"Help Me" is a love song

Love song

A love song is about falling in love and the feelings it brings. Anthologies of love songs often contain a mixture of both of these types of song. A bawdy song is both humorous and saucy, emphasizing the physical pleasure of love rather than the emotional joy...

 written, produced and performed by Joni Mitchell

Joni Mitchell

Joni Mitchell, CC is a Canadian musician, singer songwriter, and painter. Mitchell began singing in small nightclubs in her native Saskatchewan and Western Canada and then busking in the streets and dives of Toronto...

, from her 1974 album Court and Spark

Court and Spark

Court and Spark is the sixth studio album by Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell. Released in January 1974, the album saw Mitchell infusing her folk-rock style, which she developed throughout her previous five albums, with jazz inflections...

. The song was recorded with jazz band Tom Scott's L.A. Express

L.A. Express

The L.A. Express was an American jazz-pop ensemble. Members of L.A. Express played on several Joni Mitchell albums, including The Hissing of Summer Lawns and Miles of Aisles ....

 as the backing band. "Help Me" was Mitchell's biggest hit single: it peaked at #7 in June 1974 on the Billboard Hot 100

Billboard Hot 100

The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...

, becoming Mitchell's only top 10 hit. It also hit number one on the easy listening

Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks

The Adult Contemporary chart is a weekly chart published in Billboard magazine that lists the most popular songs on adult contemporary and "lite-pop" radio stations in the United States...

 chart.

Critical acclaim

The song is ranked #282 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

Covers

Artists who have recorded cover versions of the song include:

• Wynonna (on the 2000 album New Day Dawning
  New Day Dawning (Wynonna Judd album)
  New Day Dawning is the title of the fifth studio album released by American country music artist Wynonna Judd. The album produced only two chart singles on the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks charts: "Can't Nobody Love You " at #31, and "Going Nowhere" at #43...
  
  )
• Mandy Moore
  Mandy Moore
  Amanda Leigh "Mandy" Moore is an American singer-songwriter, actress and fashion designer. Moore became famous as a teenager in the late 1990s, after the release of her teen pop albums So Real, I Wanna Be with You, and Mandy Moore. In 2007, she took an adult pop-folk direction with the release of...
  
   (on her 2003 covers album Coverage
  Coverage (album)
  Coverage is the fourth album released by pop singer Mandy Moore, composed exclusively of covers of songs from the 1970s and 1980s. The album was released by Epic Records.-History:...
  
  )
• k.d. lang
  K.D. Lang
  Kathryn Dawn Lang, OC , known by her stage name k.d. lang, is a Canadian pop and country singer-songwriter and occasional actress...
  
   (on the 2007 tribute album
  Tribute album
  A tribute album is a recorded collection of cover versions of songs or instrumental compositions. Its concept may be either various artists making a tribute to a single artist, a single artist making a tribute to various artists, or a single artist making a tribute to another single artist.There...
  
   A Tribute to Joni Mitchell
  A Tribute to Joni Mitchell
  A Tribute To Joni Mitchell is a tribute to Joni Mitchell featuring Sufjan Stevens, Björk, Caetano Veloso, Brad Mehldau, Cassandra Wilson, Prince, Sarah McLachlan, Annie Lennox, Emmylou Harris, Elvis Costello, k.d. lang and James Taylor.-Track listing:...
  
  )
• Katharine McPhee
  Katharine McPhee
  Katharine Hope McPhee is an American pop singer, songwriter, actress, model, and television personality. She gained fame as a contestant on the fifth season of the Fox reality show American Idol in 2006, eventually finishing as the runner-up.Her self-titled debut album was released on RCA Records...
  
   (on the iTunes
  ITunes
  iTunes is a media player computer program, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital music and video files on desktop computers. It can also manage contents on iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad....
  
   deluxe edition of her 2010 album Unbroken
  Unbroken (Katharine McPhee album)
  Unbroken is the second album from American Idol season five runner-up Katharine McPhee. The album was released on January 5, 2010 by Verve Forecast Records, her first album on the label. It debuted at #27 on the Billboard 200, selling 15,000 copies in its first week...
  
  ).

Artists who have played the song at live concerts include Nicola Kramer and Domu, Ryan Adams

Ryan Adams

David Ryan Adams is an American alt-country/rock singer-songwriter, from Jacksonville, North Carolina. Initially part of the group Whiskeytown, Adams left the band and released his first solo album Heartbreaker in 2000...

 and Will Young

Will Young

William Robert "Will" Young is a British singer-songwriter and actor who came to prominenceafter winning the 2002 inaugural series of the British music contest Pop Idol, making him the first winner of the now-worldwide Idols-format franchise...

.

Pop cultural references

The Prince

Prince (musician)

Prince Rogers Nelson , often known simply as Prince, is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. Prince has produced ten platinum albums and thirty Top 40 singles during his career. Prince founded his own recording studio and label; writing, self-producing and playing most, or all, of...

 song "Ballad of Dorothy Parker" (from his 1987 album Sign o' the Times) mentions the song in the lyrics. A reference to "Help Me" - "Joni, help me; I think I'm falling" - can also be heard in "Looking Through Patient Eyes" by PM Dawn.