BBC 4 Sergeant Pepper Analysis

Subject: BBC 2 Sergeant Pepper Analysis
From: GUEST,Senoufou
Date: 10 Jun 17 - 04:23 AM

Watched an excellent programme last night about this album. It came out in 1967, when recording technology was very basic, yet (as the presenter, Howard Goodall, showed) the Beatles used many complex and innovative ways of blending several tracks. They also used diatonic scales (modal music more often found in medieval works, not to mention
a plethora of instruments, Indian tabla rhythms, sitar music, steam fairground organ, and a full orchestra playing random notes on a rising scale for the final song 'A Day In The Life'.

Unlike all the other psychedelic type of music in vogue, the songs weren't based solely on tripping, but on everyday situations and familiar places of their childhood. The Beatles' composition skills and musical knowledge is astonishing.

I was young and daft in 1967 and well remember hearing this album for the first time. It had a great effect on me then, and I was fascinated to realise I still feel the same fifty years on.
Anyone else watch this?

Subject: RE: BBC 4 Sergeant Pepper Analysis
From: Mr Red
Date: 10 Jun 17 - 05:32 AM

Yea, bought the album.
To most of us it was just Beatles and different
Who realised it took 5 months?
He didn't analyse all the tracks. Presumably the others were more nearly straight 60s pop in composition.

Music was their life, and they had the money, so why not indulge?

Subject: RE: BBC 4 Sergeant Pepper Analysis
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 10 Jun 17 - 06:57 AM

I downloaded the super deluxe version in flac lossless format from the pirate bay last week and it sounds very good. I probably bought the original at least 3 times having lent LP copies that were never returned!

Subject: RE: BBC 4 Sergeant Pepper Analysis
From: gillymor
Date: 10 Jun 17 - 08:23 AM

It's been running here in the U.S. on various PBS stations under the title of "Sgt. Pepper's Musical Revolution". A fascinating look into their creative process. Goodall gave me a renewed appreciation of the musicality of those guys.

Subject: RE: BBC 4 Sergeant Pepper Analysis
From: GUEST,Pete from seven stats link
Date: 10 Jun 17 - 05:21 PM

Presumably there would not be anything particularly extra from the old vinyl , apart from a few out takes ?

Subject: RE: BBC 4 Sergeant Pepper Analysis
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Jun 17 - 05:44 PM

I loved it. Had it been a two-hour programme he maybe could have covered more of the songs. Lovely Rita may be my favourite but it didn't really get much of a mention. I bought the album on the day it came out before I went to school. I think I had an 'O' Level exam that morning. I wore out that copy within weeks (I had to weigh down the arm of my record player with three pennies sellotaped on top of it to stop it skipping) and had to buy another copy. Bad news as albums cost 32 shillings in those days. I had to work Friday night after school and all day Saturday at Victor Value to earn that much money. I know every note and every word of every track. How great to be sixteen and a Beatles fanatic when that album came out!

Subject: RE: BBC 4 Sergeant Pepper Analysis
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 10 Jun 17 - 06:01 PM

I remember working on an audit in Cheapside, London at the time Sgt Pepper was released, and some of us would visit a record shop nearby at lunchtime and ask them to play it. I never bought it there though, I did however in Imhoffs in New Oxford Street.

Subject: RE: BBC 4 Sergeant Pepper Analysis
From: Senoufou
Date: 10 Jun 17 - 06:13 PM

I think what strikes me as a (much!) older person is the sheer musical skill and versatility displayed in the album. I just loved it all in the Sixties, but now I can appreciate the finer points as revealed in the programme.

I went to Canada (Montreal Expo 67) that year, and felt very proud that the Canadians were talking about it.

I'm afraid I didn't swallow the 'innocent explanation' about 'Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds'.

I think Mr Kite is my favourite of the songs.

Subject: RE: BBC 4 Sergeant Pepper Analysis
From: meself
Date: 10 Jun 17 - 06:38 PM

There is a Montreal connection I heard about on a CBC radio doc some years back. There was a Jewish kid in Montreal whose father came back from some business in London with what was said to be the first copy of Sgt Pepper in North America. As any kid with a social conscience would do in those innocent times, he opened the window, pulled the stereo over, and blasted it into the street.

