I’ve never really considered just how viscerally honest and open the lyrics to Help! are until today when I was writing in a book to send away to a young relative in Finland. The book was ‘The Boy, the Mole, The Fox and The Horse’ by Charlie Mackesy, ostensibly a book for children but like a lot of children’s books it presses emotional buttons by it’s wise and direct simplicity; traits often buried in the more erudite and carefully honed words of books written for adults. I tend to recoil at a lot of aphorisms; the Internet is full of them, there’s one to fit every occasion and I think they often get ‘shared’ and trotted out with such regularity that their power is diminished somehow, they get ‘liked’ and then just as easily forgotten. I’m probably just jealous, wishing I had made some pithy, poignant and thought-provoking statements that would give succour to countless millions across the world? For a few seconds anyway? ‘The Boy, the Mole, The Fox and The Horse’ is full of such aphorisms but for some reason this book was different. Or perhaps I read at it differently?So, back to Help! Try reading the words without hearing the music:
‘When I was younger so much younger than today I never needed anybody’s help in any way. But now these days are gone and I’m not so self-assured and now I find I’ve changed my mind, I’ve opened up the doors. Help me if you can, I’m feeling down.‘
Pretty open and honest stuff, not the kind of thing you’d expect from a bunch of young cheeky-chappies, ‘loveable mop tops’ at the heart of the ‘Swingin’ Sixties’? At the risk of sounding like a vicar crowbarring in a metaphor for this Sunday’s sermon, asking for help can be the hardest request many of us can make. As a counsellor I have countless clients telling me that it’s taken them weeks to pluck up the courage to ask for help, they felt it was a sign of weakness or failure. I always say to them (with monotonous regularity but always sincerely) – I honestly believe it takes real strength to ask for help, to admit that you can’t quite manage this thing alone. Very often, but by no means always, it’s the ‘carers’ and ‘helpers’, the ‘rocks’, the go-to people that are often turned to in time of trouble that find it most difficult to ask for help. But as I always say to them (with monotonous regularity but always sincerely and with tongue only slightly in cheek) – don’t be selfish, give someone else the opportunity to feel the joy and nourishment you experience when you help others. It usually works, albeit with a half-smile of recognition from the client, which is always encouraging.
I on the other hand, I would never hesitate in asking for help. Obviously.