It Was Fifty-Five Years Ago Today

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This article was originally published in Northwest Prime Time on June 1, 2007

"It was twenty years ago today Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play."

I hear those lyrics and I'm back bounding up the terrazzo steps of my freshman dormitory where music from the Beatles' revolutionary album seems to pour from every open door.

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was released in June 1967. It's almost unfathomable that it was [fifty-five] years ago today that we first heard "It was twenty years ago today."

Tumultuous times? I'll say. When I marched off to college in the fall of 1967, Newark and Detroit were still smoldering from July's deadly race riots. Meanwhile, out in San Francisco the Summer of Love was dropping its last petals. The Generation Gap was widening.

Sgt. Pepper's popularized the "concept" album. Although it wasn't designed as a flowing single performance, most of us played it that way, flipping over the vinyl record half-way through. Strawberry Fields Forever and Penny Lane came out as a double A side single that summer. Both were recorded during the Sgt. Pepper sessions but cut from the final album, a decision that producer George Martin is said to have always regretted.

these years later, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band continues to draw accolades. In March the National Association of Recording Merchandisers and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame compiled a list of what they called the "Definitive 200," that is to say the 200 rock albums that should be in every music collection. No surprise that they put Sgt. Pepper's at the top of the list. Earlier Rolling Stone Magazine had listed it in the number one slot of its "500 Greatest Albums of All Time."

Hindsight is 20-20. It's easy to recognize albums (and other forms of art and popular culture) after the test of time. The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds is lauded today but at the time many rock fans considered that band passé when that album came out. But we couldn't miss that Sgt. Pepper's was a landmark, a "music is no longer the same" milestone. Critic Geoffrey Stokes said "listening to the Sgt. Pepper album one thinks not simply of the history of popular music but the history of this century." That is not hubris. From style to political philosophy, The Beatles left their marks on the world.

The Beatles decided to give up touring after their last public concert in August 1966 at San Francisco's Candlestick Park. Reinventing themselves as a strictly studio band, they were no longer restricted by how much sound could be produced by three guitars and a drum set. They had the creativity and finances to let loose. And let loose they did. Before Sgt. Pepper's we had never heard such extensive use of French horns, cellos and clarinets on a "rock" album before. And wow! They printed the lyrics right on the cover. Speaking of the cover, how many hours did you spend pouring over the faces from W.C. Fields to Brando?

When Paul McCartney sang "When I'm sixty-four" on side two, the notion seemed incomprehensibly far in the future to us Baby Boomers. McCartney himself turns 80 this month. Now I look back and I'm overwhelmed by how the Beatles progressed from four mop-tops in 1964 struggling to make their derivative rock 'n roll heard over screaming fans on Ed Sullivan to creating Sgt. Pepper's just three years later. In three years the Beatles had transformed music. They had also helped transform those screaming fans into a generation that philosophized that "All you need is love."

And we're still changing. Unlike when Paul McCartney sang of being sixty-four, we now realize that we're not immortal after all. George Harrison and John Lennon are gone. But we're still here, along with Paul and Ringo.

Therefore, let me say, "It's wonderful to be here. It's certainly a thrill."

-- W.E. Reinka may be reached at wereinka@ix.netcom.com.. 

This article has been updated. It originally appeared in the June 2007 issue of Northwest Prime Time, the Puget Sound region’s monthly publication celebrating life after 50.