We were getting a little bit fed up of being

The Beatles ... It was all getting so bloody

predictable. I said, why don't we pretend that
we're another band. Make up a name for it
John Lennon ceded the
musical direction of the
and make up an identity, make up alter egos,
Beatles to Paul McCartney just pretend, so we can make a whole album
during the Sgt. Pepper's jom the point of view of this other band.
Lonely Hearts Club Band
sessions, in early 1967,
bur the spirit of the time Paul McCartney on Sgt. Pepper, I989
did not elude him: this was
his psychedelic caravan,
complete with the Sgt.
Pepper drumhead.
 The Beatles

Towards $9t. Pepper 1966- 7

In 1966, the Beatles seemed to go out of their way to court trouble.

They were the cause of riots in Japan and the Philippines, and ar the
centre ora religious controversy in the USA. They had deaded ir was
time to speak out against the war in Viemam, and a[though they
couched their comments in broadly pacifist terras, their criticism was
not universally well received. There was further consternation when,
pressed by reporters, McCarmey admitted that the band had experi
mented with drugs. And to top ir ali off, reports that they would
no Ionger toLtr gave rise to rumours that they were breaking tlp. Bur
~966 was also the year of Revolver, ah album with which they would
increase the creative distante between themselves and everyone else
in pop. Ir was the year that saw the recording of 'Strawberry Fields
Forever', and the beginning of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band,
the defining album ofthe summer of I967.
Because ofa scheduling fluke, the Beatles had a virtually clear
calendar for.the first four months ofthe year. Epstein had hoped that
they would spend these months making a film, as they had done the
previous two years. Bur be had not counted on the Beatles' increasing
wilfillness. After Help~ they demanded script approval, and then
refused to approve any.
During this break, Lennon and Starr flew to Trinidad with their
wives. Harrison married Pattie Boyd on zi January and flew offfor a
honeymoon. And McCarmey stayed in London, voraciously soaking
up new influences. He attended conter ts of ~~ew works by Luciano
Berio and Karlheinz Stockhausen, and became interested in electronic
music. He developed a taste for the visual avant garde to match bis
new listening habits, and started collecting works by Henri Magritte
and other twentieth-century Surrea[ists. And he helped start the
International Times, a London underground newspaper.
Ali the Beatles set up home studios wherc they could tinker with
sounds, record ideas that carne to them, and make demonstration
tapes to p[ay to the others in the studio. And when they gathered ar
TowardsSgt PeDper1966 7 137

Gg0rge H0rrJs0n c~fter his

wedding to Pattie Bayd, o
rnodel be had met on lhe
ser ot A Hard Day's Ni~bl
Tkhey were divorced in 1977
(Patti~ had left Harrison for
the guilorist Eric Clapton
in 1974}, ond Horrison
mar ried Olivia Ar[as on
2 Seplember 1978

Abbey Road on 6 April, they brought with them some outlandish

ideas. In fact the song they began work on that first night, Lennon's
'Tomorrow Never Knows' (the title was another Starr malapropism),
was a harbinger ofthe experimentation to come. Lennon's lyric was
~r stranger and more imagistic than anything he had previously
brought to the studio, lnspired by The Psychedelic Experiente, a rein-
terpretaon ofthe Tibetan Book ofthe Dead, by the LSD proponents
Timothy Leary and Richard Albert, the lyric recommcnds:

Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream

it is not dying, ir is not dying.
Lay down all thought, surrender to the void
It is shining, it is shining.

In 1965, Lennon had induded cagey references to being high in bis

lyrics; here, only the most ngive lisrener cou[d have doubted the
song's provenance in the world of hallucinognic drugs.
Reduced to its melodic and harmonic essendals, 'Tomorrow Never
Knows' has very litde in it. hs simple melody floats over a single
chord, with a momentary fluctuation rather than a full-fledged chord

joined end to end so that their sounds keep repeating that Lennon
Abbey Road engineer, to address Lennon's desire to double his vocais
Lonnon during lho }ilming
of a promotional video clip
~of 'Rajn'
Tho Boalles
changc at the end of each verse. But what an cxtraordinary sound
sculpture ir is. The unchanging harmony invited a drone from
Harrison's sitar and a sustained organ tone. McCarmey and Starr
collaborate on an almost ritualistic bass and drum figure, steady,
pounding and repetitive, with thc drums dosely mike(J and dectroni-
cally compressed to gire them a more visceral feeL There are splashes
of piano and backward guitars, and a chaotic overlay of electronic
sounds, drawn from the bags of tape loops - bits of recording tape
and McCarmey had made ar home. And there is Lennon's hauntingly
disembodied lead vocal.
Two new techniques were used to create the peculiar vocal sound.
One was Artificial Doub[e Tracking, invented by Ken Townsend, ah
without bothering to sing them twice. Townsend realized that be
could create the illusion of double-tracking by taking the vocal, delay-
ing it about thirty milLiseconds, and combining the delayed version
with the original. Doing this meant modififing the tape machines so
that their speeds could be varied gradually- an efl'ct for which the
Beatles soon found other uses.
To w o r d s S g t . P e p p e r 1 9 6 6 7 139

