Worst Beatles song on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

I don't hate Ringo, I really don't (I stuck up for "What Goes On"!!!) ... but A Little Help is so flat, deadpan and rote that I can't believe I'm the first one to bring up this POS.

I feel bad about voting for 'Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds' because the verses are so beautiful, but I just can't get over the clunking chorus. They could've done much better there.

It's a marvellous album, it'll be grand to rediscover it. 'Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite!' is the one that does it for me. Something about provincial Victoriana strikes a deep chord that I only barely understand. When I was in Brighton I walked around the front & pier literally in tears I found it all so overwhelming. That the Beatles could channel that and all their other stuff is just remarkable.

I voted "Mr. Kite" just because the song sounds incredibly silly to me as a loutish American; every time I hear or think about it, I imagine the benefit being ruined by monster trucks rolling back and forth over poor waltzing Henry the Horse.

Nick, you've gotta remember the last time I really really listened closely to these albums (as opposed to delving into them on occasion) was 10 years ago as a sixth former. Working through those albums in my late teens, I was very disappointed by Peppers when I got to it, especially after Revolver which blew me away. Given this, I have a sneaking suspicion that my ear will be more willing to accept things like WYWY a little more now than it did at 17. I have only so far purchased the Abbey Road remaster so far, so I'm gonna wait till I can afford the new version of Peppers till I do this.

I'd be interested in what way you think the texture and mood of Peppers is so different from Revolver. I maintain Sgt Pepper's is a weaker version of Revolver, and I don't understand why it was this record that got lauded for so many years as this huge progressive step, when I'd consider the difference between Rubber Soul and Revolver much greater than that of Sgt Peppers, which for the most part sounds like a retread of a lot of previous ground. Some great tracks on here, but I find things like "Lovely Rita" and "Good Day Sunshine" to be really awkward-sounding - and I'm a McCartney fan(!)

How've I got to remember that you've not listened to these albums in ten years when you're positing theories and speculations about them as if you've been listening to them heavily since the remasters came out (which is why these threads exist, clearly)? I have no idea when you last listened to these records.

As for the differences between Revolver and Peppers, well...

Revolver, to me, tied in with Day Tripper, We Can Work It Out, Paperback Writer, Rain, and Rubber Soul, shows a constant growth and development in the band's sound over a period of about 18 months, a development that starts with Wait, moves through the big groundbreaks of Drive My Car and Norwegian Wood, and eventually into the disparate, emotionally uncomfortable experiments of Revolver (John experimenting with psychosis and psychedelia, Paul experimenting with genre and story-telling).

Revolver is a very dark, anguished, guitar-led record; George spitting spite and self on Taxman, Paul ruminating on isolation and death in Rigby and For No One, and Lennon... well, losing his mind on She Said She Said and losing EVERYTHING on Tomorrow Never Knows. Yes, there are pop moments (Good Day Sunshine), and soul moments (GTGYIML), and tired moments of psychedelic ennui (I'm Only Sleeping), and Indian moments (Love You Too), but the tone and texture that dominates the record is of electric guitars; the experiments are the band "bouncing down", running tapes backwards, using bass and drums in ways they hadn't before (as predicated on Rain, fucking hell that bassline, fuck me, and those drums too), running guitar lines over each other and through each other (And Your Bird Can Sing! She Said She Said!).

Strawberry Fields, as a bridge between Revolver and Pepper, moves the experiments in a very different way, one that calls massively on George Martin's orchestral and musicological nous. There's barely any guitar on SFF, for instance; just the dappled notes in the first minute and then the awesome right-channel mini-riff/solo towards the end, that plays off with the strings. There's FUCKLOADS of guitar on revolver.

