With a Little Help from My Friends
original song written and composed by Lennon-McCartney; first recorded by The Beatles
"With a Little Help from My Friends" is a song recorded by English rock band the Beatles for their 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. It was written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, and is sung by drummer Ringo Starr (as Sgt. Pepper singer Billy Shears), as his lead vocal for the album. As the second track on the album, it segues from the applause on the title track.
A subsequent recording of the track by Joe Cocker from his album of the same name became a success in 1968—topping the UK Singles Chart—and an anthem for the Woodstock era. In 1978, the Beatles' recording, paired with "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band", was reissued as a single, and peaked at number 63 in Britain and number 71 on the United States Billboard Hot 100. Starr has regularly performed the song in concert as a solo artist. The song was ranked number 311 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
“With a Little Help from My Friends” enters the record as original song written and composed by Lennon-McCartney; first recorded by The Beatles. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Little, Help and Friends can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“With a Little Help from My Friends” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Little, Help and Friends provides the most credible route into that argument.
Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q368735. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1967, 1968 and 1978.
Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “With a Little Help from My Friends” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.