What could I possibly say about this album that hasn’t already been said? Sgt. Peppers’ Lonely Hearts Club Band is one of the most prolific albums of all time. A product of one of music’s greatest back-and-forths (Rubber Soul to Pet Sounds to Sgt. Peppers), the Beatles bring forth a genre-fluid masterpiece that checked off a whole lot of firsts within music. The album was the first time we ever saw the entire lyrics printed on the album sleeve and better yet, it was the first time a “gatefold” sleeve design was used. The external surprises weren’t the only ones. Upon pulling the record out, you’d discover a red psychedelic sleeve rather than the plain ones many listeners were used to at the time. It also came with a cardboard cut-out sheet of different things relating to the album including a mustache. It was also the first major rock album to be released without a designated single and utilized 33 rpm vinyl which at the time was typically exclusive to more “sophisticated” genres like classical and jazz. Sgt. Peppers was dignifying the rock star as an artist
.
A momentous project, Sgt. Peppers also included a 40-piece orchestra (this orchestra was also overdubbed to sound like it was 160 pieces on the album) and even went as far as to intentionally use a 15-kilocycle tone on the song “A Day In The Life” because John Lennon wanted it to “annoy dogs.” The album itself reflects its external qualities beautifully. A recording masterpiece, Sgt. Peppers marries psychedelia and classical composition and takes it to a whole other level.
While the album is considered a concept album, plot-wise it only really appears in about three songs. I think that this works to its advantage, the energy and eclecticism are constant thematically throughout. We are kicked straight into this storyline to the sound of an orchestra tuning. Then we are introduced to Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, a ragtag rock band headed by the one and only Billy Shears (Ringo Starr) who are performing in front of a live audience. The song which the title of the album takes from is a riveting opener. We are not eased in but thrown into the colorful surrealist world envisioned by Paul McCartney.
As Billy Shears is announced to us for the first time at the start of “With A Little Help From My Friends”, we are shocked to find the first real song of the album is being sung by Ringo Starr. An unusual pick that is so well done in the context of this album. It’s light-hearted and surprisingly tender and gets at an overarching theme of love. While this song also marks where we start to move further and further away from the intended plot concept, we still have a moment where both the Beatles and the Lonely Hearts Club Band share a true moment of comradery and we as the audience feel it too. The song’s lower tone is perfect for Starr’s voice and this song is a nice reminder to us Beatles fans of the friendship and bond that the Fab Four shared. After this album (while definitely hinted at since Revolver), the four boys in black suits slowly start to dignify themselves as not only grown men but individuals eventually leading to many conflicts, lawsuits, and even songs insulting each other. The thought of this song as the prelude right before all of this is bittersweet and yet it still carries so much warmth within it.
Up next in the album is “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds”. Where “Tomorrow Never Knows” off of Revolver might come off as inaccessible, “Lucy In The Sky” functions as an excellent introduction to psychedelic music especially for the average listener. Its verses, sung by John Lennon, sit in this floaty dream-like space before kicking into a punchy bright chorus allowing a universal ability for engagement. The Beatles' influences from Eastern music and their following of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi are re-introduced to us since Revolver in the form of George Harrison’s lead guitar part which imitates the style of a sarangi player.
We then go into what could be considered one of the more minor tracks on the album, “Getting Better.” In a very McCartney fashion, it’s bright and wistful. This song has a very interesting feeling that’s reminiscent of the Beatles when they first started out. It’s rebellious, and rock-influenced, but has later elements that were incorporated in the Lennon/McCartney writing style. This song’s place in the album also touches on an entire opposite of a later song, “She’s Leaving Home” which focuses on a much more adult-centric theme of caring, longing, and love from the perspective of a parent rather than an exuberant rebellious youth on the come up of life. This song also is a sweet love letter to Jimmy Nichols who filled in for Ringo Starr during one of his many hospitalizations while the band was on tour. Nichols in response to being asked how he was getting along would always say “It’s getting better.”
That phrase could not be better to describe the rest of this album. Up next is “Fixing a Hole”, another intriguing bit in the Beatles’ canon, specifically Paul’s. It’s sweet and simple and hints toward a later domestic version of Paul which may have been spurred on by his relationship with Linda McCartney whom he met during the recording of the album. It also reminds me of a certain light romantic quality that stays consistent with Paul even through his solo career in albums like McCartney.
After this sugary easy-to-digest interlude we are thrown into one of the heavier songs on the album, “She’s Leaving Home.” The song comes from a unique perspective often not heard of in popular music, that of a concerned parent. While 60s’ music did not shy away from singing about parental advice or parents in general (“I Can Tell” by Leslie Gore is a great example), the perspective of a parent is very different. Not only this but a parent whose child has run away supposedly from a life where she could have had everything. It’s mournful and as we sympathize for and yearn with the parents, the song feels so freeing, like we are the girl stepping out of the house. This also reflects a newfound maturity in McCartney who was known for his absorption in the London avant-garde scene.
