Paul McCartney had flown to France on 6 November 1966, and met Mal Evans in Bordeaux on 12 November before flying to Kenya for a safari holiday.
In Kenya they were joined by McCartney’s girlfriend Jane Asher, and the three of them visited the Ambosali Park at the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro, and stayed at the Treetops Hotel in Aberdare National Park.
They spent their final night on 18 November at the YMCA in Nairobi before flying back to London on this day. During the flight McCartney had the idea for Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
We were fed up with being the Beatles. We really hated that f*****g four little mop-top boys approach. We were not boys, we were men. It was all gone, all that boy s**t, all that screaming, we didn’t want any more, plus, we’d now got turned on to pot and thought of ourselves as artists rather than just performers. There was now more to it; not only had John and I been writing, George had been writing, we’d been in films, John had written books, so it was natural that we should become artists.Then suddenly on the plane I got this idea. I thought, Let’s not be ourselves. Let’s develop alter egos so we’re not having to project an image which we know. It would be much more free. What would really be interesting would be to actually take on the personas of this different band. We could say, ‘How would somebody else sing this? He might approach it a bit more sarcastically, perhaps.’ So I had this idea of giving the Beatles alter egos simply to get a different approach; then when John came up to the microphone or I did, it wouldn’t be John or Paul singing, it would be the members of this band. It would be a freeing element. I thought we can run this philosophy through the whole album: with this alter-ego band, it won’t be us making all that sound, it won’t be the Beatles, it’ll be this other band, so we’ll be able to lose our identities in this.
Me and Mal often bantered words about which led to the rumour that he thought of the name Sergeant Pepper, but I think it would be much more likely that it was me saying, ‘Think of names.’ We were having our meal and they had those little packets marked ‘S’ and ‘P’. Mal said, ‘What’s that mean? Oh, salt and pepper.’ We had a joke about that. So I said, ‘Sergeant Pepper,’ just to vary it, ‘Sergeant Pepper, salt and pepper,’ an aural pun, not mishearing him but just playing with the words.
Then, ‘Lonely Hearts Club’, that’s a good one. There’s lot of those about, the equivalent of a dating agency now. I just strung those together rather in the way that you might string together Dr Hook and the Medicine Show. All that culture of the sixties going back to those travelling medicine men, Gypsies, it echoed back to the previous century really. I just fantasised, well, ‘Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’. That’d be crazy enough because why would a Lonely Hearts Club have a band? If it had been Sergeant Pepper’s British Legion Band, that’s more understandable. The idea was to be a little more funky, that’s what everybody was doing. That was the fashion. The idea was just take any words that would flow. I wanted a string of those things because I thought that would be a natty idea instead of a catchy title. People would have to say, ‘What?’ We’d had quite a few pun titles – Rubber Soul, Revolver – so this was to get away from all that.
Many Years From Now, Barry Miles
The Beatles began recording the Sgt Pepper title track on 1 February 1967.
Also on this day...
- 2016: Ringo Starr and his All-Starr Band live: Marin Veterans’ Memorial Auditorium, San Rafael
- 2013: Paul McCartney live: Tokyo Dome, Tokyo
- 2013: Ringo Starr and his All-Starr Band live: Auditorio Nacional, Mexico City
- 2012: Paul McCartney autographed tie auctioned for male cancer fundraiser
- 2009: Two Beatles download sites to remain closed indefinitely
- 2005: Paul McCartney live: Toyota Center, Houston
- 1995: Sir George Martin appears on the BBC’s Desert Island Discs
- 1993: Paul McCartney live: Fukuoka Dome, Fukuoka
- 1976: UK album release: Thirty Three & 1/3 by George Harrison
- 1963: The Beatles live: Gaumont Cinema, Wolverhampton
- 1962: The Beatles live: Adelphi Ballroom, West Bromwich
- 1962: The Beatles live: Smethwick Baths Ballroom, Smethwick
- 1962: The Beatles live: Cavern Club, Liverpool (lunchtime)
- 1961: The Beatles live: Casbah Coffee Club, Liverpool
- 1960: The Beatles live: Kaiserkeller, Hamburg
Want more? Visit the Beatles history section.
The Beatles most overrated album. The reason why the album became so famous is this, as I see it. The establishment and the elder generation didn´t discover The Beatles when they made their breakthrough in 1963.It was the youth. The Beatle music was too bluesy or expressive for the elder. The establishment and the elder generation preferred pop music resembling Irwing Berlin´s songs in the 1930s. But then came McCartney´s Yesterday 1965, a song without drums, and with strings. Now the establishment and the elder generation “discovered” The Beatles. They – not the youth — controled the media and got the prerogative. The establishment didn´t know that Lennon was the dominant composer 1963-1965, and judged McCartney to the “Composer in The Beatles”. After Yesterday the establishment followed the Beatles albums with more and more interest. But actually, they only understood the ballads in the albums. So it was a natural development that the establishment´s interest was very high, when the album Sgt Pepper was released 1 June 1967. And the critics or the establishment became so enthusiastic! Or, they believed they must be enthusiastic?
