So I wrote the track listing first for this album, because its easier when you are Sgt. Pepper’s thats pretty easy, so I intend to get round to the openings that I have yet to do in the weekend. With cover’s and backstory like these, I have no intention of leaving them behind. I mean, there’s no ceremony going on that would distract me. That would be ludicrous. Hope you are all well!
Track by Track
“Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”: In a holistic way the titular opening track, whose creation instigated the whole concept, also exemplifies ideas that the band would have expanded on by the time the album finished, as the strings which open the album were also taken from the orchestra for “A Day in the Life”. As the symbol of the psychedelic movement in American art, it’s strange then that the most memorable trait of this song, its brass band accompaniments, are more a tribute to the Northern mining towns where the Beatles spent many of their first shows (also highlighted in the pastiche way Paul introduces the band and show). Then of course there the guitar work by George, with its piercing and precise wails. It’s not that shocking that Jimi Hendrix would hear this song and these guitars, and within three days include a cover in his live shows (the first being to the band themselves).
“With A Little Help From My Friends”: So I wonder how the pitch meeting went when the band introduced this song concept to Ringo. “We’ve written a song specifically for yourself about how you haven’t got the best singing voice in the word and need us for support. Sound good?” Well the answer is yes, it does sound good. The limited range, as well as being endearing, also makes that final high note all the more rewarding. Also of note is Ringo’s drum, as simple and effecting as his vocals (and his optimistic responses to the band’s calls), until the gaps where the drum fills have the quintessential Ringo stumble. Ultimately though this is just one of the best singalong songs of all time and let’s face it, when we all sing this at karaoke we are more Ringo Starr than Joe Cocker.
“Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds”: The point where the concept pretty mostly runs its course, and we just get some great songs instead. Let’s get this out of the way; John has always said this was inspired by his child’s painting and Alice in Wonderland, and that the LSD initials were always a coincidence. I’m not one to call a dead man a liar, but if you completely buy that, would you also like to buy some magic beans? But what’s really important is that this cumulative influence creates some of the most imaginative vistas ever conjured for a song, with John’s vocal delivery floating along like the boat on which we are said to be travelling. Also helping us to drift along is the elongated notes of his tamura, and Paul’s constantly ascending and descending organs, all building up to the chorus, where time changes and every instrument just takes flight.
“Getting Better”: In many ways this song is like a mirror to “Help!” only two years prior (which is pretty incredible). It definitely shows a more optimistic and hopeful from of John, but the harmonies are equally as glib and sarcastic (though here the falsetto cries of “it can’t get no worse” are genuinely comic, a knack the Beatles even in serious subject matter were master at). It clashes an inherently pleasant and positive tone with some dark and personal subject matter, especially the verses that highlight John’s own history of not being so peace and loving to his wife. Of all the tracks on Sgt. Pepper this is one of the least psychedelic, but the staccato panning guitars and Indian drones still give of the sense of the unreal, even with such human subject matter. And, like all the greatest inspirational tracks, it is one that is able to show the horrible sides of people to show how we can still overcome them (even if, as would be made clear, John could not always practice what he preached).
“Fixing a Hole”: Much of Sgt Pepper deals with subject about the mundanity of normal life, and here Paul combines that with the album’s psychedelic mood both by expanding on his classical influences (that clavichord) and picking a title so ubiquitous yet standing on its own looking so odd. Not as grand as its obvious forebear from Revolver, “For No One”, and compared to the songs that surround it a bit glib, but adds much to the palette with crackling guitar work and Paul indulging on his Beach Boy’s harmonies
“She’s Leaving Home”: Also known as an worthwhile thing that came from a Daily Mail article. Taken from a newspaper story young women (Melanie Coe) who had run away from home, Paul set to write a song about this incident. It’s already a great document to ever changing dynamic to But what gives this song a particularly emotional edge, and raises the song to one of the best on the album – its only competition being the most obvious – is the inclusion of John as a Greek Chorus that speaks from the position of the parents, singing with anguish about all the compromises and sacrifices that they had made for their daughter, only for her now to leave them (it also contains a pointed nod to the song “Can’t Buy Me Love”, and here its main message not a brag, but a tragedy). All this set to a baroque, melancholic orchestra arranged by George Martin with harps like tip-toeing feet, and strings that flow like parental tears.
“For the Benefit of Mr Kite”: Side One ends with a song that, albeit vaguely, ties back into the meta-theatrical, conceptual framework that the album was originally going for by setting its action in a circus! The result of this inspiration (and also some references to heroin that, again, may or may not be coincidental) is maybe the single strangest song the band made that wasn’t composed of sound clips, with organs and drum patterns constantly changing rhythms, time signatures, moods that make you feel like you are tightrope walking whilst holding flames and jumping hoops, grabbing hold of a trapeze liked a tired metaphor.
