“We were fed up with being the Beatles. We really hated that fucking four little mop-top approach. We were not boys, we were men … and thought of ourselves as artists rather than just performers.”
“The closest Western Civilization has come to unity since the Congress of Vienna in 1815 was the week the Sgt. Pepper album was released. In every city in Europe and America the radio stations played [it] … and everyone listened … it was the most amazing thing I’ve ever heard. For a brief while the irreparable fragmented consciousness of the West was unified, at least in the minds of the young.”
When “Revolver” came out in 1966, it was a musical statement of theirs that they had abandoned completely their early sounds with any kind of traces of Elvis, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly. As per usual, contemporaries started taking notes as soon as “Revolver” hit the shelves. The Beatles were back at the studio having quitted touring completely and for the first time since forever enjoyed the days of their lives. No more tours, meant Ringo could spend more time with his family, George with Hinduism, Paul with his girlfriend Asher, and it was during this time that John met Yoko Ono for the first time during an art gallery he had been indulging in.
There’s this guy called Jimi Hendrix who could do stuff with the guitar that none of the Beatles could do. And then there’s Cream, and a whole lot of psychedelic bands than there had been before.
They were the biggest soundtrack to a changing world and knew well that they also had to, in order to stay ahead of the game and lead the pack as they had been doing for most of the decade, spend more times at the studio tinkering and coming up with the most edge-cutting, far out, exotic and ground-breaking tunes as far as the technology at the Abbey Road Studios allowed them to go.
Paul had a concept in his mind, taking cues from Brian Wilson’s self-contained Pet Sounds and his own childhood. There would be this fictional band that would be the running theme throughout the record. A musical, colorful theme park in the form of an album, with every song being related to and complementing each other.
So John wrote “Strawberry Fields Forever” and Paul wrote “Penny Lane”, which together made the best selling single the Beatles ever made. The double A-sides stayed on the track for weeks and managed to be a breath of fresh air in the psychedelic world dominated by guitar-driven overlong tracks. The yin to John’s yang, “Penny Lane” is a rich, detailed, too personal of a song that tells us all what there is to be seen through the eyes of a young Paul McCartney. Close your eyes and for a moment you’re there on Penny Lane. Paul kept no secret that the place had special place in his heart in “Penny Lane” filled with joy of a child during summer times and the trumpet solo makes it all valid that the guitars weren’t a driving force of a song, and that they didn’t need to.
“On the corner is a banker with a motorcar,
And little children laugh at him behind his back
And the banker never wears a mac
In the pouring rain, very strange”
“Strawberry Fields Forever”, on the other hand, tells minimal as the song is meant to be, as a journey into some fever longing dream John had about his childhood experiences, or the one that he never actually had.
“Let me take you down
Cause I’m going to
Strawberry fields
Nothing is real
And nothing to get hung about
Strawberry fields forever”
It could take a while for the lyrics to be interpreted, and some could regard it as no more than intentionally nonsensical of-its-time material, much like “I Am The Walrus”. Clear was that John had never been as sincerely as he is in Strawberry Fields Forever, the song that could never be called “dated” which remains of the greatest, most groundbreaking songs the Beatles ever released.
The anticipation for the Beatles’ next album, at the time as comparable to the release of the iPhone today, was getting bigger and bigger when the critics had asked the question whether the Beatles were still relevant. The youth was ready for something new, something they had never heard before, something that would make even “Revolver” sound like oldies music and certainly something that would shock their parents to the core.
Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band comes out at the very beginning of June, also the tail beginning of the Summer of Love and before long took over the world.
Everything from the sleeve that is designed to be a self-contained colorful artwork of flowers and roses of some of the greatest people of the 20th century. Bob Dylan, Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra, Marlon Brando, Shirley Temple,…are all there and tributed rightfully. Even the Beatles themselves in their early poppy days in suits, an image which they had ditched standing on the side to make room for their personas as true musicians: The Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. It’s not just an album cover. It’s a work of art, more so a statement. Statement by and of the youth, of the counterculture movement, of everything that the 1960s and the Beatles stand for, that at the very moment the album was released everything was changed from then on.
The opening title track comes on. There’s the guitar riffs. And the drums that are hard-hitting much like how a live concert goes. A stadium concert, to be precise, where there’s French horns and laughing audience followed by the introduction to the alter ego band “Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”.
“We’re Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
We hope you will enjoy the show!”
And it goes on just like that until Ringo’s character Billy Shears’ voice comes on “With A Little Help From My Friends” and suddenly comes the realization that there’s no gap between the first two tracks; it’s all one unified musical show we’re experiencing, where there’s only love, jolliness and fun drugs to be found. The album has established itself to the listener that it’s meant to be sung along.
“I get by with a little help from my friends
I get high with a little help from my friends”
Ringo Starr really sings his heart with this song, the best we’ll ever see of him on Sgt Pepper’s. At least up until his drumming on “A Day In The Life”.