Pepper is the band experimenting by, at Paul's suggestion, pretending to not be The Beatles anymore, and thus opening up the possibilities of the sounds they can make; so you end up with the fairground psychedelia, the Victoriana, the multi-perspective ballads, the huge orchestral swells on A Day In The Life (consider the climax of Revolver, to which Harrison is key Tomorrow Never Knows relies on his backwards guitars, loops, etcetera; he plays tambourine and nothing else on A Day In The Life [and only has one song on Pepper anyway]). Revolver is John & George's album; Pepper is Paul's, only Paul has split with Asher and got over his loneliness fear (turning it into a charming[ish] joke on 64), meaning that Pepper is a much happier album than Revolver.

Even John's tracks on Pepper, bar Lucy, are mimics of Paul - Good Morning Good Morning is him mocking Good Day Sunshine by having the happy sunny animals eat each other. In fact the most John song on Pepper, and the only thing that could fit on Revolver, is Paul's aping John for once on Fixing A Hole. Only it has none of the true darkness of John's previous work on Revolver, because Paul just can't do that.

Texturally Pepper doesn't rely on guitar except the title tracks, and the solo in Good Morning Good Morning. That Paul plays the solo on GMGM and Taxman doesn't make them similar (there's fuck-all other guitar in GMGM practically); in fact, it points at how much he's taking over the band and steering it away from Revolver territory because George has always had an inferiority complex next to Paul, Ringo's Ringo, and John's losing his mind and mellowing beyond caring as a result. Pepper relies on Paul's basslines, on piano, on cellos, on tape loops, on vocal effects (what could be guitar on Rita replaced by voices, for instance), the Leslie cabinet, all that stuff going on in Lucy, trumpets (brass in general, so important here), the orchestra in A Day In The Life. The coda of Rita is amazing, and it's just piano, bass, a bit of drums, and voices, voices, voices.

And this upbeatness, this total shift in arrangements, in tone, in lyrical steer, this McCartney-taking-over sense, is why Within You Without You is so essential; MacDonald was right for once when he described it as Pepper's moral heart. It's George's protest, protest at being shoved out of the album (Geoff Emerick is more important to Pepper than George is), protest at Paul taking over, protest at the band splitting up. And acceptance of the band splitting up.

How many x-posts have I got then.

Being the person chosen to sing "Good Morning, Good Morning" during a recent Beatles: Rock Band night made me appreciate it 1,000x more. The pacing is just so interesting!

Voted WY/WY. Even with the remasters I just can't embrace it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrxRAvnU1FQ

Incredible how this album is often called the "greatest rock and roll album ever" when IT'S NOT EVEN ROCK AND ROLL.

scik mouthy that is probably my favourite post ever of yours

crazy good analysis there Nick

My SB'ing threats earlier were jokes, btw, people; I don't think I've ever SB'ed anyone deliberately. Maybe Geir, once.

I remember hearing Harrison say how put off he was by the notion of pretending to be another band on Pepper. After they decided to quit touring and "be Beatles" 24/7, taking the artifice up a notch and becoming this other thing must of seemed like a step backwards.

I always thought Good Morning Good Morning was mimicking a TV commercial for corn flakes, thus it is meta-annoying, and the song reflects John's excessive and depressed TV watching at the time...the food chain bit of progressively larger animals devouring each other at the end is one of the great bits of Pop Art in any medium!

My SB'ing threats earlier were jokes, btw, people; I don't think I've ever SB'ed anyone deliberately. Maybe Geir, once.

― Sickamous (Scik Mouthy), Thursday, September 24, 2009 8:18 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

I actually regret voting for Lovely Rita, should have chosen Fixing a Hole. oh well, no offense taken Sickamous!

the food chain bit of progressively larger animals devouring each other at the end is one of the great bits of Pop Art in any medium!

also something I never registered until someone pointed it out in one of the remaster reviews. weird.

Incredible how this album is often called the "greatest rock and roll album ever" when IT'S NOT EVEN ROCK AND ROLL.

― Jazzbo, Thursday, September 24, 2009 4:00 PM (25 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

You are Jim Derogatis and I claim my etc. etc.

