continued from above...
A few of the tracks on Sgt Pepper have a love or hate ‘sponsored by Marmite’ quality to them, and quite often these are the misty-eyed nostalgia pieces. However, it’s not just the doily and tea-pot warmer triteness that is a problem but also that, again, the Beatles are looking backwards in more ways than one and are venturing into all-too-familiar territory. Not only were the themes of getting old and looking back (or even forward!) in ‘When I’m Sixty-Four’ covered far more cleverly and musically in ‘Penny Lane’, McCartney had been sitting on 'When I'm Sixty-Four' for years and the Beatles actually recorded it the week previously to ‘Penny Lane’!
In many ways much can be same about the ‘She’s Leaving Home’. Whilst it’s a great song and not quite as saccharine as many suggest, it’s basically ‘Eleanor Rigby part 2’ – or maybe even ‘Eleanor Rigby part 0.5’ if some musicologists are to be believed. Both odes to sad and ruined lives use similar orchestration techniques as a musical foil.
The only time Harrison is let out of his saffron-scented cage on Sgt Pepper by Lennon and McCartney with the wonderful ‘Within You Without You’, the potential shock of the 'new' and the 'exotic' is greatly diminished by 1965’s ‘what’s that wasp?’ eye-and-ear-opener, ‘Norwegian Wood’. Yes, Harrison is turning up both the Indian-ness and cod-philosophy but that’s a very different thing than presenting genuine newness. In many ways this turning the ' Indian-ness up to 11' was as much to do with having to prove himself to his ‘masters’, Lennon and McCartney, than a need to reveal anything genuinely new to a record-buying public as the real 'upping-the-game' motivation followed Harrison's realisation that the bizarre and disturbing ‘Only a Northern Song’ wouldn’t be included on Sgt Pepper as he'd hoped.
Whilst I don’t agree with the idea that Sgt Pepper is one of the greatest albums ever made, it is hard disagree that it is a great album. For most other bands it would be their crowing glory but, unfortunately for the Beatles themselves, this is the Beatles we’re talking about! The problem is, whether one can argue that other bands were equally innovative during this period, Sgt Pepper itself was actually book-ended by some genius work of the Beatles own making, as well as songs that were written and recorded during the Pepper-era but held off, such as the afore-mentioned ‘Only a Northern Song’ as well as ‘It’s All Too Much’ (more ‘back in your cage, Harrison!’ bullying), ‘Magical Mystery Tour’ or ‘All You Need is Love’ and so on.
When you think of the works that were released before Sgt Pepper such as the ‘Paperback Writer/Rain’ single and the ‘Revolver’ album, and then what followed immediately afterwards, it’s hard not think of Pepper as being something that happened in between greater moments rather than being the Beatles’ greatest moment itself.
Perhaps what’s most telling about Sgt Pepper is what did follow on after it. It’s fairly well-known that Sgt Pepper damaged the mind of Brian Wilson beyond repair, that toothsome beardies the Bee Gees went crazy for it in a different way, and it also prompted the Rolling Stones to raid their own dressing-up box but specifically was the influence of this album? How did it really change music? In many respects it didn’t even really change the Beatles themselves. A year after Sgt Pepper the Beatles had started follow a completely musical trajectory themselves anyway, as did popular music and rock in general. Whereas culturally and socially Sgt Pepper made big waves – I’ve long tired of ‘where were you when you first heard Sgt Pepper’ anecdotes – when it actually come to music, music, in a long-game sense, reacted against Sgt Pepper more than anything. By 1968, anyone that was anyone, and that includes the Beatles themselves, was now leaning towards a earthier, stripped-down rock sound as opposed to the ornamentation and psychedelic flamboyance that Pepper was said to have typified. The fact that in 1968 the Beatles gave us ‘the White album’ as opposed to ‘For your Delectation, the Beatles Present: Auntie Nancy’s Cream Bun Whirligig’ speaks volumes.
[/chin-stroking, pretentious twunt]
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