The second technique was more radical. Lennon had described the
sound be wanted as that of'thousands of monks chanting', or 'like
the Dalai Lama singing on a hilltop'. Failing dmse, he wanted to put
his voice through the rotating Leslie speaker that gires the Hammond
otgan its characteristic oscillating sound. Doing so meant dissecting
the organ and rewifing the speaker. Bur ar that point, tbe Beatles'
wishes were the engineers' commands.
In fact for the next two and a hall mortths Abbey Road became
an electronic wonderland for the Beatles, with virtually every session
yielding rtew techniques. The use of backward guitar sounds in
'Tomorrow Never Knows' led to further experiments. Some may have
been serendipitous: Lennon always said that he decided to add a
backward vocal to the coda of 'Rain' after taking home a tape ofthe
song in progrcss, accidentally tbreading ir backwards on bis tape
recorder, and li!dng what he heard. Bur in interviews from the rime,
Martin said that the backward vocal was his idea.
Other uses of backwazd sounds were carefully planned. To pro
duce the backward guitar solos in Lennon's gloriously letha*gic Tm
Only Sleeping', Harrison worked out tbe solos he wanted them to
play, wrote them down in reverse order, and then overdubbed them
onm a tape running bac~'ards. Complicating matters, Harrison
wanted to combine a distorted fuzz guitar and a straight guita* sound,
and so recorded two sets ofbackward solos. The operation took a full
six hours.
'l'm Only Sleeping' was also one ofseveral recordings in which
the Beatles tinkered with tape speeds. Wl{en Mar tin recorded his
piano solo for 'In My Life', the fcilities offered only Full ajld hall"
speed recording. But now, af*er Townsend's innovations, tape speed
was flexible. Fascinated with the subtle timbre changes that toying
with tape speeds yielded, they began recording songs with machines
running slighdy slow, so that they sounded Faster when played back
ar normal speed, or vice versa. That explains the sped-up quality
of Lennon's vocal on Tm Only Sleeping' and McCarmey's on 'For
No One.
*. ~~
For 'Yellow Submarine', the charming fantasy song thatennon
and McCarmey composed for Starr to sing, the Beatles raided EMI's
cupboards in search ofsound effects. With the technical staff taking
part, chey dragged chains through a bathtub filled with water, blew
Towards Sgt Pepper 1966-7 141

Starting in 1965, MCgrtney

[le ft) sometimes played lead
guilar on Beatles r~cordings,
and be is heard in thal
capaity on severr of lhe
Sgr Pepper Iracks Hari$on,
(be?owI of course, relained
~he lead guitarist position
ofl]cially, and indeed his
laying had grown
considerably: during these
sossions be ontHbuted an
u nusually xollsJv@ solo to
M cCrlney's 'Fix[ng a Hole"

As lhe Betles' music grew

more complicaled, so did
Lennon's and McCar~ney's
demonds on Starr's
percussion lalents Starr
once complined that they
seemed to want a drummer
wilh four aftas, and [ndeed,
at lhis 1967 session,
McCor tney Ioaned hJ$ two
~o lhe task ~n hand
 The B~mle~

bubblcs in a bucket and n'ied out noises ofall sorts. And there were
more overdubs: a btass band was brought in to ptay a circusy figure,
and a crowd of friends and spouses turned up to sing the chorus.
Although the raboo against ourside musicians had fallcn during
the Help!sessions, no outsidcrs playcd on Rubber SouL But now any
inhibitions about that fali away. Two weeks before the bruss was
added to 'Yellow Submasine', McCarmey requested that trumpets
and saxophones be added m his soulful 'Got to Get You Into My
Life'. Alan Civil, a French horn soloist wdl known in classical circles,
was brought in m play the agile solo on 'For No One'. Harrison
invited the tabla player Ani| Bhagwat to add an improvisarory percus-
sion part to bis sitar-centred 'Love You To'. And no longer needing
to be persuadcd that strings could work on a Beatlcs recording,
McCarmey asked Martin to write a string score (ah octet this rime)
for 'E[eanor Rigby'.
Some ofthe songs demanded more traditional rock instrumenta-
tion. Har rison's 'Taxman'. which opens the record, is a plain rocker,
with a sizzlingly virtuosic guitar solo - not by Harrison, but by
McCarmey, whose facility had clearly outstripped that ofthe band's
lead guitadst. Lennon's 'Doctor Rohert' and ~md Your Bird Can
Sing' are also straightforward guitar, bass and drums pieces, the latter
distinguishcd by a ~bulous electric guitar obbligato multitracked in
thirds by Harrison to create a running chordal efect. McCarmey's
lighter, bouncier, piano-based 'Good Day Sunshine', and the gor-
geous 'Here, There and Everywhem' are also free of fancy effects and
orchestral overdubs.
MCarmey's 'Paperback Writer' and Lennon's 'Rain', the songs
chosen for release as a sing~e, also kept largely to the ciassic Beatles
instrumentation, although they are notably punchier than anything
the Bcatles had released so lar. On first hearing, 'Paperback Writer'
was a knock-out, lts introduction has Lennon, McCarmey and
Harrison announcing the song's tide in a brisk, a cappella chorai
flourish, out ofwhich spills ah energetic guitar riff. This is, for once,
rmt a love song, but a piece of epistolary fiction a letter from ah
author anxious to hawk his i,ooo-page novel. [t has some structural
oddities. There is no bridge, merdy two verses, a reptise of the intro
ductory a cappella section, two more verses, another a cappella section
anda coda.
To w a ~ s S g l ~ p p ~ r 1 9 6 6 7 143