Subject: RE: BBC 4 Sergeant Pepper Analysis
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Jun 17 - 06:59 PM

The lads got close to banal with "daddy, our baby's gone" though the sentiment just about rescued it! It struck me that the oft-received wisdom that it was all down to George Martin may be well wide of the mark. The creativity seems, from this programme at least, to have been entirely down to the Fab Four.

Subject: RE: BBC 4 Sergeant Pepper Analysis
From: Senoufou
Date: 11 Jun 17 - 03:55 AM

I don't know, Steve. I reckon that line was intended to show just how stifling the young woman's life was with her infantilising parents. As are 'How could she treat us so thoughtlessly? How could she do this to me?' The point of the song seems to me to be that the woman is now a grown adult and has needs her clingy, suffocating parents won't or can't accept.

Interesting, meself, about the Montreal connection. London was just beginning to be trendy (Carnaby Street and all that) and I was bemused when my accent (quite Cockney then!) threw people into raptures in Canada. I was staying with my aunt in London Ontario after the Expo trip, and people kept coming up to me in the street asking me to 'Say something!'

Subject: RE: BBC 4 Sergeant Pepper Analysis
From: GUEST,Ed
Date: 11 Jun 17 - 07:41 AM

I'm afraid I didn't swallow the 'innocent explanation' about 'Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds'

I'm sorry Eliza, but that conspiracy like viewpoint frustrates me a good deal. The Beatles were very open about their drug use and how it influenced various songs. They were happy to admit what "I'd love to turn you on" in 'A Day In The Life' meant, so why would they lie about 'Lucy'?

It was a coincidence, nothing more.

Subject: RE: BBC 4 Sergeant Pepper Analysis
From: Allan Conn
Date: 11 Jun 17 - 07:46 AM

For me it isn't one of my very favourite Beatle albums and certainly nowhere near one of my favourite albums. I know there is the recording advances etc but again for me not enough really good songs on it compared with some other albums. I really like "Day In The Life" "Lucy In The Sky" and "She's Leaving Home" from this album. And maybe "With A Little Help From My Friends" but Joe Cocker's version not the Beatles. To tell you the truth I'm not overwhelmed by the rest of the tracks though they are quite good - just not good enough to make it one of my favourite albums. Maybe it is an age thing as before my time so missed the hoo-ha about it.

Subject: RE: BBC 4 Sergeant Pepper Analysis
From: GUEST,Ed
Date: 11 Jun 17 - 08:20 AM

Maybe it is an age thing as before my time so missed the hoo-ha about it.

I'm not sure that's right Allan.

I was born in September '67 so it was obviously before my time too. And yes, I think 'Rubber Soul' and 'Revolver' were better albums, but the cultural significance is clear to those who bother to look...

Subject: RE: BBC 4 Sergeant Pepper Analysis
From: gillymor
Date: 11 Jun 17 - 09:12 AM

It wasn't my favorite Beatles album but I think it was their studio masterpiece. I heard it when it first came out at the age of 15 and I thought it was a light concoction of hummable tunes but a few years later, when I was dabbling in psychedelics, it became a complex and wonderful beast and all those little production doodads which I hadn't noticed much before suddenly became very profound.

Subject: RE: BBC 4 Sergeant Pepper Analysis
From: gillymor
Date: 11 Jun 17 - 09:17 AM

Come to think of it I turned 14 that year.
I suppose a lot of folks of that age or thereabouts had a similar experience with Sgt. P.

Subject: RE: BBC 4 Sergeant Pepper Analysis
From: Allan Conn
Date: 11 Jun 17 - 09:37 AM

Yes I'm not doubting the cultural significance or the studio work etc. Just not my favourite collection of Beatles songs which for me is the defining factor. And I know it is only my opinion but I enjoy I've heard "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Penny Lane" were part of the recording sessions and originally for the album. Don't know if that is right but it would have for me improved the album had they been on too. Saying that "Day In The Life" is possibly my favourite Beatles song.

