Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

This the 8th album, released on the 1st June 1967,  was the point where by the band gave up their intent to play live and became studio hermits who inconjunction with producer George Martin made it their aim to push the boundaries of the recorded music format.

To say that this album was a “concept” may be well intended, however, in truth the band dispatched with this notion of the alter ego “Lonely Hearts Club Band”  following Ringo Starr’s rendition of “With A Little Help From My Friends” as …….the one and only Billy Shears.

Like “Revolver” this album is almost considered “the Holy Grail” by music critics and Beatles fans alike.

If questions can be raised against a couple of the songs and the quality control or lack thereof, honestly how can the likes of When I’m Sixty Four” or yet another George Harrison eastern music outing (“Within You Without You”) be included at the expense of the likes of “Strawberry Fields Forever” or “Penny Lane” which were released as a single in February 1967 and would  pop up at a later date despite being recorded at the same sessions as the rest of this album as additional filler for the upgrading of the two extended play records that made up “Magical Mystery Tour” to a US album.

What is never in doubt is this album more than any helpled to progress both the growth in technology of the recording studio but also the development of the skills of the record producer and engineer as well as proving once and for all that these four guys from Liverpool were without doubt on the top of their game.

George Martin believed the album was the most innovative, imaginative and trend setting album of it’s time…. who could possibly argue with that.

The songs are bold, vivid and confident and when wrapped in the latest studio techniques the finished product was without doubt beyond comparison.

Not all techniques were of benefit to the album, after the brilliant “A Day In The Life” closes the album there is to the human ear a few seconds silence before the needle heads towards the spindle to the sound of Beatles chatter….however if you have a dog you may notice a response as this gap is in fact audible to dogs a deliberate ploy at the amusement of the band.

This album was plundered by others, Elton John on “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds” and Joe Cocker with his version “With A Little Help From My Friends” most famously at Woodstock in 1969

Even the great Jimi Hendrix got in the act by playing Sgt Pepper in his live set a mere 48hrs after it’s release.

Nothing though can compare to my own two favourite tracks from the album, step forward “She’s Leaving Home” and “A Day In The Life” which was of course a Lennon song and a McCartney song stiched together.

Wednesday morning at five o’clock
as the day begins
Silently closing her bedroom door
Leaving the note that she hoped would say more
She goes downstairs to the kitchen
clutching her handkerchief
Quietly turning the back door key
Stepping outside she is free

She (we gave her most of our lives)
is leaving (sacrificed most of our lives)
home (we gave her everything money could buy)
She’s leaving home after living alone for
so many years (bye bye)

Father snores as his wife gets into her dressing gown
Picks up the letter that’s lying there
Standing alone at the top of the stairs
She breaks down and cries to her husband
Daddy our baby’s gone
Why would she treat us so thoughtlessly
How could she do this to me

She (We never thought of ourselves)
is leaving (never a thought for ourselves)
home (we struggled hard all our lives to get by)
She’s leaving home after living alone for
so many years (bye bye)

Friday morning at nine o’clock she is far away
Waiting to keep the appointment she made
Meeting a man from the motor trade

She (what did we do that was wrong)
is having (we didn’t know it was wrong)
fun (fun is the one thing that money can’t buy)
Something inside that was always denied for
so many years (bye bye)
She’s leaving home (bye bye)

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 love to turn you on.

Woke up, got 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
Somebody spoke and i went into a dream
Ah

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

To learn more about this album click HERE

To buy the music of The Beatles click HERE

Visit www.thebeatles.com

Revolver

“Revolver” was released on the 6th August 1966 eight months after “Rubber Soul” which given their track record in recording and releasing albums must have seemed like a lifetime to your everyday Beatles fanatic.

In between in June they released one of their best singles in “Paperback Writer”, their first single not about love, backed with the equally brilliant “Rain”. This flip side recording perhaps more than any other single track reflected the progression the band was making with Lennon’s acid filled psychedelia coming to the surface big style topped by some George Martin backwards recorded Lennon vocal.