Like 'Tomorrow Never Knows', the song rests on a single chord,

with a briefchange at the chorus. This barmonic minimalism is not
accidental. Ar the end ofi965, McCarmey told an interviewer that
one ofhis goals was 'to write a song with just one note', something he
thought Lennon had come close to doing in 'The Word'. McCarmey
is too much ofa melodist to accomplish that, but by reducing thc
harmonic movement, he has kept his melody constricted, Moreover,
hc disguises this simplicity with a driving, melodic bass line, tactile
layered percussion and intermittent vocal harmonies, a]l of which
distract the ear from the song's lack ofharmonic variet~
'Rain' has erements in common with 'Paperback Writer', although
it is more virtuosic ali around. Starr opens the song with two quick
snare bursts, and then continues with one ofthe most energetic,
complcx and unccasingly fascinating drum parts he evcr recorded.
Paralleling McCarmey's song, there is an introductory guitar riff that
runs, in various guises, through thc song, surrounded by a bagpipc
[ike drone.
McCarmey's bass, placed out front in the mix, is an ingenious
counterpoint that takes him ali over the fretboard. Yet even when it
does comparatively litt[e, ir can be the most interesting e[ement of
the performance. Ar the chorus, for example, while Lennon and
McCartncy harmoniz~e in fourths on a melody with a slighdy Middle
Eastern tinge, McCarmey first points up the song's droning character
by hanamering on a high G (approachcd with a quick slidc flora the
F natural just below ir), playing ir steadily on the beat for twenty suc-
cessive beats. The next time thc chorus comes around, though, be
plays somcthing entirely different, a slightly syncopated descending
three-rlote pattern that almost seems to evoke the falling rain.
'Rain' is not about much. Lennon simply observes that people seek
shelter from both rain and shine, bur that be doesfft mind either way.
The remarkable thing, of course, is that after six a[bums and elevea
singles, ali packed with songs about love, or the lack ofit, Lennon
and McCarmey had discovered that there werc othcr things to sing
about, and both Revolver and this, daeir twelfth single, were en[ivened
by that discovery. Revolveropens with Harrison's complaint about
Eng[and's tax system, which was siphoning offninety tive per cent of
his earnings. Image~ ofloneliness and alienation - an old woman
picking up the rice after a wedding, a minister writing sermons that
 TheBealls

no one heaes - haunt 'EIeanor Rigby'. And Lennon's ~knd Your Bird
Can Sing' is a message of sheer defiance. Drugs weave their way
through much ofRevolver. In bis searing 'She Said She Said', a work
nearly as vivid as 'Tomorrow Never Knows', [ .ennon desctibes a
moment during the 1965 tour when lhe Beaties and the actor Pctcr
Fonda were sitting around a pool~ having taken some LSD, and
Fonda mused about knowing what ir was like to be dead. His claim
became the song's opening line. And 'Doctor Rober t' is about a
physician who supplied drugs to a starry clienteie.
Love songs were not completely abandone& [n 'Good Day
Sunshine', McCarmey blithdy chirps about how wonder fui it is to
be in lave. Bur in 'Here, There and Everywhcre' and 'For No One',
McCarmey is working at a higber levei, producing songs that are
articulate and picturesque: The first is a tender, descripdve ba]lad,
sung in pristine triadic harmonies. Its lyrics ~Therc, running my
hands through her hair, both ofns thinking how good it can be;
someone is speaking and she doesn't know he's tbere' are a perfect
evocation of idyllic, idealized romance. The second is a dual-focus
portrait ofabandonment: we see the spurned lover refusing to believe
that the romance is over, a_~ well a_~ the womatl, aR" with someone else
and declaring her freedom.
Harrison, too, had come a long way as a composer. He has tbree
songs on Revolver, each quite different. Besides 'Taxman', the stinging
rocker, there is thc laid back, sligb tly qtdrky 'I Want to Tell You', with
its mildly dissonant piano part and its lyric about the frustration of
being tongue-tied in the presence of someone he hopes to seduce.
And in 'Love You To', he breaks new ground by melding Indian
timbres and tradicional melodies with an otherwise conventiona]
pop song form.
For the album's cover, the Beatles commissioned their old
Hambm'g friend Klaus Voorman, who was then playing bass witb the
British singer Manfred Mann. Voormall provided a telling collage
that contrastcd the 1966 Beatles with the Moptops ofthe past. The
current Beatles ate captured in spare line drawings, with photographs
of their eyes inset. Their hair is long and shaggy, and poking out afit,
standing and lying in it and crawling through it, are the carly Beat]es,
represented by photographs taken between i96z and 1965.
To w o r d s S g t P e p p e r 1 9 6 6 7 145

Ouring their svmmer wor~d

Iour in 1966, the Beafles
retumed lo Germany ~or
lhe firsl rime since 1962,
and spent some rime with
the Ratiles, a Hamburg
band inspired by lhe
Mersey Sound (ond stylel

As soon as the album was completed, the Beatles packed their

instmments and headed to Germany for the first part of the 1966
tour. So lkde did they cate abou~ live performances by thcn thar they
did not bother to rehearse, nor did they attempt to produce stage
versions ofany of thc material they had just recorde& apart from a
tepid facsimile of'Paperback Writer'. They did not pretend that their
show was worth seeing: in interviews, they said quhe franldy that thcy
had become terrible performers, and that with ali the screaming they
cou]d neither hear themse]ves nor make themselves heard.
Their doubts about ~heir performance standard mrned out to be
the least of dleir worries. In Japan, chey had been booked to p[ay ai
ihe Budokan Hall in Tokyo, and Japanese martial arts devotees, who
regarded the hall a_s a shrine, rioted to protest ar its desecration hy a
Western pop group. The security provided kept Ihe Beatles safe but
stifled: dley were not al[owed to leave their hotel rooms. They soon
carne to appreciate that levei of pro~ection. In Manila, they played to
 The Bealles

