The Beatles: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band - 1967
"They could send out four waxworks ... and that would satisfy the crowds. Beatles concerts are nothing to do with music anymore. They're just bloody tribal rites" - John Lennon
What do you say about an album that is regularly said to be the “greatest album of all time”? Not too much one can say, I guess, other than offer my probably irrelevant opinions.
This album is certainly not a “rock” album, just as The Beatles were often not a rock band. This album is a collection of songs - some monumental, some silly, some pleasant, some average. It is a veritable chocolate box of styles too - rock, ballad, music hall, Indian, whimsy and ground-breaking sonic experimentation, the like of which had never been heard before. Like David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust, its effect culturally, on the music industry and, in this case, the world, was far, far greater than the sum of its parts. Indeed, it may not even be the best album by The Beatles, but it is, undoubtedly, the most important.
It was fifty (and counting) years ago today....
The introductory Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is memorable, from the "fade in" background noise, we get the album’s purest two minutes of “rock”. Proper guitar riff, great drum sound, excellent rasping vocals. An iconic introductory track. Then Pepper segues into With A Little Help From My Friends via Billy Shears - and yes, Joe Cocker’s 1968 version took the song to new heights, but there is just something so comforting about Ringo Starr’s homely, touching vocal. Just a thoroughly appealing song. Great instrumentation too. Perfect. Oh and I forgot the beautiful, throbbing bass line.
The wonderful bass is also present here on Lennon's wonderful, atmospheric drugged-up fantasia. Was it written while on something? Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds? Was it about LSD? (yawwn). Who really cares - I don't. It sounds dreamy, trippy and from another world. Of course he was on something.
Now come three McCartney songs in a row. Firstly, McCartney's optimistic Getting Better, written, apparently, while walking his dog on Hampstead Heath in London. It begins with a sharp, stabbing guitar riff and is another of the album's genuine rock moments. George Harrison inserts some Indian percussion instrumentation at 1.45-ish. An often ignored track from this album. I like it. The song is not quite so breezily optimistic, however, on the nasty verse Lennon contributed about beating his woman. Why has Lennon been seemingly immune from condemnation for so long? By so many? In so many ways, in the early/mid-sixties he was a questionable piece of work. Beatle or not.The lyrically Lennon-esque Fixing A Hole was another under-mentioned track that sees McCartney taking lead vocal again. It is pleasant few minutes, but in a way it seems to finish before it had started. An impressive Harrison guitar solo near the end.
On She's Leaving Home, here we had McCartney's sad tale of a young girl leaving home, orchestrated and sung in the same mournful style as Eleanor Rigby. Not too many Beatles songs were sensitive human tales, or pertinent social comment, but this one certainly is, centring on the post-war, emerging lack of understanding between the younger and older generations. It was one of McCartney's "character" songs that Lennon so despised, apparently. I have always felt its honest, real-life-ness sits somewhat uncomfortably within the album’s context, though. It somehow doesn't fit in at all.
Talking of Lennon, Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite! was his marvellously evocative piece of loveable nonsense derived from an old circus poster. You can't help but enjoy the sheer silliness of it and the odd noises, rare instruments and studio trickery involved in some of the sounds and the bizarre circus imagery of the lyrics. It is certainly a very odd track indeed, but nobody really dislikes it. Apart from, it is said, Lennon himself.
In typical style-changing from song to song, now we are treated to the tabla-drenched glory that was Within You Without You. I love this. George Harrison's bold effort in introducing "world" music to the pop music market. Anyone other than The Beatles would have been condemned in intolerant 1960s Britain for recording such "foreign rubbish". Harrison got away with it, though and interest in music from further afield than Britain and the USA started to develop, largely because of the inclusion of tracks like this on Beatles albums. In many ways, it is musically the most interesting cut on the album.
When I'm 64 was/is a genuinely horrible piece of McCartney whimsy unworthy of anyone who seriously calls themselves a rock band. However, conversely, I can't help but like it and it is all the more remarkable given that McCartney wrote it when he was only fifteen. A sensitive, understanding lad, wasn't he? Unlike that sneery John.
Another McCartney offering (I always thought it was more of a Lennon song) Lovely Rita was one of those afore-mentioned "character" songs written about someone in the third person. It is a credible enough rock song, actually, albeit with a slightly silly subject matter.
Good Morning Good Morning - this odd Lennon song was a bit of a mish-mash, to be honest. The kitchen sink being thrown in to this rather confused semi-song. A few animal noises at the end too. No real work of genius, this one, unfortunately, whatever way you choose to look at it. While the "good morning" bit is singalong, the other bits are only memorable or catchy when you actually listen to it. I guess it has a sort of shapeless appeal, however, although Lennon himself dismissed the song as "throwaway" and "garbage".The short, possibly pointless minute or so of rocking fun that was the reprised title track should have closed the album. However, After two great contributions in Lucy and Kite and a bit of a throwaway in Good Morning Good Morning Lennon saved the best until last with A Day In The Life, a track that simply belies analysis, yet has garnered probably millions of words written in trying to do just that. What was it about? Who knows? I certainly don't. Lennon probably didn't either. Alienation? Disillusion? Yeah yeah yeah. It was John Lennon's finest moment. It was as if a detached, semi-interested Lennon had roused himself and arrived after the party had finished and McCartney had done with his whimsy fun, wanting to show them what he could do. The song sits brilliantly incongruously with the rest of the album.
It emphasises perfectly the schizophrenic nature of the group on the album - at times lovable lads your parents liked, at times hippy peaceniks and at others dangerous, demi-monde druggies.
Pepper never knew what it was, despite McCartney’s irritating self-satisfaction about it. As Lennon said - “it worked because we said it worked”.
There are lots of alternative versions of the album's tracks around, and the ones I like the best are the rockier, bassier ones that exist of Good Morning, Good Morning (minus the animal noises and silly sound effects), Lovely Rita and Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite. If these had been the ones used on the album it would have come over as a far more powerful creation, less indulgent whimsy and more full-on attack.There is a robust, rocking instrumental of Getting Better too.