The song stops. Silence arises. The sounds of organs are heard, which is the opening to “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds”, the dreamiest tribute to LSD of a song in Lennon’s catalogue. There’s not a single hint of realism in “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”. It’s for all the people who have become the veteran experimenters of LSD and other psychedelic drugs.It’s surrealistic and utterly psychedelic, with the infamous song title being a reference to LSD (Lucy. Sky. Diamonds). There’s lots of imageries logic-defying moments. There’s a girl with kaleidoscope eyes, tangerine trees and marmalade skies, cellophane flowers blooming next to which a pouring fountain leads the girl to where rocking horse people eat their marshmallow pies.
The chorus goes on and on until we get to next song, which is a 50-50 Lennon-McCartney collaboration effort. “Getting Better” has a riff-driven intro, a mid-section where each of the songwriting partner has a write-in. Overall is one of the better songs of the album with a bit of contribution from, as usual, cheerfulness of Paul and cynicism of John. The genius internal conflict structure drives the song that is sarcastic in nature and of all places contains explicitly the remorsal apology in John’s own words of the abuse he had made his women endure all his life.
“I”ve got to admit it’s getting better (Better)
A little better all the time (It can’t get no worse)”
Next song on the album is “Fixing A Hole”. The song has a minimalistic structure to go along with it and could be regarded as a clever, even nihilistic approach to life. The guitar use on the song which is a nonsensical (yet metaphorical to the listeners in a certain state of mind) tribute to marijuana is unique of George, the mid-section captures perfectly the mundane which was earlier on represented in “I’m Only Sleeping”.
“And it really doesn’t matter if
I’m wrong I’m right
Where I belong”
There’s an “Eleanor Rigby” on Sgt Pepper’s, and it’s called “She’s Leaving Home”. Probably the most heart-aching song on the album, “She’s Leaving Home” tells a story in a baroque pop manner about a typical household that for years couldn’t manage to relate to their daughter despite giving her everything money can buy. The quaint string orchestra that the number harbors only adds salt to the wound to the topic about a foolish teenager and her decision to leave home at a ripe age.
Such pain have the parents got to deal with as they find out that their precious little girl has left. The mother breaks down at the top of stairs when she gets to read the girl’s note.
“She breaks down and cries to her husband
Daddy our baby’s gone
Why would she treat us so thoughtlessly?
How could she do this to me?”
Almost satirical, almost ironic but not quite tragedy on the subject that’s old as the earth itself, the heartbreaking nature of “She’s Leaving Home” leaves a distinctive mark on an overall joyful album that on a closer look is diverse and haunting at times.
The next track is an undeniable backup on this statement.
“Being For The Benefit of Mr Kite” is a balls-to-the-walls ride into the wonderful colorful druggy circus of Mr Kite. It’s hard to make out what the song really means because it’s not supposed to mean anything in particular. Much like Lucy in the Sky, it’s all imageries after imageries all and all to create an atmosphere that’s difficult to be replicated about such peculiar subjects that once you get the hang of and “accept” (much like accepting your own death during an acid trip) then it’s clear as day. You just have to sing along, to the song leading up to George’s very best India-influenced composition.
“Within You Without You” takes on the road that has been laid down before with “Norwegian Wood” and “Love You To”, again, to have been influenced by Ravi Shankar. George’s expression of his interest in Hinduism, meditation and philosophies doesn’t seem to show any barrier here as it takes up to five minutes worth of sitar musical immersion that could be attributed to be the very influence on the philosophies of the Summer of Love and to an extent, the peace movement. “Within You Without You” is a journey in itself, where we’re taken in and forced to be introspective about the nature of our lives.
“With our love, we could save the world” is a line, a utopian and too-good-to-be-true idea that in retrospect appears rather naive and of cheese during such cynical times as today. It’s actually the general, most simple yet achingly critical view about life from George, is the thing with “Within You Without You” that makes it stand out from every song that’s ever released in rock music. The song exposes what we really are underneath the facades we ourselves rarely ever take off in a world that thrives on materialism, illusionary non-important egoistic activities and possessions that long gone have replaced what actually matters: Love, companionship, sharing. Are we ever ourselves anymore or have we turned into our own sick parodies?We only give if it benefits us, as sadly as it has turned out. Things we own do eventually end up owning us. We gain the world and lose our souls.
Written in the same sessions that gave birth to “Penny Lane”, “When I’m Sixty-Four” also thrives on the early concepts that Paul had in mind during the making of Sgt Pepper’s. “When I’m Sixty-Four” is a fun and silly “granny music” (John’s terms referring to what Paul’s trying to get across in songs like “When I’m Sixty-Four”) that doesn’t seem to take itself too seriously considering the previous tracks (respectively, of John and George) were quite sonically adventurous and serious in comparison to what this cutesy, track brings to the table. It tackles topics regarding old age, whereby quaint and nostalgic fantasies are what mainly drive the song, the cutest Paul ever was in the psychedelic era.
