You've Got to Hide Your Love Away

"You've Got to Hide Your Love Away" is a song by The Beatles. It was written and sung by John Lennon (credited to Lennon/McCartney) and released on the album Help! in August 1965.

Composition and recording
The song shows the influence of the American singer Bob Dylan. The song "is just basically John doing Dylan", McCartney later said. Lennon seems to mimic Dylan's gruff vocal style: the song is in a folkish strophic form and uses a Dylanesque acoustic guitar figure in compound time, chiefly acoustic accompaniment, no backing voices and light percussion from brushed snare, tambourine and maraca. The lyrics of Dylan's 1964 song "I Don't Believe You (She Acts Like We Have Never Met)" open with a strikingly similar image: "I can't understand, she let go of my hand, and left me here facing the wall", as compared with Lennon's "Here I stand head in hand, turn my face to the wall".

"You've Got To Hide Your Love Away" was the first Beatles song to feature an outside musician (apart from "Love Me Do", the group's first EMI recording, in which producer George Martin had engaged a session drummer to substitute for the then-untried Ringo Starr). The basic rhythm track was recorded first, followed by Harrison's guitar and some extra percussion. John Scott recorded a tenor flute in the spaces in Lennon's vocal track and an additional alto flute part, in harmony with the first, on the last available track of the four-track machine.

Musician/singer Tom Robinson connected the lyric to Brian Epstein, the group's manager, who was homosexual (homosexuality was a criminal offence in Britain at the time).

When Lennon made a mistake during the recording, singing "two foot small" instead of "two foot tall", he is reported to have said: "Let's leave that in, actually. All those pseuds will really love it."

Performance in the film
In the film Help!, at the opening of the song, the head of the cult, Clang (Leo McKern), appears from underneath a manhole cover in the middle of Ailsa Avenue, London, where parts of the film were shot. He stays there for the whole song, which the Beatles play in Lennon's fourth of the Beatles' shared flat. The flute part of the song is performed by George's in-house gardener (who also trims his grass carpet with chattery teeth). They are watched by Ahme (Eleanor Bron), and at the end of the song, George Harrison passes out after Ahme produces a giant needle for Ringo Starr, who is wearing the ring the cult is seeking.

Other studio tracks
There is an alternative take included on Anthology II. Before the song proper begins, a montage of chatter associated with several other takes is presented. In this sequence, Lennon counts off the song, then stops to readjust his guitar pickup. After a glass shatters, Lennon sings "Paul's broken a glass, broken a glass. Paul's broken a glass. A glass, a glass he's broke today."

Personnel

 * John Lennon &mdash; lead vocal, Twelve string guitar
 * Paul McCartney &mdash; Bass guitar
 * George Harrison &mdash; acoustic guitar
 * Ringo Starr &mdash; tambourine, maracas
 * John Scott &mdash; flutes