The Beatles album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is not just a collection of songs it is a state of mind it is a concept album but there’s more to it than that. Just what is Sgt. Pepper, why is it so popular? Would it have ever sold if it was not by the Beatles, and how was it effected by the fact that it was a Beatles album, and why ids it still interesting today? Would it have gotten anywhere without the concept or the cover, and where did the Beatles get the idea in the first place? And how come this album was so revolutionary it is almost but not quite tame by today’s standards but was it much more stirring in the sixties.

I think Sgt. Pepper is a neat way of summing up what the sixties was all about in two words. Sgt. Pepper is more of an Icon than anything else; and there is always the mystery, which is Sgt. Pepper? Is it Paul McCartney? Who sings lead in the opening number and introduces the concept? Is it Ringo Starr who has Sgt. stripes? Is it George Harrison who has bandleaders uniform and hat? Or is it John Lennon. Who sings the kind of songs you’d expect Sgt. Pepper to sing? Or is it another person all together, a god figure perhaps or is it the spirit of the sixties.

Actually Paul thought it up he said, “They’re sort of a brass band but they’re also kind of a rock band. They have the California thing”. John said “When you’re not the Beatles or the crickets you’re Fred and his Incredible Shrinking Grateful Airplanes” (Beatles Anthology). Paul just thought it up when he was on a plane. He thought up this guy Sgt. Pepper and his Lonely Hearts Club Band and it didn’t occur to him until later that they could be Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band but to fully understand about why they did this, you must understand who the Beatles are.

John Winston Lennon was born in 1940 in Liverpool, England and raised by his aunt, because his mother was too young when she had him. He wanted to be a soldier at first, but he became more and more lead astray by this fascinating Rock and Roll music that was being played in the USA by such greats as Elvis Presley, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, and Jerry Lee Lewis. In 1956, at the age of sixteen, John formed his own band, The Quarrymen, which was actually named after his school. A year later, he met a guitarist who was two years younger than John. John thought he was better looking, and a better guitarist and singer, and therefore he made John look bad (Beatles Anthology). But on the other hand, since John thought he looked like Elvis, John’s favorite singer, and thought it was good to have someone else with talent in the group, so he gave the Fifteen-year-old Paul McCartney the job (Beatles Anthology). A year later, a friend of Paul’s George Harrison was introduced to John and, given his talent, George immediately became the lead guitarist even though he was the youngest member of the band. The next year, they met a bass player called Stuart Sutcliffe, whose true passion however was art. His heart really wasn’t in rock music, what’s more he couldn’t play, but at least that was better than not having a bass player at all.

In 1960 they wanted to go to Hamburg in West Germany, and they need a drummer. George had a suggestion, and it’s not necessarily who you think. Nineteen-year-old Pete Best became the drummer of the Beatles for this tour of Hamburg. However, on that tour when all the other Beatles returned to Liverpool, Stuart decided to stay in Hamburg. Unfortunately he died a year later from a brain tumor at the age of twenty. So Paul took over playing bass.

That same year, on a second tour in Hamburg, Tony Sheridan recorded a song with the Beatles, a version of “My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean” with a rock beat. This sparked the interest of 28-year-old businessman Brian Epstein who became their manager. He immediately made several revisions to the image of the group: most importantly he traded their heavy leather gear for suits. Paul didn’t mind at all. John and George said they’d wear them as long as they had to. But Pete Best, w ho was the considered the best looking Beatle, didn’t want to change his image (Beatles Anthology). In 1962 they were auditioned by the producer George Martin, who worked for EMI / Parlephone. Martin, who had an excellent musical background, was appalled by Best’s terrible drumming and insisted that Mr. Best be replaced by someone better. Enter Ringo (Beatles Anthology).