Afler the 1966 world tour,

Lermon flew to Almeria,
Spoin, ~o portray Privale
Gripweed in Richard
Leste's on~i wa film, How
I Won lhe War. Ir was there
Ihat Lennon begon one
of his nlost complex and
beoutiful sngs, 'SIrawberry
Fields Forever'

ah audience of mo,ooo, thc largest crowd of thcir carecr. A schedul-

ing mix-up, however, resuked in their failing to turn up ar a party
hosted by Imdda Marcos, the wife ofthe country's President. lhe
media worked irself into a f~en zy, security was withdrawn, and the
Bear]es and their entourage were made to run a gaunt]et at the air-
port, whem they we,e fi, rther harassed by government o(ficials before
being anowed to leave.
There was more troub]e ~n store in the USA. Some ofit was harm-
less: on 15 June Capitol released Yesterday and Today, a compiladon
of tracks lef~ offthe American edidons of Help/and Rubber Sou~ plus
'We Can Work It Out', 'Day Tripper' and three tracks (roto the
Revolversessions, then still in progress. For the cover, the Beatles sem
along ah arty photograph taken by Robert \Vhittaker. In the photo,
they are dressed in butcher smoclcs, and strewn acoss them are slabs
ofraw mcat and the separate bodies and bloodied heads of decapit-
a~ed baby dolls. The Bear]es are beaming. The ?hotograph had oc-
casioned no comment in Bdtain, where ir was used in adverdsements
for 'Paperback Writer'. Nor was ir widely cr]r]ized in America. But as
soon as it was issued, Capitol had a change of heart and withdrew ir,
asserting a desire to 'avoid any possible controversy or undeserved
harm to the Beat]es' reputation.' Instead, they issued the album with
Towards Sg~ Peper 1966 7 141

an innocuous and rather glum porwait. Asked whar the relevance of

the cover was, McCarmey replied, 'it's as relevant as Vicmam.'
A few weeks Later, Dateboo/e magazine prin~ed an excerpt from an
interview with John Lennon that had been published in the Evening
Standard on 4 March, in which l.ennon sai& 'Chrisfianky will go. It
win vanish and shrink. I needn't argue about that; I'm right and ~i]l
be proved right. Wc're more popular than Jesus now; I don't know
which will go first, rock and roll or Chdstianity. Jesus was alright, bur
bis discipLes were thick and ordiJiary. It's them that ruin ir for me.'
As with the butcher photo, the observation caused no controversy
when ir was pub[ished in EngJand. Nor was there any fuss when the
flrst part ofthe same quoce was included in a lVew York 77mes
Magaz#le arficle on j July. But when the Datebook ar ticle was
published on 29 July, an anguished outcry was raised, particularly in
thc Soudl. Radio stafions sponsorcd [~onfires a~ which lis~cncrs could .
burn their Beades records and memorabilia, and members othe Ku
Klux Klan marched outside thc Beades' concerts. The Bcatles and
Epstdn, though concerned about this, decided to go on with the
tour, and to address the controversy ar the]r first press conference.
Lennon explained that he he was acmally deploring the act that
popu[ar culture carried more weight with young people than rdigion,
adding, 'I wasn't saying that the Beatles are bigger, or better than Jesus
Christ as a person, or God as a thing, or whatever ir is, I just said
what I said and it was wrong, or ir was taken wrong, and now it's ali
this.' And, more or ]ess, be apologized.
The tour had its tense moments, including a concert in Memphis
when a firecrackcr exploded during the performance. Each of the
Beatlcs looked around to see ifone ofthe orhers had been shot. Bur
they made i{ through the tour without incident. By the rime they
rook the stage at Candlesfick Park in San Francisco on 29 August -
the fina[ concert ofthe tour - they had resolved not to tour again,
and when the tour ended they wen~ thcir separate ways, Lelmon had
accepted Richard Les~er's invi~ation m star with Michael Crawford in
How I Wo** the War, an ant]-war film he was shooting in Germany
and Spain. McCartney, with Martin's help, composed a filmscore for
The I'mily Way, an attractive ir broad[y derivalive colleclion ofshort
piees scored mostly for c[assica[ brass and string ensembles. Harrison
 The t~~aTle~

flew to India to leam more about the sitar. And Starr flew to Spain
to visit Lennon.
They reconvened at Abbey Road to begin thcir next run of
sessions on 24 November. For the occasiom 1.ennon brougbt along
"Sttawberry Fidds l:orever', ah exceptional collection ofimages hc
had pieced together in Spain. In sessions tbat stretched over tive
weeks, the Beatles reorded tbree very different versions of 'Straw-
berry Fields'. The version that was rdeased was a composite of two
arrangements, and is one ofthe most brilliant collaborations between
the four Beatles and George Martin. Lennon's earliest demonstration
tapes, recorded in Spaln, capture a graceful but unusual chord pro
gressioll and a melody close to that of the song's second seion the
section that begins widl the lines, 'living is easy with eyes dose& mis-
undeFstanding ali you see.' He seems to have written the music first:
on thesc carly tapes, he nmmbles and hums, starting and discarding
ideas. On the first pass, in fact, the only complete lines were the third
and fourth in the verse: "That is you can't, you lalow, tune in bur it's
alright; I mean, it's not roo bad.' The third line made it to the
finished version, but the last was expanded to 'that is, I think it's
not mo bad.'
By the lime I.ennon returned to ].ondon, be song had two verses
bulir around the original chord p/ogression, plus a second progres-
sion, which functioned as a bridge, accompanying the iines 'Ler me
take you down, 'cause l'm going to S~rawberry Ficlds, nothing is real,
and nothing m get hung about.' He would add another verse bcforc
the formal sessions began, but in the meantime, be experimented
with arrangements, trying out dii~rent kinds of accompanying styles,
and even adding spacey sounds from a mellotrom an electronic in-
strument that uses tapes of standard insrrumen:al sounds to produce
semi-orchestral timbres.
The Beades' first attempt, though clcarly unpobshed, is a beautp,
and has a change of texmre on every verse. Therc is no introduction:
[be song begins with Letmon singing dle 'lving is easy' verse, acconl-
panied by an eerie, sligh tly teedy mellotron. On the sccond verse, the
meilotron gives way to Lennon's acoustic guitar, a gorgeoudy slinky
bass [inc from McCaFtney and light dmmming from Starr. When
they rcach ~he "Let me take you down' section, Lennon's vocal is
douhle-tracked, and Harrison brings in a stridendy trebly slide guitar.
To w a r d s S g l P ~ p p e 1 9 6 6 7 14

