‘Yesterday’

“Help!” the fans sang out.

“We Can Work It Out,” answered the Chamber of Commerce.

“Can’t Buy Me Love,” retorted a spokesman for the musicians.

Those were the tunes being heard Friday in Hollywood as Beatles fans demanded that the world’s most famous music group be honored with their own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Music lovers braced for a “Hard Day’s Night” were staging a 24-hour vigil outside the Capitol Records tower, collecting signatures on petitions urging that a star be placed there, near one that individually honors the late Beatle John Lennon.

“Don’t Let Me Down,” pleaded fan Tom Holt, a Hollywood telemarketer who said it is outrageous that the Fab Four weren’t honored long ago with a star of their own.

But “Do You Want to Know a Secret”? They used to have one.

As the fans from “Here There and Everywhere” used chalk to sketch their own mock Beatles star on the Vine Street sidewalk, the Beatles’ real one was leaning against a hotel penthouse wall a few blocks away.

Three hundred pounds of polished terrazzo marble and brass, it’s authentic. “I Want to Tell You,” said Johnny Grant, who has stored it in his office for more than four years.

Grant is Hollywood’s honorary mayor and head of the Chamber of Commerce’s Walk of Fame. He decided to “Carry That Weight” after Capitol Records officials asked him to remove it from the northeast corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Sycamore Avenue. The Beatles’ star was among a group of 100 placed in that area when Walk of Fame officials “Let It Be” lengthened in 1994.

“There’s a Place” the record company wanted the star to go: in front of its headquarters. Record executives were planning to get the remaining Beatles to dedicate the star as part of a promotion campaign for their “Beatles Anthology” album.

But the Beatles never managed to “Come Together” for the ceremony.

These days, Walk of Fame organizers require that celebrities attend star-unveiling ceremonies as a condition of honoring them. But Grant and others have received “No Reply” each time they’ve asked Paul, George and Ringo to drop by individually or in a group.

And the probability remains “You Won’t See Me,” according to the Fab Three.

McCartney, Harrison and Starr go “Nowhere Man” to accept accolades when a prerequisite for the honor is their attendance, not merit, said Paul Freundlich, a New York representative of EMI-Capitol, the Beatles’ record label.

So as fans such as Lorene Mills of New Mexico and Patricia Rhucroft of Australia signed the Beatles’ star petition Friday and asked “Please Please Me,” it seemed unlikely that the star would appear.

“Not a Second Time.”