But the critic Richard Goldstein in New York Times was not impressed, it´s “ a soft and messy piece of work” and “there is nothing beautiful on Sgt. Pepper”.
I think there are too many mediocre McCartney compositions, and too few exciting or daring Lennon compositions, even though Lennon´s compositions here are the best – most of A Day In The Life, Being For Mr. Kite and Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds. Two songs are among the worst songs Beatles have ever made: The title track, and Lovely Rita. When the work with the album was almost finished, they recorded a Harrison composition It´s All Too Much, very good. It would have been much better as the title song. The problem with McCartney´s compositions is that they cannot age, opposed to Lennon´s music that always is growing. And that despite McCartney´s and George Martin´s ever PR for the album. In the book The Mammut Book Of The Beatles, from the year 2000, Sean Egan writes about Sgt Pepper: The album has fallen down the esteem scale, in recent years.
I think the melodies in the album A Hard Day´s Night from 1964 are both more innovative and powerful, without symphony orchestra. 10 of the 13 songs are composed by Lennon.
Brilliant analysis. I wish I’d written this.
After reading this “brilliant analysis” again I feel the need to add my two cents worth. First of all, Mr. Johan Ono Cavalli is notorious for his strong anti-Paul comments sprinkled throughout this website and this analysis is no exception. Of course he is entitled to his own opinion which makes his contribution more of an opinion piece than an analysis, in my humble opinion.
Secondly, the New York Times critic who criticized Sgt. Pepper as a “soft and messy piece of work” listened to it on a stereo with a damaged or blown speaker. I refer to an article by Geoff Edgers entitled:”Meet the critic who panned Sgt. Pepper then discovered his speaker was busted.” This event was also included in the critic’s 2015 memoirs “Another Little Piece of My Heart.” With this in mind perhaps the soft and messy piece of work was Richard Goldstein’s unfortunate critique of a pretty darn good record album.
By the way, Mr. Goldstein later confessed that part of his problem with Sgt. Pepper was that he didn’t understand it. (No kidding!!) He also reviewed the Doors’ first album and concluded that it was great with one bad cut: Light My Fire. Enough said.
Merry Christmas and Happy 2018 to all.
That is absolutely true about Goldstein. And not only that, as any Beatles fan knows, Rolling Stone magazine has always had a hard on for Lennon over McCartney. So much so that , in fact, if one can believe it, the following is actually true: Paul McCarney did not make The Rolling Stones Top 100 Greatest Artists Of All Time. Yes you heard me right .The Beatles were #1. John Lennon was in there somewhere in the top 20. Paul McCartney was no f*****g where. Look for yourselves.
I’ve never purchased that that rag since I discovered that a few years ago. Unless he or The Beatles grace
I like the way you think Rebecca! Thank you for your comments, and very well written~
Nicely written Robert! I agree completely.
When the Beatles released Sgt Pepper, I was 13 years old. It was the first album I had ever waited for, making sure I was at the record store before it opened. After a too-long bus ride home, I finally got to hear the album. The impact is very hard to describe; there was nothing to compare it to.This was miles — universes — away from anything else on the radio. Even Revolver was tame in comparison. It was like having my ears and eyes opened. This is still my favorite Beatle album, the one that I use to test new audio equipment, and the one I go to when I am down.
Peace.
It’s good to see someone finally defend *Sgt Pepper*. It was certainly the Beatles’ best album *to that point*, though you can argue that they continued to improve afterward, but it’s also one of their *most important*, which isn’t quite the same thing as being the *greatest* (though at this point there’s not much difference between the best four or five Beatles albums).
*Sgt Pepper* is largely responsible for a whole bunch of the music I *really* love, made over the next dozen years; one author suggested that it laid down the “pretense” (or, if you like, the *pretext*) upon which the English progressive-rock movement was largely founded, all the way to the likes of, say, Jethro Tull’s *Songs From The Wood* in the late ’70s or a “niche” band like The Flower Kings in the ’90s. The world of rock music, despite what the post-punk hip consensus might think, is much richer for this album’s existing.
Art is always subjective. One person’s Mona Lisa is another man’s “picture of a homely women”. Leave it to the world at large to judge something. Sgt. Pepper was a ground breaking album for many reasons and affected music in ways still echoing. I really hate people who try and tear down genius just because they must be jealous or stupid.
What’s interesting in Paul’s quote is that he’s apparently trying to find a way for the Beatles to continue performing live (“then when John came up to the microphone or I did, it wouldn’t be John or Paul singing, it would be the members of this band”). But John and George had no interest in further live concerts, and both had already begun their investigation of other interests. And of course they never could have performed live without people seeing them as Beatles, like they couldn’t make an album as anyone else but the Beatles.