And then, in the most alluring momcnt of this version, the verse
beginning, 7klways, no sometimes rhink ir's me', is accompanied by
flle exquisite three-part vocal harmonics thc Bcatlcs had uscd so eflec-
ively in 'Here, There and verywhere'. Tbe bridge rcturns again.
and the mellotron, playing a compressed version oftbe verse cbords,
brings the recording to a dose.
Inventive though this version was, Lennon was unhappy wkh ir.
Four days later, they began again, this rime using their traditional
instrumentation, plus mellotron. In this tighter, heavier, more elcctric
version, rhe rexrural changes between verses were dropped. Gone roo
wcre the vocal harmonies and the slinkiness ofthc bass line. And
Srarr's drumming was more complex. More crucia[ly, rhe song itself
was radica][y rcconfigured. The mellotron fina]e was turncd into an
introduction, its reedy timbre exchanged for a ~qutey sound. And now
the 'Let me take you down' section was moved up to its logical place
ar the start ofthe song. Two days' work yielded a finisbed version.
But after mul]ing it over for about a wcek, Lennon decided to
approacb lhe song from yer anotber direction. He asked Martin to
write ah arrangcmcnt for orchcstral instruments, and on 8 and 9
December rhe Beatles produced a new basic track, rhis rime includ-
ing cymbals recordcd backwards, a befty array of percussion, ah the
exotic sound ofa swordmandel, a barp-like indian instrument. A
week later, Martin broughr in four trumpets and tbree ccllos to play
ah arrangement in whicb tbe ce]los offer ah arcbing cotmterpoint to
the vocal melo@ When Lennon overdubbed his fhrceful, nuanced
lead vocal, the recording was finished.
Or so Martin believed. On reflection, Lennon thought ir might
be a good idea to have the song begin in its rock version and end in
its orcbestral guise. He was not about to start anew; his suggestion to
Marfin was that he prepare an edir of versions two and three. Martin
doubted ir could be done: the two recordings were in different keys
and tempos. By sheer [uck, tbe orcbestra[ version was botb Faslcr and
higher in pitch than tbe electric version. By slowing it down and
speeding up the other, Martin matched both key and tempo. The
point where the rock band texture metamorpboses into tbe tapestry
of brass, strings, b~~ckwards sounds and unusual timbres takes place
cxactly sixty seconds into the song.
 The Beotles

'Stra~vberry Fields Forever'. like 'Rain', is more ah expression of

attitude ('notbing to get hung about') than any*hing else, bur its title
refers to a Salvaon Army hostel in Liverpool, near Lennon's child
hood hamc. Lennon uses the name puraly for its imagcry. 'Tomorrow
Never Knows' and 'Shc Said Shc Said' played with imagery too, but
with 'Strawberry Fidds Fotever', Lennon has sighted a neve goal:
Iyrics that have greater emotional resonance than ]iterary sense, and
music that seems to spring naturally from the wordplay (even though,
in this case, rhe music carne first).
A few days after 'Strawberry Fialds Forever' was completed,
McCartney brought in another song with a Liverpoo[ connection,
'Pcnny Lane', a ]ighter song which, un]ike its counterpart, describes
in picturesque detail the Liverpool street for which it is named,
Though more convenonal on d~e surface, 'Penny Lane' began even
more experimentally than 'Strawberry Pidds'. McCarmey, working
aione, made a basic track that brought together three piano parts
one recorded ar halfspeed, one wirh amplifica~ion and reverberation,
one plain - a harmoniurn and various percussion effects. [n a working
method that would become rypica] in the months to come, the four
tracks on whicb McCarmey laboured were mixed down to a single
tape track, opcning up the rest for overdubs.
Before th song was finished, there would be more piano, guitar
and bass, lead and harmony vocais, sound effects and winds and
brass. The most distinctive toucb, however, was the piccolo trumpet,
played by David Mitmn. McCartney had seen Mason use the
Baroque instrument in a televised perfurmance of Bach's Branden-
burg Concerto No. z, and capdvated by the sound, he had Martin
invite Mason to play on his song.
'Srrawberry Fialds', Penny Lane' and 'Whcn ['m Sixty-Four',
a vaudeville-style song McCarmey revived ti'oro bis catalogue of
teenage compositions, were ali complete ar tbe start of I967, and
laaked like the beginning ofa fascinating album. But EMI rminded
thc group that new material was overdue, so 'Penny Lane' and
Oppos#e, McCar tney

bardy playd keyboQrds 'Strawberry Fialds' were released as a single, removing dlem from
whn lhe Beal[es begon consideration as album tracks.
rcording; by ]96Z Be had
They would be ampty rep[accd, but progrcss was slow ar first. [n
bcome quite ~depl Here

