Читать книгу The Mojo Collection - Various Mojo Magazine - Страница 85

Record label: Parlophone (UK) Capitol (US)

Produced: George Martin

Recorded: Studio Two, Abbey Road, London and Regent Sound Studio, Tottenham Court Road, London; December 6, 1966–April 21, 1967

Released: June 1, 1967 (UK) June 2, 1967 (US)

Chart peaks: 1 (UK) 1 (US)

Personnel: Paul McCartney (b, k, v); John Lennon (g, k, v); George Harrison (g, sitar, v); Ringo Starr (d, pc, v); Geoff Emerick, Richard Lush, Phil McDonald, Keith Slaughter (e)

Track listing: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band/With A Little Help From My Friends (S/released 1978); Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds; Getting Better; Fixing A Hole; She’s Leaving Home; Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite; Within You Without You; When I’m Sixty Four; Lovely Rita; Good Morning Good Morning; Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise); A Day In The Life

Running time: 39.50 or, on vinyl, infinite

Current CD: CDP 7 46442 2

Further listening: Hear Pepper develop on Anthology II (1996)

Further reading: The Complete Beatles Chronicle (Mark Lewisohn, 1996); Revolution In The Head (Ian McDonald, 1995); www.beatles.com

Download: Not currently legally available

While recording Sgt. Pepper, Paul McCartney read an allegation that The Beatles had ‘dried up’, so quiet were they from Revolver (August 1966) through the winter and spring of 1967. But he knew exactly what The Beatles had up their sleeves.

‘I was sitting rubbing my hands, saying, You just wait!’ he remembers. His arrogance is intriguing: The Beatles could not have known what the public’s reaction to Sgt. Pepper would be. It may have baffled the bulk of their fans, so great was its scale and ambition. But over the 129 days it took to record, the Fabs were following their noses, and no one was going to tell them what could or couldn’t be achieved. Their favourite expression in the studio at this time was ‘There’s no such word as “can’t”.’

The first song recorded (Strawberry Fields Forever) was quickly deemed too plain and a new, orchestral arrangement ordered. The next three songs recorded were When I’m Sixty Four, Penny Lane and A Day In The Life, a gauge of how different this record was intended to be from its predecessors. Their ambitions even stretched to plans for a TV special following the recording. (In the end only one session was filmed, the orchestra playing on A Day In The Life.) Sgt. Pepper reeks of confidence and the desire to set new standards. It was a whole creation (and the first Beatles album to have the same sequence in Britain and America). McCartney – whose vision glued the project together – was especially daring, challenging Lennon to come up with sparkle to match. A Day In The Life was composed by them both, and the nods and winks that passed between the two as they put lyric onto paper belies the common misconception that they were worlds apart by this time. George Martin was urged to concoct brass, woodwind and orchestral parts, future Gary Glitter mastermind Mike Leander was commissioned to supply a string arrangement for She’s Leaving Home and the engineers were encouraged to stretch Abbey Road’s rather modest technology to its limits.

What they all came up with is arguably the reason for this book’s existence, for it energised the album form, providing a high watermark for anyone with the chance to record 40 minutes of music and decorate twelve square inches of card. It may not be the best album ever made – it’s not even the best Beatles album ever made – and in retrospect there’s a lot that’s gimmicky about it. It wasn’t the first ‘grown-up’ rock album, the first to use an orchestra, the first themed album or the first psychedelic album, but it was by The Beatles, and consequently it became the first of these to be noticed by the wider public and to mark the moment where pop music simultaneously reflected and defined the times.