• “Fixing a Hole.” Yet another song believed to have been about drugs. (The “hole” was a heroin fix.) But Paul had just bought an old farmhouse, fixed it up, and penned a song about it. “If you’re a junky sitting in a room and fixing a hole then that’s what it will mean to you,” he said. “But when I wrote it I meant if there’s a crack, or the room is uncolourful, then I’ll paint it.”
• “She’s Leaving Home.” Paul read a news article about a 17-year-old girl named Melanie Coe who ran away from home and was inspired to write a song about her plight. McCartney was anxious to record the song soon after he finished it and called up George Martin to request an immediate orchestral score. Martin wasn’t available that day because he was doing a session with another artist, Cilla Black. Impatient, McCartney went out and hired Mike Leander to do the job. He then brought in the score to record the next day. It was the only score that Martin didn’t write for the Beatles in all his time working with them.
• “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite.” The song is based on an 1843 circus poster that John owned. “I had all the words staring me straight in the face one day when I was looking for a song,” he said. The swirling organ sounds that helped create the circus atmosphere weren’t created by a professional organists but rather Martin and Lennon, who masked their inadequacies on the instrument with studio tricks, including doubling the tape speed of certain parts and slowing down others. For some bits, Martin cut the master tape up, threw the pieces on the floor, and put them randomly back together.
How long was the Barenaked Ladies’ song “One Week” #1 on the U.S. charts? One week.
Side 2:
• “Within You Without You.” George’s song about his newfound fascination with Indian mysticism, as well as one of his first songs performed on the sitar. None of the other Beatles were present when “WYWY” was recorded.
• “When I’m Sixty-Four.” The tune is based on a pre-WWII-style pop melody written by Paul. In their first phase as an English club band, the Beatles used to play the melody as a timekiller when a club’s PA system crashed during their set.
• “Lovely Rita.” A real meter maid named Meta claimed she was the inspiration because she once booked one “P. McCartney” for 10 shillings. When Paul saw the ticket, he told her he liked her name and asked if he could write a song about it. True? Paul says he can’t remember (but he admits it makes a nice story).
• “Good Morning, Good Morning.” John wrote this as a poke at McCartney’s irony-deficient song “Good Day Sunshine” on Revolver. The sly humor that fills the song turns darker on the fadeout sequence—in the series of farmyard sounds, each animal that appears is a predator of the one heard before it.
• “A Day in the Life.” Although the album’s finale is generally thought of as a John Lennon song, it was a true Lennon-McCartney collaboration, unlike many of the songs credited to both men. John had found inspiration reading the morning paper: “One story was about the Guinness heir who killed himself in a car. On the next page was a story about four thousand potholes in the streets of Blackburn, Lancashire, that needed to be filled.” John wrote a dreamy melody around the stories, but he needed a middle section for the song and asked Paul if he had anything he could use. McCartney wrote the “Woke up, got out of bed…” portion, a song-within-a-song, that created an appropriately abrupt transition from the dreamy opening section. The two worked together over a period of a month with George Martin to record it.
After the two parts were recorded, they decided to fill the gap between them with a “dark, tumultuous orchestra crescendo.” George Martin tells the story:
Superman had a pet monkey named Beppo.
At the beginning of the twenty-four bars, [I wrote] the lowest possible note for each of the 41 instruments in the orchestra. At the end of the twenty-four bars, I wrote the highest note. Then I put a squiggly line right through all twenty-four bars.
Other than that, how the orchestra got from low to high was up to them…provided they finished on the final E chord in unison.
THE ALBUM COVER
Midway through the recording sessions, the Beatles knew they were making a landmark record, and they wanted a cover to match. But the most famous album jacket in the history of rock almost never happened.
Besides the Fab Four, the cover featured life-size portraits of cultural icons the Beatles admired, as well as—for a lark—many they didn’t. The images ran the gamut from Bob Dylan to Frank Sinatra, Marlene Dietrich to Marilyn Monroe, W. C. Fields to Sonny Liston. John wanted to add Jesus and Hitler to the mix, but Jesus was scrapped because of the controversy John had created the year before when he compared the Beatles’ popularity to Christianity. And Hitler was vetoed by the rest of the group.
The record company protested that the collage was a costly logistical nightmare, because permissions would have to be obtained from everyone pictured, and in the case of those who were dead, from their estates. But the band insisted—the Beatles knew they had created an unprecedented record and wanted a cover to match. A frustrated EMI handled the details, which involved sending hundreds of letters all over the world.