be ploys lhrough a nw eady January, Lennon carne in wkh 'A Day in the Life', ah unfinished
song for George Martin song with lyrics that muched on a friend's recent death in a car atei-
To w a r d s S g t P e p p e r 1 9 6 6 7 I~1
 The Beatles

dent, a news report about podaoles in I~ancashire, and on Lennon'~

recent film, l]ow I Won th Waz: |t was a slow, hauntingly beautiful
song. bur ir lacked a bridge. Bur McCartney also had a fr:gmem a
song about waking up, c~rching a bus anel slipping into dream - dla~
was easily ioined to Lennon's spacier song. There was a drugg), under-
current roo. In the McCartney song, rhe dreaming begins immedi-
arely after a cigarette is smoked. And Lennon's secfions before and
MCartney tried his h~nd ar afcer thc McCarmey contribution end wirh rhe line, Td love to rurn
conductJng $evgrol time$
you on'. They wanted something unusual ta follow rhar line, bur in
dur~ng lhe ~e~~ions }or Sgt
Peper s Loely Hearts Club the absence of specific ideas, they pla),ed a t~,eny-our-bar vamp
8ond Here, with Marti~ at thal could be overlaid later. Meanwhile, they cailo:ed what rhcy had.
his side, he expFains his
S~arr's drum p~rls wcre c~rcfu][y orchesrr~ted ~nd te recorded, and
requlrements to lhe horn
players hked to ploy on the McCarmey replaced both his vocal and his original 'provisional'
album's tille track basslinc wirh one thar w~s more flowin~ly discuwive.
To w a r d s S g t P e e r 1 9 6 6 7 153

Early in February, McCartney hit upon tl~e idea offilling the

song's empty space with a cacophonous orchestral crescendo. His idea
was lhar each musician would play ffom his Iowesr to his highest note
(ideally not at the some speed as his neighbour), getting louder along
lhe wa) Martin hired forty musicians flora London orchesrras, who
were given props- false noses, masks, bits of a gorilla costume to
create a circus-like atmosphere. With Martin and McCarmey lakb/g
turns conducting, lhe orchestra recorded one crescendo for lhe
middle ofthe work, and another for the end.
Marrin has said that the musicians, drawn mosdy from the Royal
Pbilharmonic and London Philharmonic, had i~ever before laeen
asked to play music in which only their lowest and highest notes
werc given, and in which they were to play independemly ofo:her
musicians. Yet in classical music circles, lhe idea was hardly new.
Thc American composer Jobn Cagc had already been labouring in
lhe fields ofindeterminacy ~br years, and McCarmey has listed Cage
among lhe composers be was lislening lo ar lhe lime. And Krzyszrof
Penderecki, a leader ofthe Polish avant garde, had won considerable
at~ention in Europe in lhe early 196os for chamber and orchestral
works that used indeterminate scoring.
For a pop recard, though, this was disrincdy radical. Bur rhe
orchestral session raised another prablem how to resolve the fina[
crcsccndo, which cuts offabrupdy ot~ irs top note and seems to
demand a follow-up. The Beatles' first solutiou was to hum the final
E major chord. Bur a few days lafer they deded :hey wanted some-
thing more powerful, and replaced the hummed ver~ion witb the
some chord played on three pianos and a harmonium. This configura
tion was overdubbed on ali four tracks ofthe tape, and the mixing
board faders were slowly raised so rhar the sound would be sustained
as the chord faded away. in the end, the chord lasted fifty-three
seconds a fifth the lcngth of'A Day in the l.ife' and near]y halfrhc
running time of 'Please Please Me'.
Several other songs were in rhc works by the rime 'A Day in the
Life' was finished, and one of them, McCarlt}ey~s 'Sgt. Peppefis
Loncly Hearls Club Band', gave the album its fbcus. The sollg intro-
duces an old-time concert band, in its twenticth year and about to
give a conccrt. It had occurred to McCarrney that for dais album the
Beatles cou[d step back from their Fab Four image by pretendit~g to
 Tho8eotles

be the Sgr. Pepper band. This song would introduce the album, and
the resr would be the band's stage show. Later i[ occurred to him that
the show concept could be sbarpened ifthe song were reprised near
the end ofthe record.
McCarmey had a model of sorts in the Beach Boys' Pet Sourldsq
the album on wbich Brian Wilson, the group's principal composer,
distanced the band from its surf music image. Its lyrics, for the most
part, had the emotiona] deprh that rhe Beatles had been working
toward, and its quirkily-strucmred songs boasted co[ourfilt instru-
mentation and sound effects, to say norhing of the Beach Boys'
magnificent vocal harmonies, which rivalled the Bearles' own. Wl/en
McCartney heard the album ar the time ofits release in I966, bis
reaction was, 'how are we going to top this?'
As ir turned our. Wilson later said thar be was inspired to make
Pet Sounds after hearing the Beat[es' Rubber 5oul. Bur Sgt Pepper
brought this crearive give-and-take to an end. Wi]son's plan was to
respond with Smile. a collection of material lyrically and musically
more complex than Pet Sounds, and meant to be as daring as Sgt.
Pepper. Bur Wilson's excessive drug use (among other personal
problems) caugbt up witb him during the sessions, which ground to
a halt when he had a nervous breakdown. Neverthdess, for as Iong as
ir lasted, the competitive interaction between the Beades, the Beach
Boys, the Byrds, Bob Dylan and a handful ofother rock musicians
unquestionably helped transform the best pop nlusic of this me
}}oro reenage ephemera into durable arr.
For the Beatles themselves. Sgl. Pepperwas the moment when
McCarmey eclipsed [.ennon as the dominant force in the band.
Lennon had thoughr long and hard abom the Beatles during his film
break in Spain. The last tour had been an ordeal, and there were
aspects of srudio work that he found tedious as wel]. To a great
extent he was content to sit around Weybridge smoking marijuana,
watching television and reading+ Ir nothing else, a residual sense of
competition with McCartney drove him on+
He was, in fact, ar a turning point in his songwridng. The early
Beatles' songs of Iove and jealousy now seemed pointless to hhn.
qbmorrow Never Knows' was the beginning ora new direction, and
during the cmrent sessions he had already come up w]th rwo master-
pieces. The question he wrestled wirh was this: what was worth
To w a r d s $ g f P e p p e 1 9 6 6 - 7 155

