The Beatles: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

Although I think I’d been hearing the occasional Beatles song all my life, I didn’t focus much on them when I was younger. I do remember that Ob-la-di, ob-la-da” was the first song I remember hearing and “Hello, Goodbye” not far behind it. I’m sure these were songs getting regular play back in the early ’70s so I would hear them a lot on the radio. My parents had the album Meet the Beatles, which in my memory was just the vinyl record because “somebody” had destroyed the album cover. I’m not admitting to anything but I’m pretty sure there are some fingers pointing my way from the parents. If there is any guilt on my part, it’s long before my recollections began. I do remember listening to the record sometimes while growing up so I did kind of know those songs.

I don’t know exactly what got me started into Beatles fandom but my interest was piqued in 1977 when Capitol Records put out The Beatles: Love Songs compilation. It was packaged with a brown pseudo-leather cover embossed with a gold image of the band and it comprised of two discs. There was a large-sized booklet inside included with the lyrics to the songs printed on “parchment paper” using calligraphy. It was very pretty stuff and I think I still have it in that box filled with vinyl records hidden at the back of the closet. I remember it being said at the time that all Beatles songs were love songs which surely must have been part of the marketing of that album since it wasn’t true. I bought this album and I listened to it often and this was what got me interested in the band. But I could never use that compilation as my influential album. It would just be so wrong.

So instead I look to an album that I found in a roundabout way, thanks to the Bee Gees and Peter Frampton, who starred in that great classic movie “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”. :D It’s embarrassing now but I saw that movie and really liked it. I think I was interested because of the Bee Gees and also partly due to my beginning interest in the Beatles. I even went on to buy the soundtrack album. I haven’t seen the film in decades but I daresay I would cringe to watch it today. But to early teenaged me, it was good fun.

So there I was listening to the Bee Gees sing their versions of Beatles songs and enjoying them for what they were. But somewhere along the way I felt compelled to find out about the original and this led me to buying my first real Beatles album, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

I’m a Beatles fan and I love this album although I wouldn’t call it my favorite. That honor varies according to mood, day, weather, etc. :D But again I do love this album a lot and as I grew older I grew to appreciate this a lot more. Even today as I listened again, I discovered new things. It didn’t take terribly long once I listened to this to relegate that pale imitation to distant memory.

So how to choose just a few songs to highlight? I think it’s possible I could write about just about every song but I will try to narrow it down.

The title song includes about ten seconds of the combined sounds of an orchestra warming up along with the crowd anticipating the start of a concert. The song is a combination of modern day rock band with electric instrumentation and a horn section reminiscent of the old brass bands playing outdoor shows, all creating the iconic opening. It ends with McCartney as emcee announcing the singer, Billy Shears, before segueing into our next track.

“With a Little Help from my Friends” is sung by Ringo Starr, something of a rarity on their records. It works for this song due to the sincerity and earnestness of his voice. The song lends itself to sing-alongs while listening to it on the radio, particularly with the question and answer dialogue occurring through the song. I know the Joe Cocker version became much bigger than this album track but there’s a simplicity to the way this is sung that really appeals to me. Really, both versions have their merits but I know this one is very much overshadowed by the Cocker version.

I heard the version of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” by Elton John long before I heard this version. It was released in 1974 and Lennon even plays on that version under a pseudonym. I liked that version but it doesn’t compare to the original with Lennon’s vocals. This song is a trip through psychedelia and includes Lewis Carroll Wonderland-type imagery. That said, the idea this is a song about lsd has been refuted many times and Lennon said the title was inspired by his four-year old son’s drawing.

“She’s Leaving Home” is a beautiful, lush piece about a daughter leaving home, reaching her way to freedom from the tyranny of her parents. It’s a very touching piece and you can feel for parents and daughter both. The music features a nonet of stringed instruments and a harp and no guitar or drums.

Moving to side two, we begin with “Within You, Without You” a lush piece written by George Harrison. It’s composition is inspired by Hindustani classical music and it was recorded using Indian musicians rather than the band. This is yet another walk in the realm of psychedelia, albeit a totally different sound to Lucy in the Sky.

Just before the final song we get a reprise of the title song. “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band Reprise” is a shorter and more rocking version that loses the horn section altogether and leads into the monumental finale.

“A Day in the Life” is the finale to this album and what a smash it is. It’s primarily a Lennon composition but McCartney wrote the upbeat middle section. It starts off with the mundanity of reading the newspaper and then moves into a session of psychedelia that leads into an almost surreal pop section by McCartney which shifts into a dream before crashing down on the final chord, which reverberates at length before moving to the end bit with a fair bit of background sounds from the studio and some gibberish words being repeated. It’s a fantastic piece of music as a whole and possibly the best song on the album, at least in my opinion.

One last thought on this album is the iconic cover. I tend to picture the cover when I hear songs from the record, particularly the title track. I remember when I bought this album it was neat to look at the cover and see how many people I recognized. There were quite a few I knew but just as many I didn’t at the time. I haven’t examined it so closely in recent years so I wonder how many would be familiar now? Also cool was the fact they printed the lyrics on the back cover, which apparently was the first time it had been done on a rock album before.

So that is my entry into fandom of the Beatles. If I hadn’t gotten there the way I did, I presume it might have happened another way. So it’s worth having gone through some dross to get to the treasure in the end.