Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band operates on the principle that all of the songs you’re about to hear are part of a show, performed by the kind of corny band your parents used to listen to but produced to such an incredible degree that you can’t help but marvel at the artistry.
The album opens with a bald-faced introduction to the concept. Here is a bunch of music, they tell you, that has “been going in and out of style,” for the past twenty years, but still, it’s “guaranteed to raise a smile.” Then with just the right kind of fanfare, they introduce you to the singer, “the one and only Billy Shears,” who like the crooners of old, regales you with a comforting, family-friendly melody.
The choice to follow “With A Little Help From My Friends,” — a song that is as corny as they come, sung by the Beatle with the weakest vocal abilities — with “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” reminds the younger generation that this music is intended for them and not their parents.
We know what you’re going through, the song tells them, how crazy everything seems, but you don’t have to fight against it. Just lay your head back, picture yourself on a train in a station with plasticine porters with looking glass ties, suddenly…you’re falling in love, and falling in love…with the girl with kaleidoscope eyes…ahhhhhhhhhhh
A song like that can only fade into a harsh poking guitar and a singer who tells you, “I gotta admit, it’s getting better (better), a little better all the time (it can’t get no worse).”
If ever there was a way to describe both the time period when Sgt. Pepper’s… was first recorded and our own, that line indeed might be it. Both then and now, progressive forces seemed to be on the cusp of something, and both then and now, the reactionary response from the wider culture had (has) turned violent.
From one point of view, it was (and is) getting better; from another, it couldn’t (and can’t) get much worse.
But how do you help it keep getting better? How have past generations worked to get us this far?
By “fixing a hole where the rain gets in.”
Keep plugging away, the Beatles tell the younger generation. Fix the holes. Plug the cracks. Take your “time for a number of things that weren’t important yesterday.”
And if you follow that advice? “She’s leaving home after living alone for so many years.”
Making progress, moving forward, can sometimes mean leaving the people who love you behind, leaving them in the cottage where they raised you to fix the holes and plug the cracks, because making progress, moving forward, can sometimes mean recognizing there’s “something inside that was always denied for so many years.” And so, bye….bye.
And then what? Now that you’re out the door, on your own, what should you do? Should you start plugging the holes in society?
No, the Beatles tell you. Go to the circus, where “of course, Henry the Horse dances the waltz.” And if you want to have a real good time, make sure you’re stoned when you go, because “tonight, Mr. Kite is topping the biiiiiiiiilllll….”
Huh. Okay. Sure. But then what?
Go find a fucking religion man. Look over there, in the park, a couple of dudes playing on sitars. Listen to them.
“We were talking,” one of them starts singing, “about the space between us all and the people who hide themselves behind the wall of illusion. [They] never glimpse the truth, [and] then it’s far too late when they pass away.
“We were talking,” he continues, “about the love we all could share, [and] when we find it, to try our best to hold it there with our love. With our love, we can save the world, if they only knew.
“Try to realize it’s all within yourself. No one else can make you change and to see you’re really only very small, and life goes on within you and without you.”
Whoa, you think. That’s pretty heavy.
“No,” they say. “He’s not done. The man can fucking play that thing too. Listen.”
And you do, and though maybe you’re a little jaded in this day and age, you really sit and listen to the way that motherfucker plays the sitar, and you’ll be damned if someone’s gonna tell you he can’t play it well.
He starts singing again. “We were talking about the love that’s gone so cold and the people who gain the world and lose their soul. They don’t know. They can’t see.” He looks right at you and sings, “Are you one of them?”
You don’t know how to answer.
“When you’ve seen beyond yourself,” he continues, “then you may find that peace of mind is waiting there, and the time will come when you see we’re all one and life flows on within you and without you.”
The song ends, and you look around at the rest of the crowd, and feel relieved when everyone else starts to laugh.
Man, you giggle to yourself, that shit was heavy.
Someone pushes gently on your shoulder, turning your attention to a new band that just walked into the square. Oh, hey, you think. Let’s listen to these guys. They’ve got a fun little sound, an oopma-loompa kind of thing, like maybe your grandparents might have listened to. There’s no guitar, but that bell is pretty cool. Your head starts nodding. Your knee bounces in time. They could be singing about the love between your grandparents, and really, “Who could ask for more?”
They could be singing about me, you think. Or Vera, or Chuck, or Dave, and then the singer hits you with it: “You’re sincerely wasting away.” Whoa, you think. That’s kind of heavy too. It’s almost like what the other guy said: “Life goes on…without you.”
Fuck it, I’m outta here, you think. I’ll walk down this street, past these cars, past these parking meters. Oh shit, look at that dude. He’s all stalking that meter maid, creeping up on her, dancing around her, trying to be all charming. You can see his boner from here, and he says to her, “When are you free to take some tea with me?” You can tell from the way he’s dressed that if she falls for it, she’ll be paying for the creepo’s dinner.
Onward, you think. To your Freedom. The circus behind you. Those heavy Hindu thoughts too. Your head held high as you make your way down the…is that a fucking rooster? What time is it? A crowd of businessmen rush at you. “Good morning, good morning, good morning,” they all say, like robots going through a pre-programmed day. They have nothing to say but “good morning, good morning, good morning.”
You start feeling all punky, walking through the streets, judging everyone you make eye contact with. People bustle around you, living their pre-scripted little lives. A whole day passes. It’s getting dark. “I need the time,” someone says behind you. A cat mews loudly, a dog barks, was that a horse? What the fuck is going on? You start spinning around, your senses overwhelmed by the world.
Then, all of sudden, a curtain rises, and there they are again, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band!
It’s all been a fucking show, you realize, and you’re the one onstage! How the fuck did that happen? What do you do with your hands? The band gives you a look, someone takes your arm and ushers you offstage. The band follows, all of you going together.
They lead you to the green room. Someone lights up a joint. One of them starts to play a guitar. Another takes a seat at the piano. The bass rises, and it’s just you and them, seated comfortably, surrounded by four safe wall. One of them starts to sing, telling you about his day. “I saw the news today,” he sings, and then he proceeds to sing you the news. Afterwards, he tells you about a film he went to see. “The English Army had just the won war.” The movie didn’t fly with the audience, he tells you, but he’d read the book, and he just had to look.
Someone passes you the joint. You inhale and the room begins to spin, and spin, and spin.
My alarm!, you think. You’re late. You wake up, get out bed, you rush through your morning routine. Down the stairs. Grab your coat and hat. Run to the bus. No thoughts, just action. Do it. Now, up the steps. Good, you made it. You’ve got a few minutes to relax. Look out over the city. Have that smoke. And then somebody speaks, and you fall into a dream…and you sail away, over it all, above it all, beyond it all, away from it all…
And then, boom. “I read the news today.”
Oh boy.
You can dream, you think, but you can never get away. Fix the cracks. Count the holes. You’ll find the answer. And then maybe someday, you’ll tell us all.
You close your eyes and fade to black.
And out of the blackness, the voice of the collective unconscious.
“Never goosy any other way. Never goosy any other way. Never goosy any other way.” Around and around in the blackness, the sound of society’s collective insanity.
It never could be any other way.