It's hard to imagine now, but in 1967 we lived in a world where it was perfectly possible to be unaware of a major media moment such as an imminent new Beatles album. As a 13-year old, I was pretty much oblivious. I loved the music I heard on the radio (what there was of it: bear in mind that the BBC's dedicated pop station Radio 1 didn't launch until September that same year) but I owned no records at all. I had a vague sense that buying records was something girls did, not boys. My older sister had records; I didn't. Besides, in our rather earnest, Baptist family, the frivolity and decadence of psychedelia did not sit well. My mother was given to saying things like, "Imagine if a son of mine came home looking like that!" Being the only son around, the message was clear.
So my most vivid memory of the album's release in summer 1967 was seeing, for the first time, on a visit to London multiple copies of the same striking album cover arrayed around record-shop windows and hanging from ceilings, tiled and strung like bunting, in a combination of decoration and advertisement. "Here it is!" the displays were screaming. But what is it, exactly? I wondered. It was a full year before I found out. But I found out*. And it wasn't long before my mother's fears about a son of hers were gradually, painfully, fulfilled, as we fought bitter battles over hair length, scruffy clothes, and unsuitable friends.
Fashion victim, ca. 1972
* A little quote from "Day Tripper", surely better than any track on the Sgt. Pepper album?
6 comments:
https://www.beatlesbible.com/forum/john-lennon/ringo-isnt-even-the-best-drummer-in-the-band/
Zouk,
Ah, this tedious obsession with the truth! I offer you Alternative Facts...
Funny, like so many of those on that forum, I could swear I've *heard* Lennon saying that. In fact, I can hear him saying it now (shh, he's in the next room). As I quoted recently (from "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance"): "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend"....
Mike
I must admit, I wasn't even the best Beatles fan in our house. Actually, I was never really a huge fan. However, over the years I have certainly come to see (?!) their music in a different light. Probably an inner one. Anyway, whichever way we look at the Cultural phenomenon they undoubtedly were, the programme on BBC4 last Saturday night about the album was wonderful. I thoroughly enjoyed watching and listening to a musician talking about the album and, along the way,teaching any half-interested party about music. It made me think about the album in a different way. Still, as Sir Paul said today, fancy Sgt Pepper being number 1 again 50 years on!
Just for the record, my favourite Fabs album is usually Let It Be but sometimes I go for Rubber Soul.
Dave,
I saw that programme, too, and agree it was genuinely enlightening on any number of things -- I loved the sticky-back plastic and loo-roll approach to innovative studio engineering!
Mike
The best anecdote about engineering the Beatles' work is how the late Sir George Martin spliced together two takes of Strawberry Fields recorded at different tempos and in different keys. I'm sure you will find it on the same fansite I referred to in my earlier comment.
Zouk,
Yes, that amazing feat is gone into in the programme ("Sgt. Pepper's Musical Revolution with Howard Goodall"), as both Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane were originally intended for the Sgt. Pepper album. Well worth catching on BBC iPlayer.
Mike
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