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Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
EMI/Parlophone
0946 3 82429 2 8
“The first thing I remember was flying back from
With this in mind, I suggested to the guys that we each create an alter ego for ourselves and have uniforms made by a costumier. To help this process, we would all make a list of the people that our newly created characters might have admired. Everyone seemed to like the idea and with this in mind, we made the album.
Our attitude now was that of a completely different set of individuals and not the attitude that we would normally have had as The Beatles. The making of the record became a wild, colourful fairground ride where all things were possible.
I remember clearly a music critic surmising that because no one had heard from us for a while, The Beatles had dried up! We worked on happily in the knowledge that this one gentleman was about to be proved well and truly wrong!
I could go on and on about that period and the fun we had but I think it’s better for now to say no more and simply let the album speak for itself.”
Paul McCartney
06.03.08
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Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band didn’t start out life as a “concept album” but it very soon developed a life of its own. I remember it warmly, as both a tremendous challenge and a highly rewarding experience. For me, it was the most innovative, imaginative and trend-setting record of its time.
George Martin
“The Beatles definitely had an eternal curiosity for doing something different,” remarks the group’s producer George Martin. Certainly this album was entirely different to anything that had gone before, and although it has been much imitated since, it remains a giant recording, one that revolutionized the music industry and caused such repercussions that its influence will be felt for all time.
The Beatles’ music progressed in a most tangible way with each record they made. Even so, when it came to the time invested in the making of Sgt. Pepper – all the way from November, 1966 to April, 1967 – it seemed a ridiculously long period in which to make an album. “What on earth are they up to?”, people wondered. But not a session was wasted.
“The Beatles insisted that everything on Sgt. Pepper had to be different,” says Geoff Emerick – the recording engineer who, with George Martin, formed the imaginative team that translated The Beatles’ Pepper requirements onto tape. “Sounds were either distorted, limited, heavily compressed or treated with excessive equalization. We had microphones right down the bells of the brass instruments and headphones turned into microphones attached to violins. We plastered vast amounts of echo onto vocals, and sent them through the entirety of the revolving Leslie speaker. We used giant primitive oscillators to vary the speed of instruments and vocals, and we had tapes running backward as well as forward.”
But the sounds are only one aspect of Sgt. Pepper. The songs hold the key and they are bold, imaginative, confident, vivid, witty. Here is a band at ease with itself, unshackled by schedules – they had just given up live concerts, a band oblivious to the words “no” and “can’t”, a band stretching out but exercising still an unerring sense of what would work and what would not. Paul’s very idea of a “concept” band, populated by such characters as Billy Shears, was in itself untried by anyone before. It could have backfired, been misunderstood, gone unappreciated, but, of course, it was not. Sgt. Pepper worked from every conceivable angle.
The end of the album typifies the inventiveness and assuredness that runs through Sgt. Pepper. After the last droplets of the crashing piano chord of “A Day In The Life” have evaporated there are a few seconds of 15 kilocycle tone, inaudible to the human ear but put there – especially to amuse your dog – at the request of The Beatles. Then, as the coup de grace, the album concludes with a few seconds of nonsense Beatles chatter – the tape of which was cut into several pieces and stuck back together at random. In this way the words became unintelligible but, with the sound laced into the vinyl disc’s concentric run-out groove, purchasers without an auto-return on their record player inevitably wondered “What the hell’s that?” as the curious noise went on and on ad infinitum.
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was issued on June 1st, 1967. Nothing was ever the same again.
Mark Lewisohn
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The recording of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band spanned 129 days, perhaps the most creative 129 days in the history of rock music. Here, in the order in which the recording were tackled, is a guide to the way the album was made.
Orchestrations by George Martin (Except where noted).
