Tag: Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

Sgt Peppers Album Cover Art

Thanks to Dave who published this on TurnTable Talk. This time the subject was more of rock’s arty album covers…well of course I had to pick this one.

I’ll never forget buying the Sgt Pepper album. I bought it in 1977, 10 years after it was released, and I played it constantly. I remember opening it and finding this cool sheet of cardboard that contained a cutout mustache, paper pins, Sgt stripes, a cool photo of the Beatles, and Sgt Pepper himself! Thinking back…it’s cool that they included these 10 years after the release date. Here is what a 10-year-old Max found in the album. I wore that mustache for days.

Sgt Pepper Paper Items

 

I would venture to say that Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band is probably the most famous album by anyone. Personally, I never thought it was their best, but I know many Beatles fans who do think that. If they had added “Strawberry Fields Forever” and “Penny Lane” (which most bands would have done) and maybe dropped “Lovely Rita” and “When I’m 64”, then I would have probably considered it the best. Now, after saying that…I like both of those songs, don’t get me wrong. “ Lovely Rita” as a 10-year-old caught my attention. I think Revolver is very hard to beat and that is their best album artistically…personally as most of you know I have a soft spot for “The White Album” and that is my personal #1.

Sgt. Pepper’s is their most ambitious artistic statement, I think, but I listen to Revolver more often, I think it has higher replay value to me anyway. That is like comparing a great work of art by your favorite painter – you love both but see something else in one so it’s very subjective. As far as packaging… now that is where Sgt Pepper knocks it out of the park.

For really the first time on a massive scale, an album was like a work of art. The Beatles standing as Sgt Pepper’s band with a massive audience behind them. Beside them includes the younger Beatles and behind includes everyone from WC Fields to Lenny Bruce. John wanted Jesus and Hitler on the cover but was talked out of it by Sir Joesph Lockwood, the chairman of EMI.

It was designed by artists Peter Blake and Jann Haworth. The cover features the band members dressed in colorful, military-style outfits standing in front of a collage of life-sized cardboard cutouts of famous people. Surrounding The Beatles are cutouts of various cultural icons, artists, actors, musicians, and other notable figures. Some of these include Bob Dylan, Marilyn Monroe, Marlon Brando, Karl Marx, and Oscar Wilde.

There are five people still alive who were on the cover as of right now. Bob Dylan (top right), Dion DiMucci (smiling blond guy above and to the left of Lennon), Larry Bell (between Lennon and Starr), and obviously Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr.

The cover cost approximately £25,000 ((equivalent to £573,000 in 2023)) to produce, which was a significant amount for an album cover at the time. In comparison, most album covers in the 1960s typically cost around £50. The high cost was due to the elaborate design, the custom-made costumes, the creation of the collage with life-sized cutouts, and the use of wax figures borrowed from Madame Tussauds.

The Beatles recorded their debut album Please Please Me in a remarkably short amount of time. The entire recording process for the album took approximately 9 hours and 45 minutes of studio time. Now let’s fast forward five years from 1962 to 1966-67. The Beatles used up to 700 hours of recording time to record Sgt Pepper. The reason why is because they wanted more tracks than just four. They connected two four-track machines together and recorded the album. That wasn’t done all of the time, and they experimented as they went. This album is one of the most important in music history if only because of the newer recording techniques and how far music advanced because of it.

Going off different memories of the albums by people who were there by the time. Some of them said that all you had to do was walk down a UK street and you would hear it from the windows. It was massively popular and peaked at #1 on the Billboard Album Charts, #1 in Canada, and #1 in the UK in 1967. It also peaked at #1 on the Billboard CD charts in 1987 when it was re-released.

The following year The Band changed the course of music in some ways. they released Music From The Big Pink and influenced a generation. Bands started to play more earthy, more roots-oriented music. The Beatles did that by recording the rootsy “White Album”.

To close out…Sgt. Pepper was a game changer. Not one single was released from the album…it does need to be listened to as a whole.

A Day In The Life

I read the news today, oh boy
About a lucky man who made the grade
And though the news was rather sad
Well, I just had to laugh
I saw the photograph

He blew his mind out in a car
He didn’t notice that the lights had changed
A crowd of people stood and stared
They’d seen his face before
Nobody was really sure if he was from the House of Lords

I saw a film today, oh boy
The English Army had just won the war
A crowd of people turned away
But I just had to look
Having read the book
I’d love to turn you on

Woke up, fell out of bed
Dragged a comb across my head
Found my way downstairs and drank a cup
And looking up, I noticed I was late
Found my coat and grabbed my hat
Made the bus in seconds flat
Found my way upstairs and had a smoke
And somebody spoke and I went into a dream

I read the news today, oh boy
Four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire
And though the holes were rather small
They had to count them all
Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall
I’d love to turn you on

Beatles – Good Morning Good Morning

Somebody needs to know the time, glad that I’m here
Watching the skirts you start to flirt now you’re in gear

I was 10 when I bought Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band…10 years after it was released. It came with the same cutouts as it did in 1967. I remember taking hours and looking over the album cover. You would find faces you didn’t see before and I remember spotting Stuart Sutcliffe, the former Beatles bassist and the man who was most responsible for coming up with the band’s name.

