"Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" is a song written by Paul McCartney (credited to Lennon–McCartney), released in 1967 on the album of the same name by the Beatles. The song appears twice on the album: as the opening track (segueing into "With a Little Help from My Friends"), and as "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)", the penultimate track (segueing into "A Day in the Life"). As the title song, the lyrics introduce the fictional band that performs on the album.
Since its original album release, "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" has also been released on various Beatles singles and compilation albums. The song has also been performed by several other artists, including Jimi Hendrix, U2, and a comic interpretation by Bill Cosby, using the opening to John Philip Sousa's Washington Post March as the instrumental bridge.
Authorship and recording
In November 1966, on the flight back to England after a holiday in Kenya, McCartney conceived an idea in which an entire album would be role-played, with each of the Beatles assuming an alter-ego in the "Lonely Hearts Club Band", which would then perform a concert in front of an audience. The inspiration is said to have come when roadie Mal Evans innocently asked McCartney what the letters "S" and "P" stood for on the pots on their in-flight meal trays, and McCartney explained it was for salt and pepper. This then led to the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band concept, as well as the song.
The group's road manager, Neil Aspinall, suggested the idea of Sgt. Pepper being the compère, as well as the reprise at the end of the album. According to his diaries, Evans may have also contributed to the song. John Lennon attributed the idea for Sgt. Pepper to McCartney, although the song is officially credited to Lennon–McCartney. The Beatles recorded the track in Abbey Road's studio 2, with George Martin producing, and Geoff Emerick engineering. Work on the song started on 1 February 1967, and after three further sessions the recording was completed on 6 March 1967.
Song structure
On the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album, the song opens to the sound of a chattering audience, and an orchestra tuning up, which was taken from the 10 February orchestra session for "A Day in the Life". The crowd sounds edited into the song were recorded in the early 1960s by Martin, during a live recording of the stage show Beyond the Fringe. The band is then introduced by name. The song's structure is:
Introduction (instrumental) Verse Bridge (instrumental) Refrain Bridge Verse Instrumental bridge and transition into "With a Little Help from My Friends".
The song is in G major, with a meter. A horn quartet was used to fill out the instrumental sections.
Reprise
"Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)" is a modified repeat of the opening song at a faster tempo and with heavier instrumentation. The track opens with McCartney's count-in; between 2 and 3, Lennon jokingly interjects "Bye!" Ringo Starr starts the song proper by playing the drum part unaccompanied for four bars, at the end of which a brief bass glissando from McCartney cues the full ensemble of two distorted electric guitars (played by George Harrison and Lennon), bass, drums and overdubbed percussion. In addition, McCartney overdubbed a Hammond organ part onto the track.
While the first version of the song had stayed largely in the key of G major (except for transient modulation to F and perhaps C in the bridges), the reprise starts in F and features a modulation, to G. The mono and stereo mixes of the song differ slightly: the former has a fractionally different transition from the previous song, and includes crowd noise and laughter in the opening bars that are absent from the stereo mix.
The idea for a reprise was Aspinall's, who thought that, as there was a "welcome song", there should also be a "goodbye song". The song contains broadly the same melody as the opening version, but with different lyrics and omitting the "It's wonderful to be here" section. At 1:18, it is one of the Beatles' shorter songs (the shortest is "Her Majesty" at 0:23). The reprise was recorded on 1 April 1967, two months after the version that opens the album. At the end of the track, Martin's applause sample segues into the final track of the album, "A Day in the Life".
Releases
It was originally released in the UK on 26 May 1967, and in the US on 2 June 1967 on the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band LP.