Subject: RE: BBC 4 Sergeant Pepper Analysis
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 11 Jun 17 - 09:49 AM

Big difference for me when listening to the outtakes, and I have many many more than those included in the super deluxe boxed set, is that both playng and vocals are spot on from Take 1. Compare that with the Please Please Me album outtakes where although the vocals were spot on, the playing was dire - in particular the guitar solos!!

Subject: RE: BBC 4 Sergeant Pepper Analysis
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Jun 17 - 10:04 AM

Sgt Pepper is a great album..but it would not be my choice for best Beatles album. I think they made at least two which were much better, Revolver and the best they ever did, Abbey Road. Abbey Road displays some of their best songwriting and two of the best that George ever wrote. Side two is brilliant, I don't think they ever made a better album.

Subject: RE: BBC 4 Sergeant Pepper Analysis
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 11 Jun 17 - 11:14 AM

I agree about side two of Abbey Road but side one contains some of Lennon's worst duffers such as Come Together and I Want You. Revolver is brilliant but hasn't broken away much from the equal-length song-collection idea of albums, great though the songs are. Sgt Pepper sounds much more like an integrated project (as the programme repeatedly said). It's the Beatles' equivalent of Beethoven's quartet in C sharp minor.

Subject: RE: BBC 4 Sergeant Pepper Analysis
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Jun 17 - 11:19 AM

Lennon had a lot of worst duffers, that is for sure. However, I don't think that Come Together is one of them.

Subject: RE: BBC 4 Sergeant Pepper Analysis
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 11 Jun 17 - 11:29 AM

Best Beatles for me is Watching Rainbows.

Subject: RE: BBC 4 Sergeant Pepper Analysis
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 11 Jun 17 - 11:50 AM

There is no such thing as the best Beatles LP.. they all had their fair share of shite songs...

Of course.. we can all make our own individual fantasy 'best of' compilations...

..and then an equally personal "worst of"...

Though maybe the shite Beatles songs are more objectively demonstratable than their collective best....

Personally... I think the ramshackle best recordings of The Move equal and surpass latter corporate affluent Beatles productions...

Subject: RE: BBC 4 Sergeant Pepper Analysis
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Jun 17 - 02:20 PM

The MMOVE, surely you are joking PFR ?

Subject: RE: BBC 4 Sergeant Pepper Analysis
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 11 Jun 17 - 02:33 PM

.. absolutely not..

The Move would have shat beatles if they had all the resources and unlimited indulgence of EMI & Abbey Road...

More than enough evidence of under appreciated wayward genius in their raw, rough, scraped together on the cheap recordings... 😜

Subject: RE: BBC 4 Sergeant Pepper Analysis
From: Will Fly
Date: 11 Jun 17 - 02:37 PM

Arguments about who was "better" than whom are always pointless. Personal taste is personal taste, so just beg to differ, chaps (and chapesses) and live and let live, eh?

I happen to adore the craziness of the Holy Modal Rounders, but I would happily accept that they're not to everybody's taste!

Subject: RE: BBC 4 Sergeant Pepper Analysis
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 11 Jun 17 - 02:42 PM

The Move and the Small Faces did better stuff but the Beatles were far more consistent.

Just IMHO

DtG

Subject: RE: BBC 4 Sergeant Pepper Analysis
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 11 Jun 17 - 02:49 PM

spot on Will... it's [ok... should be..] obvious I dont take any of this musical sectarianism seriously..

The mid to late 60s was opver stuffed with all sorts of phenomenal artists, bands, and music...

Not that a lot of the extreme beatles obsessives would recognize that..

Like any sane music lover, I think the beatles were excellent...

My probelem as always is with the horde of fundementalist evangelical beatles fanboys / girls
who see music history through very distorted trippy Lennon lenses...

Only got to read all the rows kicking off on online reviews of the new Sgt Pepper cash cow product line...

Subject: RE: BBC 4 Sergeant Pepper Analysis
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 11 Jun 17 - 02:51 PM

Dave - yep... agree whole heartedly...

my big three, are Move / Small Faces / Who.... then the Beatles...


... and who / what kept the beatles in ine and consistent....?????

Subject: RE: BBC 4 Sergeant Pepper Analysis
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 11 Jun 17 - 02:52 PM

in line..