How've I got to remember that you've not listened to these albums in ten years when you're positing theories and speculations about them as if you've been listening to them heavily since the remasters came out (which is why these threads exist, clearly)? I have no idea when you last listened to these records.

Haha, sorry, "You've got to remember" wasn't meant literally! I wish I could be listening to all these remasters, but y'know - broke! I can only afford the Abbey Road one which I had to buy at bloody Sainsbo's now that EVERY SINGLE record shop in Hitchin has closed down. But yeah, sorry for coming across like you ought to know what I'm up to. I post covertly from work, so I can't always check my sentences and this backfires on me a lot.

xxpost, great analysis Nick. You've been giving up a lot of gold with these remasters discussions, but that was...hahah...FAB.

Brilliant post though Sicko, and a point well proved - I never really saw Revolver as such a big guitar album before, but that's because the important tracks for me (the ones that I associate the album with anyway) are the least "rock" ones - "I'm Only Sleeping", "Eleanor Rigby", "For No One", "Here There And Everywhere", "Tomorrow Never Knows", hell even "Yellow Sub" - but you're right in that only half of that album points towards Peppers, whereas the rest, for better or worse, is good old fashioned rock.

I'm going with "When I'm sixty-four"

another reason people shouldn't be voting for "64":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCc33KtP0ng

(although I doubt very much that's the real video)

Nick, since Stylus closed down, do you write anywhere on the regular?

ah, it samples "the end" as well - i never noticed that!

It's a lot harder to pick out truly bad songs on "Sgt. Peppers" than on "Revolver". I'm sure there are people out there with valid reasons for preferring "Revolver" but I'm not one of them. This thing is pretty consistently great. If I had to pick a worst track, I'd be tempted to go for "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" - it kind of grates and the lyrics are borderline inane.

You guys...

Would you believe in a love at first sight?
Yes I'm certain that it happens all the time.
What do you see when you turn out the light?
I can't tell you, but I know it's mine.

I def think this is actually one of their weaker albums, and while it hadn't really registered with me before Nick's pointing out McCartney's predominance and the distinct lack of guitars/rock tropes is probably part of that. They have way better psych material than what's here, and better non-rock material on the later albums - a lot of this is pretty blah.

shasta: that lyric is the joint

ok I've always known Sounds of Science samples The End, but I never noticed When I'm 64 till just now!

And Nick I feel the opposite re: LSD's verse-chorus. Lennon's "oooh we've taken drugs" delivery and childish psychedelic lyrics in the verses really bug me, but the chorus is just so big and glorious!

xpost I can't tell you but I know it's mine?

How can that not be great? A world where that's not a great line is bizarroworld to me.

Re the "Revolver" discussion upthread, one must bear in mind that the definitions of "rock" have indeed changed. Today, I would define the guitar tracks on "Revolver" as powerpop rather than rock: Strong melodic/diatonic songs, lots of vocal harmonies, jangly/fuzzy guitars etc. There are no Marshalls (well, maybe because it was 1966) and few of the songs are particularly bluesy. As such, part of The White Album (and a few tracks from "Let It Be" and "Abbey Road") are probably much closer to what would be defined as rock rather than pop today. But for 1966, those guitars were pretty fuzzy and amplified, and "Revolver" "rocks" more than most albums that were around by 1966.

Bizarroworld is Wet Wet Wet's version, where Marti Pellow sings it with a cheeky wink and a chuckle, as if the previous line was 'What do you see when you turn on the light?'

er, I feel the opposite to ISMAEL wrt LSD xpost.