writing about? The st rearn-o f-consciousness imagery in 'Strawberry

Fiel& Forever' worked nicely as a song lyric, but there was no count-
ing on that. or forcing ir. ~. Day in ~he Hfe' provided a more practi-
cal modeh Some ofit had been suggested, as the song's first linc says,
by reading the newspaper. If news items could be fihered, toyed with
and transformed, so could otfier things.
Thus. [+ennon's three remaining non coHaborative contributions
to Sgt. Pepperwere ali inspired by seemingly mundane items. The
lyric for 'Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite!' was l ifted almost verbatim
f}om a Victorian circus poster that Lennon found in an antique shop.
'Good Morning Good Morning' was inspired by an advertisement
for Com Flakes. And 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds' took its title
from a drawing by Lennon's son Julian, and sonie of'its imagery f'rom
a scene in Alie& Adventures in Wonderland, augmented, clearly, by
Lennon's experiences with psychedelic dmgs.
\Waat Lennon did with these modest inspirations was stunning.
His music for 'Mr Kite!' turned thc two ditnensional poster copy into
a sonic circus. To produce the song's unusually festive sound, Martin
and his engineer, Geoff Emerick, took a tape of ca[liope music.
snipped ir into pieces, threw the pieces in the air, reassembled them
at random, and played the resulting tape backwards. Again, John
Cage was a predecessor, having used a similar technique to produce
his 'Williams Mix' in 1952, a]though in the Beatles case, tfie resul:ing
band of tape was not the work itsdf, bur merely embellishment. A
theatre organ, added by Martin, provided a perfect finishing Iouch.
'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds' is also an ideal match of text
and nmsical texture. Its imagery is remarkably rich: 'Picmre yourself
in a boat on a river, with tangerine trees and marmalade skiesL On
the joumey, one encounters rocking horse peopie, cellophane flowers,
newspaper taxis and most importantly, a girl with kaleidoscope eyes,
who appears at the beginning and the end of the song. I ennon later
described the girl with kaleidoscope eyes as a kind of female saviour,
the kindred spirit he had by then determined that bis wife Cynthia
was notI

The song?+ odler-worldly atmosphere is created in the opening

bars by MCarmeB who plays ah angular, chromatic figure on a
Hammond organ, electronical[y enhanced so that ir sounds like a
cross beva,een a harpsichord and ah electric guitar. Iike the first ver+
 TheBealles

sion of 'Strawberry Fields', the texture bttilds slowly: first the organ,
then [ ennonX Icad vocal (altered by using both Artificial Double
~lkacking and speed variation) and McCarmey's bass. Starr, initially
using only bmshes on cymbals, turns up only ar the end ofthe
~rst verse.

Normally, the Beades would have repeated the first verse melody
here, but instead they move into a new key and present a second
melody, in which Lennon again approaches McCarmey's 'single note'
ideal. Both these sections are in three-quarter rime, bur as the second
melody ends, three tom-tom and bass drum bea[s from S[arr )cad
into sonlething cntirely new a changc in metre (flora three to four
beats in a bar) arld yet arlother key change. Suddenly, the hazy ~vorld
of the first two verses gives way to the bright sunlight of the refiain,
in which the song's title is sung as a celebratory prodamatioa.
McCarmefs songs here show the pencham fbr imaginalive
storytdling that be had pursued so eflctivdy on Revolver, and like
Lennon, he was looking in the newspapers for bis subjects, A story
about a young runaway suggested 'She's Leaving Home', the next in
McCarmey's line of string-accompanied ballads. The theme ofalien-
ation in 'Eleanor Rigby' is repeated, but in place of that song's stark
imagery, 'She's Leaving Home' presents a complete narrative.
McCarmey fiirts with compassion for the parents here. In parenthet-
ical lines, sung by I ennon and Harrison, they explain that they have
struggled ali Iheir IDes m gire their daughter whatevcr shc wanted,
and are left asking themsdves what they did wrong. "lb which
McCartney, Lennon and Harrison respond, ar the end ofthe song,
that the young woman has left home simply to have fun, itself
regarded as a higher value in those rebe]lious days.
His other eff~rts are gcncrally lighter in spirit. 'Fixing a Hoie' is a
bright-texmrcd bit ofintrospection, alnlost [ ennoncsque in character.
'Lovely Rifa' describes a date with a meter maid. 'Gctting Better' is
a collaboratior~ in which McCarmey celebrates his independence
from school and his mellowing with age, while [ ennon, interestingl}q
confesses to wife-beating and claims to be over it. Lelmon and
McCarmey also collabm~ted on 'With a Little 1 idp From My
Friends', for Starr to sing.
Harrison brought two songs to the Sgt. Pe/?/?ersessions. One, the
dark-textured ~Only a Northern Song', was recorded and ser aside,
TowardsSg~Pepper1966 7
The Bealles did nar wrile
mus[cal nolation, bui
Gegrge Marli~ did This
sheel a ma nusc~ip~ poper,
outogra pl~ed by clll four
~leotles, conlains MartJn's
score dicirsted by
McCoriney - ~or the
compact Fr~nch hor~ breai:
irl 'Sgl pepper's LoneLy
Hearts Club Band'
157
to be revived a year later for inclusion in Yellow Submarine, the fulI-
l~gth cartoon for which the Beaflcs hall hcartcdly agrced to provide
a few new songs. Hidden on the soundtrack album, it is o~ten over-
Iookcd, bui in f'act, ir fcatures a f'abulously tactile ]a),er of electronic
effects lhat makc the song as alluring in its own way as <Bei*~g for thc
Bcncfit of Mr Kite!'
Harrison's more significant effort was 'Within You Without You', a
lengthy meditation on the Indian philosophy that had lately caitured
his imaginafion, lis backing combines lndian instruments in dialogue
with a vibrant string score by Martin. Ar the tin,e the album was
released, this tive minuto apothcosis of raga rock seemed ah indu]-
gente; even Harrison hinted as much by inc[uding a self-dcprccating
patch oflaugjnter at the end ofthe song. Yet ir has aged we[I, aIld iil
hindsight, it seems one ofthe most sophisticated compositions on
this extraordinary collection.
158 The Beolles