Subject: RE: BBC 4 Sergeant Pepper Analysis
From: GUEST,RA
Date: 11 Jun 17 - 04:06 PM

I kinda disagree with Goodall's assertion that the orchestral sections of 'A Day in the Life' constitute an example of 'aleatoric' music-making - instead, I'd argue that the cutting up and random splicing together of calliope recordings in 'Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite' could be much more properly described as 'aleatoric'. But anyway... interesting programme overall!

Subject: RE: BBC 4 Sergeant Pepper Analysis
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 11 Jun 17 - 05:20 PM

Yea - almost forgot the Who. Unforgivable! But not as bad as not mentioning Jethro Tull :-)

DtG

Subject: RE: BBC 4 Sergeant Pepper Analysis
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 11 Jun 17 - 05:55 PM

I've come to love Rihanna.

Her music's not bad either....

Subject: RE: BBC 4 Sergeant Pepper Analysis
From: robomatic
Date: 11 Jun 17 - 06:21 PM

When I was young I was a bit hide-bound. For me the British invasion began and ended with Gilbert & Sullivan and I was a devotee. A bit later I fastened on The Goons. I did not appreciate the Beatles for many years, but now with the loss of copious brain cells and synapse connections, I do.

Watched the "Musical Revolution" with great enjoyment although to me there were more formative musical groups (Pink Floyd, The Who, Procol Harum).

Subject: RE: BBC 4 Sergeant Pepper Analysis
From: Gallus Moll
Date: 11 Jun 17 - 06:25 PM

I was at a party in a flat off Byres Road on the day Sergeant Pepper came out, a medic student arrived clutching the album - - wow, what a night! Never to be forgotten --
(sort of like ' where were you when you heard Kennedy was shot' a few years before. )

Subject: RE: BBC 4 Sergeant Pepper Analysis
From: Senoufou
Date: 11 Jun 17 - 06:29 PM

I love Rihanna's 'Shut Up And Drive' and 'Umbrella'.

And Pink Floyd's 'Learning To Fly' and 'Comfortably Numb', but my all-time favourite of theirs is 'Wish You Were Here'. The words '..a walk-on part in a war or a leading role in a cage..' have haunted me for years. They seem to express a dilemma I've always struggled with.

I first got interested in Floyd while prison visiting. The young inmates were all very keen on them, and I decided to listen to some of their work. Very profound, and musically interesting too.

Subject: RE: BBC 4 Sergeant Pepper Analysis
From: Senoufou
Date: 11 Jun 17 - 06:30 PM

Oh Gallus Moll! I lived just off Byres Road for five years (Belmont Street) Still miss it!

Subject: RE: BBC 4 Sergeant Pepper Analysis
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 11 Jun 17 - 06:42 PM

...anyway... about 30 years ago I aquired a bootleg CD of the Beatles live in Japan,
and was impresed by how good a raw live rock band they sounded
at their peak,
just before they packed in gigging for good...

... to retire to the indulgencies of London upper class art scene and the studio...


If they'd carried on gigging they might even have become as powerful a live force as the Who, Hendrix, and the New Yardbirds

Subject: RE: BBC 4 Sergeant Pepper Analysis
From: StephenH
Date: 11 Jun 17 - 06:53 PM

I also very much enjoyed the television program. It very much makes a difference when you have a presenter such as Howard Goodall who can not only tell you about such and such a piece but further enhance what he says by playing an example.
Not sure I would rank Sgt. Pepper as one of my all-time favourites but came to the conclusion long ago that I cannot really objectively analyse the Beatles' music as they were such an integral part of my pop-saturated youth. (well, I can, I suppose, if really pressed.)
One of the biggest revelations for me from the program was that the song "LS Bumblebee" was done by Peter Cook & Dudley Moore. I remember that being played and announced as a Beatles' song when it first came out. For years I talked to friends about this 'lost' Beatles' song - and got a lot of funny looks. I cannot believe that, over all these decades, I never knew the truth!