Ringo Starr (born Richard Starkey) had been a sickly child who was raised by a poor but loving family. He always had a strong love for music, especially drums. When the Beatles played with him, as they frequently did when Best missed a gig, the other Beatles always felt they sounded better. Naturally, with Pete out on musical as well as fashion grounds, the Beatles knew they had to have Ringo Starr. However, George Martin booked Andy White for their first recording session, and twenty-two year old Ringo almost gave up hope (Beatles Anthology). However, after their first single was a hit, Ringo became their permanent drummer. He played on their first records, for such hits by the end of the year as “Please Please Me,” sung by John; “I saw her standing there,” sung by Paul; and “From Me to You” and “She loves You,” sung by both John and Paul. All of these songs written by both John and Paul under the Name Lennon-McCartney

By the end of 1963, they also had two hit albums with songs by Lennon-McCartney and other rock stars of the fifties and early sixties. Plus one from the 1958 musical the Music Man “Till There was You,” sung by Paul with acoustic guitars and Ringo on bongos. George also had a couple songs and Ringo had one on both albums. They even played for royalty. However, they still had to conquer America. Capital, an American subsidiary of England’s EMI, refused to released the Beatles, and when their British hits “Please, Please Me” and “From Me to You” were released on the small American label Vee Jay, they predictably flopped. So was the release of “She Loves You” on Swan. However due to their success in England, Capital was finally forced to release “I Want to Hold You’re Hand”. This promptly became their first no.1 hit in the United States (Beatles Anthology). So in 1964 they came to America and immediately mobbed by crowds of way-too-adoring fans.

In 1964, they went back to Britain and released the Dick Lester film A Hard Day’s Night, which was fictional but in the form of a black and white documentary. It starred the Beatles and among the cast of characters was Paul’s mischievous mythical Irish grandfather who wanted to break up the Bealtes. He managed to convince one of the Beatles pals, Nome, that his best friend, Shake, was taller than him because of spite even though Shake could not help his height and both were taller than the Beatles.

That same year the Beatles were introduced to bob Dylan. The good news was he encouraged them to write deeper songs. Unfortunately, he also introduced them to pot. The influence of the latter nearly ruined their next film, Help, which came out in 1965. This film, also directed by Dick Lester, was in color and had a bunch of Easterners wanting to sacrifice Ringo: all except a beautiful young woman of mystery called Ahmed who wanted to save them.

That year Paul recorded the ballad “Yesterday”-- the first Beatles song with only one Beatle, plus it used a string quartet for the accompaniment rather than the Beatles themselves.. In fact the next album, Rubber Soul, (a play on rubber sole sneakers and English Soul which was a bit too white to be real soul music,) was rife with musical experimentation. On one track, for example, John’s “Norwegian Wood,” George played the sitar for the first time on a pop album (Beatlesongs 125). Their next album, which came out the following year, Revolver, had three classic songs written and sung by George—marking his emergence as an important songwriter. There was more orchestral music, including Paul’s Dickensian song of English contemporary poverty “Eleanor Rigby,” in which no Beatle played an instrument (Beatlesongs 141). Also Paul wrote a children’s song for Ringo called “Yellow Submarine.” While continuing to be a great rock band, the Beatles had begun to experiment widely with musical styles: an experiment that would culminate in Sgt. Pepper.

Unfortunately, in that year, when the had a tour of Japan, the Japanese complained that the Beatles let their youth astray from the culture’s traditional values of respecting you’re elders and working together. The Beatles were being treated as a powerful culture force, though the Japanese critics were misreading their message, which was actually more respectful. Plus in their tour of the Philippines, the Bealtes didn’t appear at the private concert the ruling Marcos family had planned for the Beatles, who simply wanted a day off. Later, angry Marcus supporters mobbed them at the airport. However the Marcos family had been abusing their people for years, and the Beatles were among the few who dared confront the tyrannical Marcos regime.

