free...and it’s calling escape out of me." The piano tip toes past the guitar guard of our own prison and in brightening moments gives us a glimpse of what it is like to be free of ourselves. “With a Little Help From My Friends,” the title track, Beatles Cover, Wonder Years theme, however you can relate to it, is the epicenter of the album. It comes out at you from a distance with a maudlin guitar riff, then tumbles with a roll on the tom drums, and is accompanied by Joe Cocker's whiskey soaked voice singing, "What would I 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." Like in "Feeling Alright," Joe is backed by soulful back up singers Madelene Bell, Sunny Wheetman, and Rosetta Hightower, "I get high with a little help from my friends/Gonna try with a little help from my friends." Like Cocker and the original authors of the song, I often wonder what if my talents are self aggrandized or imagined, what if I "sang out of key," what do I do when I am single and alone, what would I do if I didn't have my friends to humor me? For me, I don't think it’s ever a question of if but when. When I speak out of turn, or take up too much of the conversational stage do my friends tolerate me? Do they ever walk out? Fortunately, they have never walked out, and still sit to listen to my continuous song.
Perhaps I've taken it to far, made it too personal, put words in Joe Cocker's mouth, made this album far more sentimental than it should be, further exemplifying my hypocrisy (are there holes in me because I sometimes sing sappy songs). However, beyond the neurosis, is the grounding idea that perhaps that’s what music intends to inspire. It can allow us to contemplate, to over analyze, to use as a catalyst for self-examination. To call this the power of (music), is to simply assume that it isn't apart of. Music and its interactive property is a part of life and we, along with the creators, share in its power. It’s a part of my persistent over analysis, ability to think, to speak, to write loosely, to collect records, watch the 2009 Dodgers, and drink Tecate on a lazy Sunday. It is within this room to breath that everything comes easier, sounds sweeter, and looks brighter. Whenever I run into a Marjorine, feel alright, or scale the walls of myself, it's always with a little help from my friends.