In this one song the Beatles of old had regenerated from “pop” to something totally new and different the question would be could their audience grow with them?

Given their heavy schedule they started to make film ”promos” of some of their songs to save them the slog of continual performances on television shows around the world…perhaps they invented MTV

As such the album was awaited with great interest…could the band take it to a new level and if so would it be any good?

This was their seventh album release in three years and was the third, following “A Hard Day’s Night” and “Rubber Soul” to feature all original compositions with George Harrison logging a new first, three songs on the one album.

The sleeve represented a new image for the band this time designed by their friend from the Hamburg days Klaus Voormann. On hearing the album his view was that the sleeve would have to reflect the sounds on the record and that the design would need to take the same step forward from what had gone before as the music had.

Voormann completed some sketch drawings of the band from memory then together with the band chose some photographs from magazines and papers cut them out and superimposed them on the drawing.

Original Sketch

At this point the group had yet to decide on a title for the album, thus in July when the title “Revolver” was chosen, to reflect the revolving of a record on a turntable, nothing to do with guns, it had to be added into the design at the last moment.

Out of interest here is the concept put forward by Robert Freeman.

Freeman proposed making a photo montage using the Beatles’ four faces for the Revolver sleeve. When you would spin the sleeve, the four faces would melt into one. But the result wasn’t really satisfying. The montage is reproduced in The Beatles Anthology book.

Okay so what about the music then,on looking back you could appreciate that this album in 1966 would be like a breath of fresh air to the music critics of the world, if you were a Beatles fan back then brought up on a heavy dosage of catchy lovey dovey pop tunes then to some this may well have been a test of faith.

The album must mean a lot to many people as even now it is always going to appear in the Top 5 of any given “Best Album Of All Time” poll undertaken by the coffee table glossy music mags of the current age.

Is this 40′s plus nostalgia viewed through rose tinted glasses or is it really a masterpiece of all time?

For me it is a masterpiece of IT’S time but would I consider it a “classic” album or a “definitive” album, well I do believe it to be definitive of its time and it did without doubt move progressive music forward and it has influenced many another artist toward producing great music.

For me though a “classic” album has to be one which you can play from start to finish with every track hitting home. Granted there are not too many of them about and everyone will have their own chosen few of which “Revolver” may be one, as for me then I am happy to listen to this on CD or via the trusty iPod because the old faithful skip button can be put to good use.

Does anyone really want their listening to be interrupted by the sitar dirge of Harrison’s “Love You To” or the bleating of Ringo on “Yellow Submarine”?

Don’t get me wrong some of my favourite Beatles songs are on this album with “Here There And Everywhere”, “For No One” and “Got To Get You Into My Life” being particular favourites, the latter being a fair indication of the feel and sound which would follow with “Sgt Pepper”.

Your day breaks, your mind aches
You find that all her words of kindness linger on
When she no longer needs you

She wakes up, she makes up
She takes her time and doesn’t feel she has to hurry
She no longer needs you

And in her eyes you see nothing
No sign of love behind the tears
Cried for no one
A love that should have lasted years

You want her, you need her
And yet you don’t believe her when she says her love is dead
You think she needs you

And in her eyes you see nothing
No sign of love behind the tears
Cried for no one
A love that should have lasted years

You stay home, she goes out
She says that long ago she knew someone but now he’s gone
She doesn’t need him

Your day breaks, your mind aches
There will be times when all the things she said will fill your head
You won’t forget her

And in her eyes you see nothing
No sign of love behind the tears
Cried for no one
A love that should have lasted years

Then there was “Tomorrow Never Knows” different in so many ways from the rest of the album and the rest of the music industry at large, if people thought the afore mentioned “Rain” had psychedelic “influence” then this would blow their minds!

So there you have it, love it or loathe it no-one could or can ignore “Revolver”

Given the summer release The Beatles had no new product available to assist in their continual Christmas domination of the marketplace hence the release of the album that brought The Beatles into my life.

For more information on this album click HERE

To buy the music of The Beatles click HERE

Visit www.thebeatles.com