The Most Famous Album in the World
In the opinion of some newspapers in early 1967, the Beatles didn't have any more ideas. And then came Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The title song was Paul's. He had the idea after a trip to the United States. Bands with very long names were becoming popular there. Paul wanted the Beatles to be a different band for the album. In his mind, the album was a concert by this other band.
John and George didn't see the album in this way. 'It doesn't go anywhere,' John once said about the Sergeant Pepper idea. But there were great songs on the album.
Songs like 'When I'm Sixty-Four' and 'With a Little Help From My Friends' were happy and light. John took almost all the words for 'Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite' from an old sign that he found in a shop. The words and the music of 'Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds' were like a dream. The title came from a picture by John's young son, Julian. 'A Day in the Life' was one of the best examples of Paul and John's strong points. John wrote the main part of the song, beginning 'I read the news today, oh boy.' The idea came from two newspaper stories. Paul added the middle part. It worked perfectly in John's song. The album was a big step in the band's music. They used the studio wonderfully, but this took a long time. The Beatles' first album was made in around twelve hours, but Sergeant Pepper took over 700 hours! Both Ringo and George said later that it was sometimes boring. 'My heart was still in India,' George said. Famous faces
Everything about the album was special - even the cover. It showed the band with a crowd of famous people - writers, singers, actors, thinkers. At first there was a photo of Mahatma Gandhi, but the record company asked the band to take it off. They didn't want to make people in India angry. Today, fans disagree about which is the best Beatles album. But most of them believe that Sergeant Pepper was the most important. The world was changing fast in 1967. While the American war in Vietnam continued, young people around the world were exploring new ideas, new sounds. The summer of 1967 became known as 'the summer of love'. Sergeant Pepper helped to make that summer.