Unfortunately, it was America that finally brought the issue of cultural confrontation with the Beatles to a head. John, in an interview about how the English church has trouble getting converts, said that the Beatles are more popular than Jesus. Unfortunately an American Newspaper reprinted it as “bigger than Jesus Christ,” meaning better, which got the Southern church all, wired up and ended up making people burn Beatles albums in angry demonstrations. (The Beatles Anthology). The Beatles ended up having to apologize over nationwide television. That statement was the last straw, which put a stop to the Beatles touring, and they actually broke up as a working group for half a year. John went off to Spain with Ringo to film How I Won the War. George went to India to search for spiritual enlightenment and study Indian music, and Paul wrote the soundtrack for the movie The Family Way.

The year was still 1966 when the Beatles got back together. They recorded one of John’s songs “Strawberry Fields Forever,” a song about an old army camp that was their first study in surrealism. Plus Paul created a memorable song about a street in Liverpool “Penny Lane.” The possibilities contained in these songs evolved into the album Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band Written by Paul was the song that started it all. It talked about the Mythical bandleader Sgt Pepper and his mythical Lonely Hearts Club Band. Paul didn’t have the Beatles in mind originally for the band or the fact that this would turn out to be a concept album. That wouldn’t occur until after the song was recoded. When it was recorded however they got the idea that it would be Sgt Pepper who introduces the band and all the following acts and at the end the band would tell everyone to go home

A Little Help From My Friends was written by John and Paul but sung by Ringo. it is an Image of a happy although not perfect childhood. Ringo as he had in yellow submarine and two years later on the album Abbey Road in Octopuses Garden sings from the point of view of a child. However his baritone voice unlike John Paul and Georges High Tenor voices could not be mistaken for a real child’s voice. However he is able to project a genuine childlike innocence and he understands kids better than any other Beatle. This song is not a heavy rocker it’s more of a light up-tempo soft shoe number with clean harmonies like the Beach Boys or a barbershop quartet sound.

Next we will explore Lucy and the Sky With Diamonds. This song is perhaps the most typical song on Sgt Pepper. However some thinks Lucy and the Sky with Diamonds is a reference to LSD. However it was a picture John’s son Julian illustrated, when he was five, about his fiend Lucy called Lucy and the Sky With Diamonds. John Said “The images were from Alice In Wonderland... There was also this image of a girl who would come to save me – a ‘girl with kaleidoscope eyes’- who would come out of the sky. It turned out to be Yoko but I hadn’t met Yoko yet. So maybe it should have been Yoko and the sky with diamonds.” Fortunately or unfortunately depending on opinions it wouldn’t have the LSD reference it would be YSD.

She’s Leaving Home was Paul writing about an article, about a seventeen-year-old girl who ran away from home. Her parents gave her everything money could by, but didn’t give her freedom to be who she wanted to be, which is what she wanted when she left home. What this song stood for was kids beginning to question their parents. The Girl who inspired this song was surprised at how much Paul got right about her. The only thing that wasn’t accurate was the man at the motor trade in real life he was a man from a gambling casino.

This is the only orchestral song up to this point that George Martin didn’t orchestrate. Paul wanted it recorded quickly but he was too busy. George martin stayed upset for a long time, however he didn’t think he had to change much of the orchestration, it was good enough.

Being For The Benefit of Mr. Kite was actually almost completely transposed from a circus poster from a performance at February 14, 1843 that John bought from an antique shop. John copied all of the words off the poster, and got upset when people thought he had a deeper meaning than he actually had. “ People want to know what the inner meaning of Mr. Kite was. There wasn’t any. I just did it. I shoved a lot of words together then shoved some noise on. I just did it. I didn’t dig the song when I wrote it. I didn’t believe in it when I was doing it. But nobody will believe it. They don’t want to. They want it to be important”.

In this song John wanted to have people “”get the feeling of the sawdust and the feeling of the ring” In this “The benefit of Mr. Kite”. “Lennon wanted the authentic Sound of a Steam Organ (or calliope but Martin told him none that existed could be played by hand (they were all played by punch cards). So Martian Took Tapes of old Victorian steam organs and asked the engineer to cut them into sections about a foot long. Then he told them to put them back together again at random The result, of course, made no sense in strictly musical terms, but it did produce the kind of aural wash Martin was looking for.

