The Beatles were growing fast in a musical sense by 1965, incorporating a wide variety of influences into their new music. Bob Dylan was one of those influences, and the Help! track “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away” certainly owes a bit to Dylan.
But it also comes away sounding like a quintessential Beatles record, thanks to the touches the band added to the song while recording it. Here’s the story and meaning behind the achingly pretty and sad “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away.”
Bob and the Boys
The Beatles met Bob Dylan in 1964 in New York City. By then, they were mutual admirers of each other’s work. The Fab Four liked that Dylan wrote about adult topics with fearless candor. Dylan liked how The Beatles electrified their message to make the biggest possible impact. As it turned out, each entity was moving, style-wise, in the direction of the other.
In the case of The Beatles emulating Bob, “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away” was an admitted attempt by John Lennon to infuse his songwriting with the confessional honesty for which Dylan was known. He explained as much when looking back at the song in an interview found in The Beatles Anthology book:
“‘You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away’ is my Dylan period. It’s one of those that you sing a bit sadly to yourself, ‘Here I stand, head in hand …’ I’d started thinking about my own emotions. I don’t know when exactly it started, like ‘I’m a Loser’ or ‘Hide Your Love Away,’ those kind of things. Instead of projecting myself into a situation, I would try to express what I felt about myself, which I’d done in my books. I think it was Dylan who helped me realise that—not by any discussion or anything, but by hearing his work.
Flutes in the Mix
“You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away” likely would have been quite captivating had the group just laid it down with Lennon on 12-string acoustic guitar and vocal. But they were a pop band after all, and they set about in the studio adding the flourishes to make the song an exciting listen. That included George Harrison adding 12-string and Spanish guitar, Paul McCartney doubling on bass and maracas, and Ringo Starr playing tambourines and using brushes on his drums.
In addition to that, The Beatles went outside their core unit of the four band members and producer George Martin for instrumental help for the first time in their career. They enlisted session player Johnnie Scott to play the flute solo at the end of the track, which he did by overdubbing an alto flute on top of a tenor.
The result was a recording that added little nuances to Lennon’s message. For example, the guitars play a sweet countermelody in between Lennon shouting out the refrain. And the flute was not only a nice addition to the song, but it also opened the door to many more session players giving the Beatles’ records a little something extra.
What is the Meaning of “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away”?
Since Lennon never specifically named the person who inspired the track, many have speculated on their identity. But in the end, that’s somewhat immaterial to the song’s effect. What matters is the extent of the narrator’s malaise as he tries to conceal the one thing that means the most to him in the world: his love for this other person.
The line about feeling two-foot small was an accident in the studio, but it works well in describing how defeated this guy feels. In the final verse, he bristles at her suggestions to cheer up: How could she say to me / ”Love will find a way?” He looks to find some consolation from the other losers in love: Gather round, all you clowns / Let me hear you say / Hey, you’ve got to hide your love away.
The album Help! also includes “Yesterday,” a Paul McCartney offering that didn’t really work in a full electric version, instead finding its true calling once a string quartet was added. “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away” also found The Beatles finding a new way to tell their story, all without losing the quintessential excellence for which they had always been known.