Subject: RE: BBC 4 Sergeant Pepper Analysis
From: Senoufou
Date: 11 Jun 17 - 07:23 PM

I believe the Beatles stopped performing live to audiences simply because their fans screamed their heads off constantly during concerts, and neither they nor the Beatles could hear anything of the music at all. Paul McCartney said as much in the programme. He pointed out that they felt it to be impossible to develop their performance or enrich their repertoire under such trying conditions, and that's why they retreated to a studio to create innovative music.

I agree about Howard Goodall, who seemed to be an extremely knowledgeable musicologist. I'd like to see him present more programmes about his analysis of popular albums.

Subject: RE: BBC 4 Sergeant Pepper Analysis
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 11 Jun 17 - 09:08 PM

Welll... it's 2 am.. and i'm in the mood for watching the documentary now...


... and probably listen to Sgt Pepper sometime this week...
Then that'll be it for another 5 to 10 years....

Subject: RE: BBC 4 Sergeant Pepper Analysis
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 11 Jun 17 - 09:35 PM

Whack it on at 11 while you drive at 90 down the M6 in your 2.8i Capri. That's the way to do it!

Subject: RE: BBC 4 Sergeant Pepper Analysis
From: Brian Peters
Date: 12 Jun 17 - 07:58 AM

Howard Goodall was a very fine analyst. Exciting to be offered such a high level of expertise and clarity.

Subject: RE: BBC 4 Sergeant Pepper Analysis
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Jun 17 - 08:10 AM

Yes, Dave, Jethro Tull for sure. One of the Most under rated bands ever. As were the Kinks.

Subject: RE: BBC 4 Sergeant Pepper Analysis
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 12 Jun 17 - 09:08 AM

.. and The Zombies and Yardbirds.. Idle Race..

... even David Bowie's mid 60s LP &singles


.. all fellow travellers with the Beatles... all inspired by the same cultural influences..

Sgt Pepper did not spring out of nowhere into existence within an isolated vacuum.

The corporate Beatle fandom industry gives them far too much credit ...

to the exclusion of most other great bands,
who were all working from the same wellspring of ideas and counter influencing each other...

Subject: RE: BBC 4 Sergeant Pepper Analysis
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 12 Jun 17 - 09:54 AM

..and while im on my soapbox and waiting for the kettle to boil...

Yes, Sgt Pepper is a great achievement and one of the most important cultural products in recent history..

But if it hadn't been for the Beach Boys "Pet Sounds" waking the Beatles up to what could really be done in a studio...??

Personally I prefer Pet Sounds because I can enjoy listening to it fairly often, whereas Pepper is a bit of a chore I put off for years at a time due to over familiiarity...

..and then there is Syd era Pink Floyd singles and LP..

"The Piper at the Gates of Dawn" was recording concurrently at EMI with Pepper, but was released just a few months later....

For me, Piper has always been a more magical, evocative experience than Pepper...

I'll probably insist on "Bike" being played as I enter the crematorium...

Subject: RE: BBC 4 Sergeant Pepper Analysis
From: Senoufou
Date: 12 Jun 17 - 11:22 AM

I'm having Enya's 'S fagaim mo bhaile for my funeral. The words are ineffably sad.
Should make everyone bawl their eyes out!

Subject: RE: BBC 4 Sergeant Pepper Analysis
From: GUEST,pauperback
Date: 12 Jun 17 - 12:59 PM

Interesting about the beach boys, punkfolkrocker.

'Back in the USSR' always puzzled me, was it a Beach Boys tribute or a blatant ripoff?

And yes, 'The British Invasion', right on JFK's bloody Irish heels.

Hmmm, no wonder it's Sir Paul & Sir Mick...

Subject: RE: BBC 4 Sergeant Pepper Analysis
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 12 Jun 17 - 01:29 PM

A Beatles with Kenny Jones on drums and Steve Marriott on lead guitar might have been interesting!

Subject: RE: BBC 4 Sergeant Pepper Analysis
From: Allan Conn
Date: 12 Jun 17 - 03:54 PM

I agree with PFR about Pet Sounds a great album. Re Pauperback all these groups were paying homage to earlier work. The Beatles "Back In The USSR" looks back not just to the Beach Boys but to this earlier Chuck Berry track too

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uB_2yjIkdk8