It's June 1, 1967 and I'm a teenager working at Wallichs Music City, a record store in the San Fernando Valley...
In June a ton of boxes from Capital Records arrived. Inside was the new Beatles album – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Hurriedly, we put it on in the store and I was completely knocked out by it. So innovative and original and groundbreaking. It’s hard to believe how much they had grown as musicians. Just three years ago they were singing, “She Loves You/ Yeah Yeah Yeah” and now they’re doing “Day in the Life” complete with its complex arrangement, full orchestra, and audio effects never before heard. Music historians will tell you this was the album that defined psychedelic rock and maybe the decade itself. All I know is this: we played Sgt. Pepper’s continuously that summer. Nothing else. Just Sgt. Pepper’s. I must’ve heard it 500 times that summer, maybe a thousand.
And I never got tired of it.
Still to this day, I could listen to Sgt. Pepper’s on a continuous loop. I can’t say that about any other album I’ve ever heard.
Sgt. Pepper also generated a fair amount of controversy because of its lyrics. There was much speculation that there were drug references hidden in them; “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” – LSD being the most obvious. Drug reference lyrics became the rage in this period. The Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit,” Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple Haze” are just two of many examples. Donovan made a career out of stringing non-sequiturs together that people interpreted as deeply meaningful.
Electrical bananas are sure to be the very next phase.
They weren't. But Sgt. Pepper's is still a best-selling album/CD/download/rip today. Worth revisiting. Or discovering for the first time. Plug in a banana, have a toke, and enjoy.
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