We are not encumbered by loss for long. John Lennon delivers the strange carnival-esque “Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite!” which directly takes its lyrics from a circus poster. The sound, title, and lyrics are incredibly on the nose and given that fantastical resonance through the usage of harmoniums, harmonicas, and calliopes.
In George Harrison fashion, we are given yet another callback to the Beatles' love for Eastern music which especially affected Harrison: “Within You Without You”. We are now hearing Harrison’s experimental usage of the sitar heard as early as Rubber Soul expanded out into tabla, dilrubas, and tamburas. It’s somber and aims to give us at least some levity at the very end with a laugh played before taking us back into what seems like Paul’s domain: “When I’m 64.” Whereas “Within You Without You” rejects many western conventions, some which the LP itself also rejects, “When I’m 64” has the sound of western domesticity. The song itself, a congregation of pop and ragtime, is actually a tribute to McCartney’s father. Again, in McCartney fashion it’s simple and saccharine which is hammered in by the usage of chromatism.
Following this is another McCartney track and one of my personal favorites. A total earworm, “Lovely Rita” is a fun and bouncy satire on authority once again highlighting the duality of the Beatles (especially Paul) now and then (props to you if you get the pun). Intensely metallic percussion and a jangly melody accompanied by Paul McCartney's vocals and the dreamy floating background vocals of Lennon make it hard to resist the sheer delight of this song. It has a fun almost strange breakdown instrumental in the final bit where you can hear quick breaths presumably from Paul that almost feels like the diet version of the cacophonous dissonance in the crescendos of “A Day In The Life” that are to come.
We are brought back and grounded by the sound of a rooster before being brought into the upbeat “Good Morning Good Morning.” This offers a much more avant-garde view of suburban life, a theme that is almost constant throughout the album. The time signatures flux throughout the song as different sounds of animals consume one another until it’s a single horn and the chatter of dogs and their tags. What really brings this song home is the creative liberties taken by George Martin in the mixing, partially advised by Lennon who requested the addition of the animal sounds. Martin also spiced up the backing vocals and made a complimentary mix to what Lennon would later call “a piece of garbage.” This song by no means is one of the Beatles’ masterpieces but I think it fits snugly into Sgt. Peppers although the chances are this song won’t be your biggest takeaway walking away from the album.
After abandoning the concept throughout the album, the Beatles bring it back to tie everything neatly with a bow before the final movement. The reprisal of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” opens on a broken-down hollow beat and minimalistic instrumentation compared to the start of the album. It’s a fun tidbit to include and although it warns us of the nearing end of the album and the Lonely Hearts Club Band’s performance, in no way could it prepare us for what comes next.
John Lennon’s soft hazy singing lulls us into “A Day In The Life” like the calm before the storm. The lyrics here are also uncharacteristically dark, especially for music in the 60s’; detailing the suicide of a man in his car (“He blew his mind out in a car”) inspired by the death of a friend of the Beatles, Tara Browne, who had died in a car crash a year before recording the album. This section also features an atypical drum part played by Ringo Starr which is uncharacteristically barren outside of fills thrown in before the pickup. A personal favorite element of the song is the intentional tremolo in Lennon’s voice particularly on the line “I’d love to turn you on.” We are then led into the first dissonant anxiety-inducing crescendo, one of the most memorable aspects of the song and the entire album as a whole. Lennon and McCartney ditched their initial easy-listening psychedelia for something much more abstract. This is more art now than what we consider popular music and that is the exact way it should be. It’s cut at the very end with an intense horn section before jumping into a bright section sung, of course, by Paul McCartney who is awoken by the sound of an alarm clock before expressing his excitement to get on with the day. It directly juxtaposes the section sung by Lennon prior. This section is almost musical theater with its piano melody. Lennon soon comes back to take us into the gauzy space most of his vocal features on the album reside while the instrumental bridge (known as the “dream sequence”) becomes more anthemic with an almost imperial. Then the instrumental of McCartney’s section is placed underlying the verse of Lennon’s. This is where the album once again lulls the common listener into thinking “Yes, this makes sense.” It almost emulates the push and pull of “Lucy In The Sky.” We do not feel this ease for long. The final section of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is a 30-minute aleatoric orchestra crescendo that makes the hairs on the back of one’s neck prick up. It’s hard to interpret and confuses us in a way that is unpleasant and uncomfortable and never resolves in a truly satisfying way; that is the exact way it should be. This shows the power that the Beatles now hold as recording artists who are truly embracing the studio without the burden of live performance. The album finally ends (unless we include the sampling that sits on the dead wax) in silence before a resounding E-Major chord rings for what feels like an eternity.
Sgt. Peppers is a work of art that has changed the way music is produced and distributed to the public to this day. It changed the view of the rock band from just groups of performers to having the potential to be artists and visionaries. This album is a work of avant-garde masterpiece built on double-tracking, tape effects, and studio technology. The Beatles changed music in the US and the UK in an album. Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band is an essential record for any collector and anyone who dares call themselves a lover of music. Even if some of the songs wouldn’t play on my day-to-day rotation, I don’t think I could imagine this album any other way.
Listen to the album here!