“When I’m Sixty-Four” – Recording commenced in studio two at
“A Day In The Life” – Recording commenced in studio two at
“Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” – Recording commenced in studio two at
“Good Morning, Good Morning” – Recording commenced in studio two at
“Being For The Benefit of Mr. Kite!” – Recording commenced in studio two at
“Fixing a Hole” – Recording commenced at Regent Sound Studio, Tottenham Court Road,
“Lovely Rita” – Recording commenced in studio two at
“Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds” – Recording commenced in studio two at
“Getting Better” – Recording commenced in studio two at
“She’s Leaving Home” – Recording commenced in studio two at
“Within You Without You” – Recording commenced in studio two at
“With A Little Help From My Friends” – Recording commenced in studio two at
“Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)” – Recording commenced in studio one at
Three other songs were recorded during the sessions: “Strawberry Fields Forever”, “
“Strawberry Fields Forever” – Recording commenced in studio two at
The sequence of songs on Pepper is famous in itself, being – on the vinyl version – two continuous sides of music, without pauses between songs, or ‘banding’, to use recording parlance. But the lineup of side one, as first conceived, was different to how it finally evolved, and was as follows: ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”; “With A Little Help From My Friends”; “Being For the Benefit Of Mr. Kite”; “Fixing A Hole”; “Lucy In The Sky With Diamond”; “Getting Better”; “She’s Leaving Home.”
By suitably programming your compact disc hardware you’ll be able to hear the album as it was originally intended.
Mark Lewisohn
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The Beatles already had a cover designed by a Dutch group called the Fool, but my gallery dealer, Robert Fraser, said to Paul, “Why don’t you use a ‘fine artist’, a professional, to do the cover instead?” Paul rather liked the idea and I was asked to do it. The concept of the album had already evolved: it would be as though the Beatles were another band, performing a concert. Paul and John said I should imagine that the band had just finished the concert, perhaps in a park. I then thought that we could have a crowd standing behind them, and this developed into the collage idea.
They made lists of the people they’d most like to have in the audience at this imaginary concert. John’s was interesting because it included Jesus and Ghandi and, more cynically, Hitler. But this was just a few months after the
EMI realized that because many of the people we were depicting were still alive, we might be sued for not seeking their permission. So the Beatles’ manager, Brian Epstein, who was very wary of all the complications in the first place, had his assistant write to everyone. Mae West replied, “No, I won’t be on it. What would I be doing in a lonely hearts club?” So the Beatles wrote her a personal letter and she changed her mind.
Robert Fraser was a business partner of Michael Cooper, an excellent photographer, so he was commissioned to do the shoot. I worked in his studio for a fortnight constructing the collage, fixing the top row to the back wall and putting the next about six inches in front and so on, so that we got a tiered effect. Then we put in the palm tree and the other little objects. I wanted to have the waxworks of the Beatles because I thought that they might be looking at Sgt. Pepper’s band too. The boy who delivered the floral display asked if he could contribute by making a guitar out of hyacinths, and the little girl wearing the ‘Welcome the Rolling Stones, Good Guys’ sweatshirt was a cloth figure of Shirley Temple, the shirt coming from Michael Cooper’s young son, Adam. The Beatles arrived during the evening of March 30, 1967. We had a drink, they got dressed and we did the session. It took about three hours in all, including the shots for the centre-fold and back cover.
The album sleeve was the first to feature printed lyrics, and it was one of the first to have a gatefold sleeve. It was also the first to have anything other than a plain inner bag too, the first pressing coming in a slightly psychedelic sleeve designed by Simon and Marijke of The Fool. And we also had a card with cut-outs, which I had originally intended to be a small packet with badges and pencils and such like. That was stopped because it would have caused EMI big marketing problems.
I’m not sure how much it all cost. One reads exaggerated figures. I think Robert Fraser was paid 1500 pounds by EMI, and I got about 200. People say to me, “You must have made a lot of money on it,” but I didn’t because Robert signed away the copyright. But it has never mattered too much because it was such a wonderful thing to have done.
