Capitol 2653
Producer: George Martin
Track listing: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band / With a Little Help From My Friends / Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds / Getting Better / Fixing a Hole / She’s Leaving Home / Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite! / Within You Without You / When I’m Sixty-Four / Lovely Rita / Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise) / A Day in the Life
July 1, 1967
15 weeks
“Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band grabbed the world of music by the scruff of the neck and shook hard,” says producer George Martin. “It drove a splitting wedge right through to the core of popular music. Many people see it as a watershed… Yet the Beatles themselves never pretended they were creating great art … They just wanted to do something different.”
Although the Beatles had scored two Number One albums in 1966 with Rubber Soul and Revolver, that year “had been a bit of a disaster,” Martin says. “There were death threats following John Lennon’s controversial remarks about the Beatles being more popular than Jesus. Also, the band had vowed never to tour again. “By the time they started work on Pepper, the Beatles had been on their treadmill for four years. They weren’t only sick of the constant attention and media pressure, there were signs that many fans were disenchanted, too,” Martin says. “So the Beatles decided to get back to what they loved — making music.”
One of the first songs the band recorded when it entered EMI Studios in December 1966 was “Strawberry Fields Forever,” which set the tone for Pepper, but did not make it on the album. Instead, it was released as the flip side to “Penny Lane” in February 1967 and later turned up on the band’s Magical Mystery Tour album.
“When I’m Sixty-Four” was the first track recorded that actually made it onto the album, but Pepper didn’t really begin to take shape until early 1967. McCartney, on a plane ride to America, came up with the Sgt. Pepper’s concept. The Beatles found that they didn’t have to be the Beatles. They could don a new identity, and did so in the title track, which served as an introduction to the first concept album. “The opening track gave John [Lennon] and Paul the opportunity and the idea to write a song for Ringo [Starr],” says Martin. “The Billy Shears character helped make Pepper work and gave it a bit of direction.”
That song, “With a Little Help from My Friends,” was written specifically for Ringo’s limited but distinctive vocal style. “Paul actually wrote the song very cleverly, based on no more than five adjacent notes,” says Martin.
One night, while in the studio, Lennon began to feel ill. He had taken LSD, but despite the rumors and coincidence of the initials, that wasn’t the inspiration for “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” Says Martin, “It had absolutely nothing to do with LSD and everything to do with the mind of a child.” The song was inspired by a drawing by Lennon’s son, Julian, of a classmate named Lucy.
The album’s most striking track is “A Day in the Life.” While Lennon came up with the initial idea after reading a news clipping about a car accident, it was the collaboration between him and McCartney that made the song a classic. “John had no fixed ideas of the way the song should be arranged,” says Martin. “He was stumped in the middle section. He asked his mate if he had anything suitable. Paul had written a scrap of a song. Although it had little to do with the opening lines, it served as an effective counterpoint to John’s creation.”
Perhaps the most amazing fact about Pepper is that it was recorded on a four-track, meaning Martin had to come up with inventive ways to get all of the Beatles, strings, brass, and sound effects on tape.
It took more than 600 hours for the Beatles to complete their masterpiece, but only two weeks for it to top the album chart following its release. Popular music would never be the same.
THE TOP FIVE
Week of July 1, 1967
1. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles
2. Headquarters, The Monkees
3. Sounds Like… , Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass
4. I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You, Aretha Franklin
5. Surrealistic Pillow, Jefferson Airplane