Today, The Beatles remain one of, if not the most influential musical group, in rock and roll history. In the sixties, the band’s popularity came under pressure on both sides of the dam to continually create hit after hit. In the seven years of production of the Fab Four, 12 albums have been released in the UK. While the 1967 album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band not the group that sold the most, it was possibly the most controversial and influential.
The Beatles songs and albums
“Here Comes the Sun”, released in 1969, is the Beatles’ most streamed song, according to Official Charts. Their 1968 hit, “Hey Jude”, spent 19 weeks on the music charts, according to Newsweek. The band’s number 1 hit from 1969, Come Together, spent 16 weeks on the charts. The White album, released in 1968, has sold another album by the group far, selling more than 24 million copies. But it was Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, released a year earlier, Rolling Stone was named the best album of all time. The basis of the album was that of Paul McCartney, conceived while aboard a plane.
The idea was that each band member would adopt an alter ego in the “Lonely Hearts Club Band” that would be performed in concert to create the album. The name Sgt. Pepper comes from the letters S for salt and P for pepper, which McCartney had to explain to his assistant while eating a meal during the flight, according to Mental Floss. Sgt. Pepper included hits such as ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’, ‘With a Little Help from My Friends’, ‘Lovely Rita’, ‘When I Am Sixty-Four’ and ‘Getting Better.’ As with most of their music, the songs on the album were written by members of the group, mostly by John Lennon and McCartney.
The Beatles used a lot of illicit drugs
It’s no secret that every member of The Beatles used drugs at some point. “Just about everyone did drugs in one form or another and we were no different,” McCartney said in an interview today. McCartney acknowledged that drugs had an impact on some songs. “A song like ‘Got to get you into my life,’ which is directly about pot, though everyone missed it at the time,” McCartney said. Lennon mentioned the album, Revolver, the band’s sour album. Songs about the Sgt. Pepper’s album has more than hinted at drugs, including “Day Tripper,” which deals with LSD, McCartney said, and “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds,” though Lennon denied it at the time. Lennon claims it was inspired by a drawing his young son, Julian, drew. McCartney acknowledged ‘it was pretty obvious’ that drugs were the influence.
Write and record ‘Get better’
McCartney and Lennon wrote the lyrics for ‘Getting Better’. McCartney came up with the title phrase one morning while walking on the sheepdog with journalist Hunter Davies. The reference was to welcome spring. While McCartney sees it as an optimistic line, Lennon said, “It can’t get any worse.” It was Lennon who added darker lyrics to the song that, according to the Beatles Bible, would deal with ‘anger, atrocity at school and violence against women’. As for the recording of the song, Lennon takes an upper body (amphetamine) in preparation for a long night in the studio. He later realized that he was taking the wrong pill. “I thought I was feeling sick and I thought I was going to be cracked … then it dawned on me that I must have taken acid,” Lennon said in a 1970 interview.
Lennon made his way to the production room where Beatles producer George Martin worked. He had a “strange, glazed look on his face,” Martin said. Unaware that Lennon was under the influence, Martin suggested that Lennon might just need to get some air. To avoid the hundreds of fans outside, Martin led Lennon to the studio roof, unaware that he had taken drugs, and left him alone on the roof and returned to the work he had undertaken. It was McCartney and George Harrison who ran to the roof when they realized their bandmate was alone there while they were on a sour ride. The group decided to give up the recording of backing vocals for the song that evening.
McCartney walks Lennon the short distance home. He makes a quick decision. While he was afraid of acid, McCartney decided that maybe it was time to finally take a trip with his friend. “It’s been a long time coming. This is often the best way, without thinking too much about it, just to slip into it. John is already there, so I’ll catch up, ‘McCartney said. “It was my first trip with John, or any of the guys. We stayed up all night, sat a lot and hallucinated. “McCartney calls the experience that night ‘staggering … You dissolve into each other. … And it was amazing. He could see himself through his good friend’s eyes. “It was a good trip.”