– Peter Blake
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Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
Historical Notes
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was The Beatles’ eighth album in just over four years. The frequency of their releases seems startling now but as the ten months between Revolver and this LP passed by, there was much speculation about the perceived long delay. In fact, the group had abandoned concerts and were dedicating themselves solely to songwriting and prolongs work in the studio. Released on 1st June, 1967, the immediate artistic and commercial success of Sgt. Pepper vindicated this new approach adopted by The Beatles. It was the LP that provided the ubiquitous soundtrack to ‘the summer of love’ but its appeal is timeless.
The previous summer The Beatles had raced to finish recording Revolver – completing the last song just three days before the start of the tour that visited
The frustration of repeating their old repertoire to screaming fans, who could not hear them anyway, when added to the other pressures on the road in the summer of 1966, led the group to decide that the concert on 29th August at
In the
Even before Sgt. Pepper was released, The Beatles had started work on the title track of their next project, the TV film Magical Mystery Tour.
(see below for legend)
The Crowd Assembled…
1. Sri Yukteswar Giri (Guru)
2. Aleister Crowley (dabbler in black magic)
3. Mae West (Actress)
4. Lenny Bruce (Comic)
5. Karlheinz Stockhausen (Composer)
6. W.C. (William Claude) Fields (Comic)
7. Carl Gustav Jung (Psychologist)
8. Edgar Allen Poe (Writer)
9. Fred Astaire (Dancer/Actor)
10. Richard Merkin (Artist)
11. The Varga Girl (By artist Alberto Vargas)
12. Leo Gorcey (Actor) – Painted out because he requested a fee
13. Huntz Hall (Actor, with Leo Gorcey, One of the Bowery Boys)
14. Simon Rodia (Creator of
15. Bob Dylan (Musician)
16. Aubrey Beardsley (Illustrator)
17. Sir Robert Peel (Politician)
18. Aldous Huxley (Writer)
19. Dylan Thomas (Poet)
20. Terry Southern (Writer)
21. Dion (di Mucci) (Singer)
22. Tony Curtis (Actor)
23. Wallace Berman (Artist)
24. Tommy Handley (Comic)
25. Marilyn Monroe (Actress)
26. William Burroughs (Writer)
27. Sri Mahavatara Babaji (Guru)
28. Stan Laurel (Comic)
29. Richard Lindner (Artist)
30. Oliver Hardy (Comic)
31. Karl Marx (Philosopher/Socialist)
32. H. G. (Herbert George) Wells (Writer)
33. Sri Paramahansa Yagananda (Guru)
34. Anonymous (Hairdressers’ Wax Dummy)
35. Stuart Sutcliffe (Artist/Former Beatle)
36. Anonymous (Hairdressers’ WaxDummy)
37. Max Miller (Comic)
38. The Petty Girl (By artist George Petty)
39. Marlon Brando (Actor)
40. Tom Mix (Actor)
41. Oscar Wilde (Writer)
42. Tyrone Power (Actor)
43. Larry Bell (Artist)
44. Dr. David Livingstone (Missionary/Explorer)
45. Johnny Weismuller (Swimmer/Actor)
46. Stephen Crane (Writer)
47. Issy Bonn (Comic)
48. George Bernard Shaw (Writer)
49. H.C. (Horace Clifford) Westermann (Sculptor)
50. Albert Stubbins (Soccer Player)
51. Sri Lahiri Mahasaya (Guru)
52. Lewis Carroll (Writer)
53. T.E. (Thomas Edward) Lawrence (Soldier, a/k/a
54. Sonny Liston (Boxer)
55. The Petty Girl (By artist George Petty)
56. Wax Model of George Harrison
57. Wax Model of John Lennon
58. Shirley Temple (Child Actress)
59. Wax Model of Ringo Starr
60. Wax Model of Paul McCartney
61. Albert Einstein (Physicist)
62. John Lennon, holding a French Horn
63. Ringo Starr, holding a Trumpet
64. Paul McCartney, holding a Cor Anglais
65. George Harrison, holding a flute
66. Bobby Breen (Singer)
67. Marlene Dietrich (Actress)
68. Mohandas Karamchand Ghandi (Indian Leader) - Painted
Out At The Request of EMI
69. Legionnaire from the Order of The Buffalos
70. Diana Dors (Actress)
71. Shirley Temple (Child Actress)
72. Cloth Grandmother-Figure by Jann Haworth
73. Cloth Figure of Shirley Temple (Child Actress) by Jann
Haworth
74. Mexican Candlestick
75. Television Set
76. Stone Figure of Girl
77. Stone Figure
78. Statue from John Lennon’s House (also used by Peter
Blake as the basis for the cut-out of Sgt. Pepper)
79. Trophy
80. Four-Armed Indian Doll
81. Drum-Skin, designed by Joe Ephgrave
82. Hookah (water tobacco-pipe)
83. Velvet Snake
84. Japanese Stone Figure
85. Stone Figure of Snow White
86. Garden Gnome
87. Tuba
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Recording Notes
Produced by George Martin
Orchestrations by George Martin
Principal Engineer: Geoff Emerick
The Beatles’ recording grew more adventurous and innovative with every album release. Built on the experience and knowledge gained while making the ground-breaking Revolver, the inspirational work by The Beatles and George Martin on the next album showed the world what could be achieved in a recording studio.