IMMEDIATE IMPACT
Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band made its informal public debut from a window ledge outside the London flat of singer “Mama” Cass Elliot. The Beatles and assistant Neil Aspinall drove to Elliot’s place at daybreak, dragged the speakers of her high-powered sound system out onto the ledge, put a tape of the album on, and cranked the volume all the way up. According to Aspinall, not one of the neighbors complained. In fact, several poked their heads out of their windows and smiled their approval. Everyone recognized whose music it was and were thrilled to be awakened by it.
Why don’t they speak English? In England a cat is sometimes called a moggy (and noses are conks).
For other musicians, though—especially ambitious ones—the music was a different kind of wake-up call. The Beach Boys’ creative genius, Brian Wilson, was already showing signs of mental strain from trying to compete with Revolver. Sgt. Peppers may have added to Wilson’s prodigious drug use, which just about finished him off—he soon entered a psychotic swoon that wouldn’t end for decades. Another of the era’s most admired songwriters, John Sebastian of the Lovin’ Spoonful, recalls that Sgt. Peppers was “like throwing down a hat in the center of a ring…it seemed like an insurmountable task to come up with anything even in the same ballpark.”
The group’s nonmusician fans, of course, had no such reservations. The album was celebrated in Europe and America as if it signaled the dawning of world peace. All over the United States, rock and pop radio stations played nothing but Sgt. Peppers tracks for days—everything else seemed beside the point. It was endlessly written about in the press and dominated conversation, even among people not ordinarily fascinated with pop culture.
WHY IT MATTERED
Sgt. Peppers is remembered by many as pop music’s first concept album, but that is neither accurate nor the core of its greatness. According to many pop experts, the first true concept album in pop music was Frank Sinatra’s In the Wee Small Hours, released in 1955. By the standard of the Sinatra album, in fact, Sgt. Peppers barely even qualifies as a concept record. Yes, the song “Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band” and its reprise sandwich the rest of the album (except for “A Day in the Life”) between them. But the other songs barely relate to that theme.
Nor is Sgt. Peppers even the first significant concept album in rock. Music critics variously award that title to either 1966’s Freak Out by the Mothers of Invention or The Who’s The Who Sell Out, which preceded Sgt. Peppers in 1967.
Is it the quality of its songs, then, that makes Sgt. Peppers a landmark album? For sheer song-by-song excellence, many Beatle fans and music experts rate Rubber Soul, Revolver, Let It Be, Abbey Road, and The White Album higher.
The audio book version of the King James Bible is 84 1/2 hours long.
TIMING IS EVERYTHING
So what was all the Sg
t. Peppers fuss about? For one thing, no pop group before then had so perfectly expressed the tenor of its times. It all seemed to come together on that one album—from the era’s spiritual quests to its social protests to its irreverent humor. Before then, no album had ever been more famous than the songs it employed. The year 1967 was also the zenith of 1960s optimism, and Sgt. Peppers, which was released in May, helped spread the word and inaugurate the “Summer of Love.”
Just as importantly, no one had ever employed studio effects, electronic accents, and orchestral arrangements the way the Beatles did on this album. They revolutionized the way studio records would be made ever afterward. Many bands had access to the same recording equipment, but in the Beatles’ and Martin’s hands, the recording studio became its own musical instrument, and the studio album was transformed into a work of art utterly distinct from music that could be played onstage. If the Beatles and Martin could be turned loose in a studio today, they might well turn out something that would make even Sgt. Peppers pale in comparison. But nearly four decades have passed since the Lonely Hearts Club Band first hit the airwaves, and no other record has ever equalled its impact—or advanced popular music as far.
* * *
DOUGH-BITUARY
Veteran Pillsbury spokesman, Pop N. Fresh, died yesterday of a severe yeast infection. He was 71. Fresh was buried in a lightly greased coffin. Many celebrities turned out to pay their respects, including Mrs. Butterworth, Hungry Jack, the California Raisins, Betty Crocker, and the Hostess Twinkies. The grave was piled high with flours, as long-time friend Aunt Jemima delivered the eulogy, describing Fresh as a man who never knew how much he was kneaded. Fresh rose quickly in show business though his later life was filled with turnovers. He was not considered a very smart cookie, wasting much of his dough on half-baked schemes. Even as a crusty old man, he was considered a roll model for millions. Fresh is survived by his wife. They have two children and one in the oven. He is also survived by his elderly father, Pop Tart. The funeral was held at 3:50 for about 20 minutes.