AI o porly lo i~troduce Early in the a]bum's running ordcr in the third song, 'Lucy in
Sgt Pepper's Lonefy Heorls the Skv with Diamonds - the Beades use a word dlat tacrtctlv sums
Club B~nd to lh~ pr~ss,
th~ B~atl~s - no longe up the feeling of5kt. PepiOer: kaleidoscope__...~ In terms of" techn ical
spOrling lhe mathJng suJls ~ n s t r u m e n t a l c o [ o u r, t h e y w e r e a r t h e i r m o s t a d v e n ( u r -
an~ hoirslyles t}~Ol hoc~ ous. Just about everything is sped up, s[owed down or compressed.
been their trodemork
Harson's lndian instruments are used both as background timbre
throug~ the~r Iost public
oJlino, the prev~ou~ year and as centre-pieces. A harpsichord ho]ds the middie ground in
unveil the new a]bum's 'Fixing a Holc'. There are strings on 'She~ Leaving Home', brass on
gatefold sleeve
both the title cut and 'Good Morning Good Morning', and a cbam-
ber orchestra on 'A Day in tbe Life'.
The tape effects are ambitiot~s roo. Besides the collage in 'Being for
thc Benefit of Mr Kite!' the Beades and Martin fasbioncd an anaazing
elcccronic menageric to stampede across the soundsrage ar tbe end of
'Good Morning Good Moming'. Out of the stampede iumps a cat's
miaow, edited onto a dog~s bark. Thc sound ofan orchestra tuning
opens tbe record, and on both the title song and its reprise, applause
To w ~ r d s S g t P e p p e r 1 9 6 6 7 159

and crowd noise create the illusion ora concert. There was also a final
quirky touch. A/ter the long final chord of ~ Day in the Life', the
Bcatles appended a high-pitched (fifteen kilocyc[e) tone, ~eading to
a few seconds of noise, laughler and chatter. On the vinyl LP, this
exp[osion a noise was cut into a continuous groove around the ]abel,
so that lhe Beatles could be heard chortling continuously umil the
listener lifted the stylus from the disc.
Since Rubber Soul~ the Beatles had overseen their cover art, and
it was clear that the cover ofSgt. Pepper had to be an exceptional
production. Lennon and McCarmey told the artist Peter B[ake about
the album's concept, and suggested the notion ofan ald-ashioned
group portrait ofthe fictional Pepper band as they might appear after
playing a concert in a park. Blake's idea was that the band should be
surrounded by its audience, which should include people the Beatles
considered important or influential. They came up with a list o
musicians, gurus, writers, visual artists, comedians and sport and film
celebrities, and Blake made a life-size cardboard represenration of
each. The celebrity crowd was assembled behind a bass drum with
the ornate Sgt. Pepper logo. Immediatdy behind the drum staod
the 1967 Beatles, in colourful, silk military band uniforms, sporting
moustaches and holding orchestral instruments. To their lef~ were
wax figures ofthe Beatles circa 1965.
Released on i June I967, gt. Pepper immediatdy became the focus
of microscopic analysis, not only by observers of popu[ar culture, bur
also by writers and musicimls whose home turfwas classical music.
In truth, its concept album status was only skin deep: there was no
real connection between the songs, other than their supposed place
in the Pepper band's stage set. Still, the concept album idea quickly
took root with the most inventive bands. The Mo, for example,
used a radio programme formar, complete with parody advertise-
ments between songs, as the sructure for The Who Sell Out, recorded
in October. A year later the graup would record Tommy, the first of
two 'rock operas' by its guitarist and composer, Pete Townshend. And
the Kinks, who rode tfie British [nvasion wave with a rtm of simple,
catchy hil sing[es from 1964 to I966, had a[sa matured, and were
about to start a run of concept projects that began with The Village
Green Perservation Society in 1968 and included a rock opera, Arthur,
and several operettas.
160 The Beatles

Sgt. Pepper quickly became ali things to ali people. To the budding
counterculture, it was a manifesto of drug consciousness, an advance
report from some magical plane of existence- a place one could find
by taking Lennon's advice in 'Tomorrow Never Knows', to 'turn off
your mind, relax and float downstream'. But it was also something
less fanciful: tangible proof that the Beatles had come of age as poets
and composers.