More often than not, the imaginative arrangements required more tracks than were available on one four-track tape. The solution was to create extra tracks by copying the first four tracks to a second blank tape and simultaneously combining some of them to leave free as many tracks as were needed for additional overdubs. The need for more tracks reached a peak on Sgt. Pepper with ‘Getting Better’ requiring ‘bouncing down’ no less than three times.
The Beatles began work on ‘Getting Better’ on 9th March, 1967. First, the rhythm section of bass, drums, guitar and ‘Pianet’ electric piano was recorded on all four tracks. These were mixed together onto one track of a new tape, which left three tracks available for overdubs. Additional drums and bass were recorded on track two and double-tracked on track three; the final free track was used for a tamboura drone and piano. When copying to a third tape, the two bass and drum tracks were combined to one track and the tamboura and piano track was mixed in with the rhythm section. This left two tracks to record a double-tracked lead vocal, harmonies and handclaps. This third tape was then copied to a fourth tape to allow the two vocal tracks to be combined into one, creating a track for a guitar overdub. At the end of this protracted process, ten unique tracks had been used to complete the song.
Revolver had seen the introduction of Artificial/Automatic Double Tracking and this was also used throughout Sgt. Pepper. The sessions for the album also marked the first use of DI (Direct Injection) boxes. For example, on ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ Paul’s bass guitar was connected directly to the mixing desk rather than being recorded by a microphone in front of a speaker cabinet. There was also the speeding up and slowing down of tapes during recording and mixing, which altered the tempo and pitch of a voice, instrument or whole song. This is particularly evident in the sound of Paul’s voice on ‘When I’m Sixty-Four’.
The Beatles had worked during the night on several occasions when making Revolver but nocturnal recordings became the norm for Sgt. Pepper. No session ever began before 7:00pm and could sometimes finish as late – or early – as 6:00 or 7:00 in the morning. Their experimental and painstaking approach meant that it took nearly 400 hours to complete the LP – an astonishing amount of work for an album at that time.
This remastered album has been created from the original stereo analogue master tapes.
Remastered by Guy Massey and Steve Rooke.
Project Co-ordinator: Allan Rouse
Thanks to Simon Gibson
Historical Notes: Kevin Howlett and Mike Heatley
Recording Notes: Allan Rouse and Kevin Howlett
Project Management for EMI Records Ltd: Wendy Day and Guy Hayden
All songs published by Sony/ATV Music Publishing, LLC.
Digital Remaster © 2009 The copyright in the sound recording is owned by EMI Records Ltd. © 2009 EMI Records Ltd. This label copy information is the subject of copyright protection. All rights reserved.
Artwork © 2009 Apple Corps Ltd. All photographs © Apple Corps Ltd.
All photographs taken at Chelsea Manor Studios,
Album Redesign: Drew Lorimer
Photo Retouching: Gavin O’Neill
Photo editing and research: Aaron Bremner and Dorcas Lynn