Within You Without You Was the furthest the Bealtes ever got from their usual sound. It also was the only song that George Harrison wrote and sung on this album. And it couldn’t be more different than Ringo’s only song “With a Little Help From My Friends.” This was the period when George was most heavily influenced by Indian music religion culture and philosophy he was so heavily influenced that the only figures he added to the album cover were Gurus. He Played Sitar and Tamboura, two Indian lute like instruments the first pled a melody the second supplied a drone. The other musicians played Sitar Dilruba Tamboura Tabla and Swordmandel along with eight violinists and Four Cellists supplied by George Martin.

Some people don’t like the song Within You Without You because of “The songs air of superiority and sanctimonious finger wagging at those ’who gain the world and loose their soul’ (‘are you one of them’)” as it turns out this song by George “is the conscience of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band the necessary sermon that comes with the community singing.”

The fist half of A Day in the Life was written by John Lennon John” I was reading about the Guinness heir who killed himself in a car. That was the main headline story. He died in a London car crash. On the next page was a story about four thousand potholes in the streets of Blackburn, Lancashire, that needed to be filled.” One interesting thing about the song is the almost frightening dauntlessness of the singer. Not just his voice but what he says an the Erie murky quality of the music manage to create a dreamlike and almost nightmarish atmosphere Paul contribution was the verse starting with the phrase Woke up fell out of bed which he also sang which started out as a song about everyday life.

The song A Day in the Life has an orchestra build up to a climax when the strings reach the final note which is resolved by a final chord at the end played by John Paul Ringo and Mal Evans on three pianos. The Beatles had previously tried a chorus singing the chord but found it too complex.

Finally and most importantly was the Album cover all four Beatles posed in band uniforms; all four of them sporting moustaches with a cover Made up of celebrities. John and Paul picked most of them. Most of George’s figures were gurus and Ringo said whatever you guys pick is fine with me. Some of these figures include Mae West, Carl Young, Edgar Allan Poe, H. G. Wells, Bob Dylan, Laurel and Hardy, Tony Curtis, Karl Marx, Dylan Thomas, Dr Livingstone, George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde, Lucile Ball, Marlin Brando, W.C. Fields, Shirley Temple, Cassius Clay, Lawrence of Arabia, Albert Einstein, and the wax models of the Bealtes.

 This album showed that the Beatles creativity was not drying up when it came to creating an album. They made a terrific comeback; Jimmy Hendrix made a hit version of The Sgt. Pepper song only two days after it’s released. And in fact the only negative criticism came from people who said the entire album was promoting the use of drugs. Lucy and the Sky with Diamonds were dubbed LSD. The line I’d love to turn you on in “A Day in the life” the only true drug reference was immediately seen through. Plus Henry the horse in Mr. Kite was thought to mean Heroin, which it didn’t. She’s Leaving Home was thought of as a leave your parents, and do some drugs song. The trippy music Within You Without You was thought to be promoting drug life too. Even the innocent With A Little Help From my Friends was thought to be a reference with getting high with a little help from “my friends” aka drugs. However this album did cause a revolution for peace and brotherhood that is closer to what it was promoting than just drugs and sex. This album was also what got the hippie flower power movement noticed. But it also commemorated the previous century and a half, Culture in all forms, and the sprit of music.

Sgt. Pepper was a triumph for the Beatles but it wasn’t their final triumph afterwards they had two more hit albums The White Album 1968 and Abbey Road1969. They also had a few flops the Album Let it Be released in 1970 however it was recorded actually before Abbey Road. The film Magical Mystery tour released the same year as Pepper was also a flop but the Album of the same title was a hit. The film Yellow Submarine 1968 which incorporated some song from Sgt. Pepper was also a hit; although the album released a year later with only three new Beatles songs was a flop. However the Bealtes today are more remembered for their hits then their misses and one of their biggest hits was “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.”