Here is Stuart (left) on the cover and the picture they took it from. 

Stuart Sutcliffe on Sgt Pepper

The Cutout page that came with Sgt Pepper. 

Sgt Pepper Cutouts

The song started out with a rooster crowing and ends with a chicken clucking. Good Morning Good Morning was inspired by a Corn Flake commercial. Lennon would always leave the TV on and sometimes with the volume turned down. He saw an ad for Corn Flakes and the song came to him. “Good Morning Good Morning…the best to you each morning.” I’ll have the video at the bottom of the post.

As a youngster, I enjoyed this song and Lovely Rita. The only song that was hard for me to grasp on the album was Within You Without You…because it was so different. In time, it became one of my favorites on the album.

I love the horns in this song and McCartneys stinging guitar solo in this one. Ringo’s drumming also stands out on this track…the sound and the playing are outstanding. His cymbols sound like a steam engine with the compression they ran on them.

This song is one of the most technically challenging songs they wrote. It was highly aggressive and complex, with a loud french horn, animal noises, pounding drums, strong vocals, and a large amount of intricate strumming guitars. The time signature to this song is all over the place…3/4, 5/4, 4/4, 12/8… but the song doesn’t sound forced or disjointed. This track is an example of how great Ringo is as a drummer. This and his work on A Day In The Life. He had to play in many different styles because John, Paul, and George wrote so many different styles of songs.

One of the most interesting things about the song is the end of it. Various animal sounds are put together but they had a purpose. The animal sounds were dubbed in from a sound effects disc. They were arranged in order of creatures capable of eating or chasing the one before, at Lennon’s request. And at the very end…was a very cool effect. A clucking chicken suddenly turns into a guitar lick when it melts into Sgt Pepper’s Reprise.

Six brass players were involved in this session, three saxophonists, two trombonists, and one French horn player. George Martin was excellent at mixing horns with Beatle songs. Got To Get You Into My Life is another example of that. They are not regulated to the background like other songs. They are upfront and have a fat sound to them.

This song was also the first song The Beatles ever licensed, while they were together, to be used in a show. It was in the last Monkees episode (“The Frodis Caper”) which was totally surreal…not like the formula driven episodes of the first season. It was kinda like The Simpsons meet Green Acres.

John Lennon: “I often sit at the piano, working at songs, with the telly on low in the background, if I’m a bit low and not getting much done, then the words on the telly come through. That’s when I heard ‘Good morning, good morning.’ It was a corn flakes advertisement. I was never proud of it. I just knocked it off to do a song.”

Paul McCartney: “John was feeling trapped in suburbia and was going through some problems with Cynthia, it was about his boring life at the time. There’s a reference in the lyrics to ‘nothing to do’ and ‘meet the wife’; there was an afternoon TV soap called ‘Meet The Wife’ that John watched, he was that bored, but I think he was also starting to get alarm bells and so ‘Good morning, good morning.’”

Micky Dolenz (drummer for the Monkees): “And I’ll never forget it.  John Lennon looks up at me and says, ‘Hey Monkee Man!…You want to hear what we’re working on?’…And he points up to George Martin and I remember this so clearly…He’s wearing a three-piece suit…and he pushes a button on a four-track tape recorder and I hear the tracks to ‘Good Morning Good Morning.’…And then we sit around and then I remember some guy with a white coat and tie came in with tea…’Tea time, eh!’ And we sat around a little table and had really God-awful tea. And then everybody sat around and then we were chatting – ‘What’s it like, The Monkees?,’ me again trying to be so cool. And then I think it was John that went, ‘Right lads, down in the mines.’ And they went back to work.” .

Sgt Pepper

Just in case you wanted to know who was who on the cover. 

Sgt Pepper Cover who is who

This is the commercial that inspired John Lennon

I couldn’t find a version of Good Morning Good Morning going into the Sgt Pepper Reprise. You have to listen to the end of Good Morning and the beginning of the Reprise to hear it. The album of course plays them together…there is no space between the songs. 

Good Morning Good Morning

Nothing to do to save his life call his wife in
Nothing to say but what a day how’s your boy been
Nothing to do it’s up to you
I’ve got nothing to say but it’s okay
Good morning, good morning

Going to work don’t want to go feeling low down
Heading for home you start to roam then you’re in town
Everybody knows there’s nothing doing
Everything is closed it’s like a ruin
Everyone you see is half asleep
And you’re on your own you’re in the street
Good morning, good morning

After a while you start to smile now you feel cool
Then you decide to take a walk by the old school
Nothing has changed it’s still the same
I’ve got nothing to say but it’s okay
Good morning, good morning

People running round it’s five o’clock
Everywhere in town is getting dark
Everyone you see is full of life
It’s time for tea and meet the wife
Somebody needs to know the time, glad that I’m here
Watching the skirts you start to flirt now you’re in gear
Go to a show you hope she goes
I’ve got nothing to say but it’s okay
Good morning, good morning

cat, dogs barking, horses, sheep, lions, elephants, a fox being chased by dogs with hunters’ horns being blown, then a cow and finally a hen.