“You can knit a sweater by the fireside
Sunday mornings go for a ride
Doing the garden, digging the weeds”
The LP’s at times blatant diversity doesn’t stop as the next song also by Paul greets us with a meter maid by a name of Rita whom the singer has a secret crush on presumably every bit as lovely as he sings praise of on “Lovely Rita”. Paul McCartney’s genius use of detailed narrative (which had been used earlier on his pioneering “Penny Lane) to create an atmosphere that leaves the listeners ourselves in awe of the stunning Lovely Rita and everything that makes her such a treat to look at shouldn’t be overlooked.
“When I caught a glimpse of Rita
Filling in a ticket in her little white book
In a cap she looked much older”
It’s relatable to the introvert in all of us boys who has stood before the girl he has a thing for. The accomplishment feeling when we finally ask the girl out is captured perfectly in this little segment:
“Lovely Rita, meter maid
May I inquire discreetly
When are you free to take some tea with me?”
Cock-a-doodle-doo, “Good Morning Good Morning”, a Lennon song that shows his rare occasion of silliness, unfortunately later went on to be called by its own composer something less than great, which leaves the fact that it is a fun, fascinating dreamy number standing still. The Pet Sounds comparison could be drawn here as there’s undeniable footprints of Brian Wilson on the track: The animal noises are heard throughout the song and pick up at the very end. A little variety is what drives the album forward, leading up to the encore. Doesn’t hurt as the song only adds to the album that is already loaded with similar-themed Paul tracks.
“Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band Reprise” is just as what its name indicates: a much more rockier, energic reprise of the title track that’s supposedly the “final” farewell track to the album or at least to the idea of the Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Once the song ends, the band by the name of the Beatles finally reveal themselves as the first notes to the true finale “A Day In The Life” come on.
Almost dreamy, surrealistic is the narrative echoing voice of John Lennon that guides us through the almost six-minute long track. The subject is clear and concise. It’s about an accident in the newspaper in which the singer reads in the morning, of a “lucky” chap who blew his mind out in a car. People from all over the places had witnessed it and they just have to turn away due to the sheer horror of it all. The vocals and the drumming compliment each other to turn such tragedy into something so beautiful and delicate.
Everything that the song has stood for makes an abrupt 180 degree turn. Something is going on as it’s realized the Beatles are long gone from their “yeah, yeah, yeah” days.
“I’d love to turn you on…”
He’d love to turn you on. By drugs and by any other means. Our minds go blank as the song picks up with an orchestra that just goes louder and louder and louder and louder and louder and louder until it couldn’t go any further.
The alarm clock rings. Paul McCartney’s upbeat tone switches the mood.
“Woke up, fell out of bed…”
And we are back to reality, base one. Or so we think. In a hurried monotone and yet at the same time catchy voice, we see a day in the life of Paul as he gets up, gets dressed, catches a bus and lights up a smoke.
And he goes into a dream again.
A…ah…..ahh…ahhhh…ahhh…ahhhhh…
Echoes from the future, the past and the present reunite in this intersection of ecstasy, tragedy and randomness. It all matters not once the music picks up. The Beatles’ entire discography peaks right then and there, during the 15 seconds of John, or is that Paul, singing the most beautifully constructed song ever made. It’s not the same ahh that appears on “Twist and Shout”. It’s the void staring at us in form of music, of good vibrations comforting us with pure bliss. Not a single word could describe what “A Day In The Life” for how could you describe something not of this world? Not of today, not of tomorrow nor the past. That is eternity.
That is the Beatles’ answer to the music world and they’d love to hear from you. No. Wait. Somebody’s got to sneak in a witty joke once we get to the inner groove.
“Never could see any other way”?
Your guess is as good as mine.
Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is the peak of their psychedelic and studio era which demonstrates the four-headed monsters at their finest and most consistent, occasionally and stylishly disjointed, Paul-orientated right before the death of their manager Brian Epstein thus the initial of their downfall later to be showcased by their messiest double LP “The Beatles”, and the infamous Let It Be sessions. On a larger scale, Sgt Pepper’s is considered deservedly by many to be the Beatles’ magnum opus and the very best album that came out of the 1960s rock scene, or at least the most important culture-wise. It is the one of the most groundbreaking, most spectacular achievements in music which perfectly emcompasses everything the youth stands for: humor, sentiment, philosophy and progressive standpoints about love and any other subject through the use of studio techniques, prolific songwriting and arrangements influencing contemporary artists years to come, as well as to create a cultural phenomenon and more so an idea, with which an entire generation identifies and collectively enjoys that has yet to and most likely never going to be surpassed.
A Day In The Life
Within You Without You
With A Little Help From My Friends
She’s Leaving Home
Being For The Benefit of Mr Kite
Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds
Fixing A Hole
Sgt Pepper’s + Reprise
When I’m Sixty-Four
Lovely Rita
Getting Better
Good Morning Good Morning
10/10
(pic by Leland Castro)
mê tú linh. 