“Within You and Without You”: Maybe as a sign of how much this was a McCartney-led project, George Harrison only brought one original composition of his own into the equation, and only sang one lead. But that song, which opens Side Two, is a doozy that would be the longest song the band would make until someone wouldn’t let John get off the tapedecks. If you thought wasn’t kidding about his love of Indian Classical Music before, than he’ll convince you here, with a long meditative drone about the kind of philosophies about love and the cosmos that permeate pretty much the entirety of this album. As a segment of a broader album, it’s baggy compared to its surroundings (though makes a hell of an epic opener). But as an individual song by itself, its all the better to mellow out an ruminate about the ever connectivity of the universe and flowing subjective/objective nature of the human condition. You know, the popular stuff.
“When I’m Sixty Four”: This is said to be one of the first songs that Paul ever wrote, and while it has that kind of charmingly simple structure that makes one lower their defences (especially after the last song), its pretty clear from both instrumentation and structure it has been tampered with since then. But in a song about old age love – perhaps an intentional mirror to “She’s Leaving Home” on the other side – the most pronounced decision on the album was to raise the original recording by a semitone, thus making his voice sound both younger and more nostalgic (about the future? Is that possible?). Oh, and the very Scottish way Paul pronounces “grandchildren on your knee” is delightful.
“Lovely Rita”: So it looks like even the fictional Sgt. Pepper band were getting off with multiple women while on the road. This is probably the most “filler” track on the whole album, and therefore the worst, but I just appreciate how ridiculous this is, from the moans to the human maracas to the full on orgasm great down, this absurdity is emphasised by the holy nature of both Paul’s and George Martin’s piano work. Oh, and all my life I have been pretty convinced he says “we on her”. Call me disgusting, but no human being in history has ever pronounced “win” like that.
“Good Morning Good Morning”: The thing about the best Beatles songwriting is that the complexity doesn’t wave your face with its technical brilliance, despite there being so much going on (a message that the wankier side of progressive rock could learn from). A good example is this song, which sounds like one of the more novel and simple tracks on the album until you try and pin its time signature down. It’s there that you find the band rocking an ever changing and evolving groove, punctuated by the constant march of Ringo’s drum and the deceptive melody of that brass section. Also, I’ve always loved how the animal noises morph into the next track so seamlessly that George’s guitar sounds like a cock’s crow.
“Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)”: It’s not a contest, but I’ve always preferred this reprisal of the opening track more than the original. There’s something about Ringo’s beat and the thunderous guitars that is even more energising than the song that started the whole thing off. The harmonies have a grand musical feel to them to makes us feel, even though most of the album has drifted away from the idea of an interconnected event, that we’ve just a singular show and this is the epic farewell. Only, it’s not…
“A Day in the Life”: Sgt. Pepper’s iconic end notes (or should that be iconic end note. Or end sounds) come from almost without question the album’s best, most popular, most epic, most emotional and maybe even most influential song. That on release was a B-Side. Many articles, even whole books, point to this being the Beatles single best creation, and being in my Top Three with “In My Life” doesn’t have too far from disagreeing with them (only one song beating it in my mind). As such there’s not much I can say about this song that hasn’t been dissected about this song, a musical collage from John wilting piano shifting towards Paul’s whimsy, all hung together by George’s acoustic melodies, Ringo’s often imitated but never equaled drum fills and the connective tissue of George Martin’s orchestration, making the mundane sound epic in a way that not even other Beatles song were able to top again. But if I can say anything its that maybe this is so often pointed to as “the” Beatles song is that it’s the song that most points to the dynamic of the Beatles, the one that best exemplifies the band’s creative process and what makes them, well, The Beatles. But then, what were the Beatles? There may be no Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band, but the final looping montage of voices showed to world that even the Beatles of a year ago had gone, never to see it any other way.
While the reputation of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band might precede it on occasion, with a predominate Paul focus, a clear break from original concept and one or two lesser tracks, that basically means in a roster of perfect Beatles albums its only slightly less so (especially when it has an uncontroversial candidate for the best song they wrote). And like its iconic, character-bursting cover, it was a sign of how they could make something so unified out of material so diverse. So much material that all of it couldn’t fit on one album. No, they had to save that for a TV movie, apparently…
What did you think though?
The Beatles Album Rankings
- Revolver
- Rubber Soul
- Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
- A Hard Day’s Night
- Beatles for Sale
- Please Please Me
- Help!
- With the Beatles