^ suggest ban

sort of fell in love with this aged 17 when the radio did this "it was 15 years ago today..." (sic) bit, and they played virtually all of side 1. I sat there on the carpet and out rolled these treacly melodies, crystal sounds, loopy wurlitzers. And we teenagers weren't supposed to like it coz it was all punk for us mate. Sgt Pepper was establishment even then.
So all this trashing of the legendary album turned out to be pretty irelevent. Why knock pepper off its perch? To purge the music of all that studio "bullshit", or so that revolver will eventually take its place in everyone's list? Neither LP is exactly back to basics. That came later, a little less rapturously, for the beatles.
SPLHCB is still charming, like kids at play. Is there a low point? Maybe if you compare the opening track with its fabulous reprise, you might drop the opener, but that would sort of spoil the effect of the whole thing.
When I first bought the record, I disliked WYWY, but it hypnotised me somehow with its filthy eastern ways and now I can't imagine the album without it.
If I had to choose anything it would be When I'm 64 for the crimes of being twee and insincere.

So all this trashing of the legendary album turned out to be pretty irelevent. Why knock pepper off its perch?

I would say two reasons.

1. It got praised to such a degree in the early 70s that there just had to be a backclash. I mean, it was almost seen as objectively the best album ever, and there was almost no way that anyone could possibly argue against it. This had to lead to a backclash

2. Punk. "Sgt. Pepper" was pretty much the beginning of prog. Punk was a protest against all things prog, and once prog values became less important (which was the more visible long term effect of punk, although arguably prog may as well have been killed by AOR), "Sgt. Pepper" also felt relevant. It was a huge influence on virtually everything that happened until 1976, and then, it hasn't influenced one tenth as much music after that.

and once prog values became less important (which was the more visible long term effect of punk, although arguably prog may as well have been killed by AOR), "Sgt. Pepper" also felt relevant.

Also felt LESS relevant, I mean.

I've always considered The Beatles to be a 'pop' band or at least a 'not weddded to one genre' band rather than a 'rock' band. The fact that psychedelia to them was about stuff like Revolution Number Nine or Day in the Life or For the Benefit of Mister Kite than "traditional" psychedelic music actually rings truer to my experiences.

just want to debate the "guitar-ness" of this record...

GUYS there is TONS of guitar on this record. u def???????

my only preference is that "good morning" with the horrible brass arrangement be left off in favor of the ROCKING version on Anthology 2.

Samuel: nah, I'm retired fully from writing.

Voted Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds because it's fucking shit.

I always thought prog was killed off by their album cover art.

I've always considered The Beatles to be a 'pop' band or at least a 'not weddded to one genre' band rather than a 'rock' band.

The pop vs. rock thinking started later.

If there was pop in 1967, then Engelbert Humperdinck and Petula Clark were pop, in which case The Beatles were obviously rock.

And, I mean, I say that as an outspoken fan of POP rather than rock. Only in the sense that The Beatles later came to be define as the most classic of POP bands. This was not the case in 1967 though.

I really like the beatlemania-era Beatles on the cover

in which case The Beatles were obviously rock.

Um, okay but 'For the Benefit of Mr Kite' is not a rock song. It's probably not even a pop song until they become "the most classic of pop bands". By my standards, the Beatles do have some excellent rock songs. me and Charlie M<anson, fwiw, agree on 'Helter Skelter', for example, but anything even from Revolver on is likely to have at least a halfway heteroclite collection of songs on it that were little like (the collection in its entirety) many other acts out there, or at least mega-huge ones. This has not entirely changed today.

"rock" is a red herring phrase introduced to this discussion by Geir.

I really don't care about genres that much anyway; they're useful sometimes and obfuscatory at others.

particularly do not care about genres as defined by geir

I also believe, since they are essentially descriptive, that epithets and genres are mutable over time. Case in point: it never fails to amuse me how many little kids I know now are really into the once terribly rebellious Ramones. What was 'unthinkable' 'race music' in the 50's sounds almost quaint, now, and yet it is unmistakably 'rock' and often quite good at that.

Lovely Rita is one of the best songs in here. Anyone voting Lovely Rita gets a SB from me and I never give SB.

Agree with George Martin that leaving Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields off of this album was a really bad decision, if I could play god I'd remove 'mr. kite' and 'when im 64' and substitute them by Penny and Strawberry fields, not because I think they're bad songs but because they do seem to ruin the overall 'concept' sound they were trying to achieve here.