Q: What was the true identity of Batman’s nemesis, “The Penguin”? A: Oswald Cobblepot.
ANSWER PAGES
THE SOPRANOS QUIZ
(Answers for page 159)
1. c) 2. d) 3. d)
4. b) As a young man, Sirico was arrested 28 times and served a total of seven years in prison, including a 20-month stint for felony weapons possession in 1971. According to court transcripts, Sirico made the threatening statements to the owner of the discotheque. (So was Sirico also a stick-up artist in those days? “Let’s just say I made a few withdrawals,” he says.)
5. c) Don’t confuse it with goombah, which means “godfather” or “dear male friend.”
6. a) Like a lot of native New Yorkers, Imperioli never learned how to drive. So when one of the scripts called for him to drive, he ran out and got his learner’s permit. Not that it did much good: “During one take Jimmy [Gandolfini] and I were backing up from having just finished beating someone up, and I veered off and hit a tree, smashing the Lexus I was driving,” he says.
7. b)
BRAINTEASERS
(Answers for page 432)
1. b) It moves forward. When the van moves forward, the heavier air moves to the back of the van. The helium balloon is lighter than air, so it is pushed forward. Give it a try!
2. Turn it upside down. It becomes 16 = 8 + 8.
3. b) The glass side goes down. Just because you’re not pushing down on the cup doesn’t mean you’re not pushing down. How much are you pushing down? An amount equal to the weight of the water that your finger displaces.
4. b) It goes down. When the anchor is in the boat, its weight is pulling the boat down causing an equivalent weight of water to be displaced in the pool. Example: If the anchor weighs 10 pounds, it displaces 10 pounds of water. But when you drop the anchor into the pool, it displaces only an equivalent volume of water, not an equivalent weight. If the anchor is one quart in volume, then it will only displace one quart of water, which is less than 10 pounds of water.
A typical Playboy centerfold weighs 15% less than a typical woman of the same age and height.
5. Did you say 5,000? Sorry, that is incorrect. The correct answer is 4,100. (Read the question again…slowly and carefully.)
SAM’S BRAINTEASERS
(Answers for page 261)
1. Mr. Red is wearing white, Mr. White is wearing blue, and Mr. Blue is wearing red.
2. By continuously removing one letter from either the beginning or the end of each word, you create new words, until you are left with a single letter.
Sheath, heath, heat, eat, at, a
Pirate, irate, rate, ate, at, a
Ashamed, shamed, shame, sham, ham, am, a
Brandy, brand, bran, ran, an, a
3. Twenty hours later, the faster clock was ahead by one hour. With every passing hour, the quicker clock gained three minutes on the slower one. (3 min. per hr. x 20 hrs. = 60 min., or 1 hr.)
4. Bozo asked the store manager for a box that was four feet by three feet, which has a diagonal measurement of…five feet.
5. Stench is the odd word out because all of the other words can be used as both nouns and verbs. Stench can only be used as a noun.
6. You or your brother.
7. When Sir Flushalot pulled a slip of paper from the bowl, he read it, exclaimed, “I’ve won!” and then quickly ate the paper. The remaining piece of paper said “The Snakes,” and the queen’s trickery was never revealed.
NAME THAT COUNTRY
(Answers for page 75)
SAVED: El Salvador
El Salvador is Spanish for “The Saviour.” The Spanish conquered the Pipil, claimed the land, and gave it a new name in 1524.
Hubba-hubba: The northern fur seal averages 40–60 mates per season.
NOTHING TO IT: Namibia
THE NAMELESS NAME: Australia
Pre-18th-century maps show a large land mass labeled Terra Australis Incognita, Latin for “The Unknown Southern Land.” Geographers had never seen the land, but insisted that without it, the Earth would be lopsided.
OVER THERE WHERE THE SUN COMES UP: Japan In China, jih means “sun,” pun means “east,” and since the sun rises in the east, jih pun means “sunrise.” Referring to the islands east of China, it means “land of the rising sun.” Japan derived from the Malaysian version of the Chinese name: Japang.
GRECIAN FORMULA: Great Britain
Pythaes sailed around this island around 300 B.C., naming it Pretanic, after the Pritani, or the Prits. Pritani is believed to be a Celtic word meaning “people with designs,” because the Pritani were extensively tattooed. When the Anglo-Saxons attacked in the 400s, many Britons fled to the European continent and settled what became known as Brittany. To differentiate it from this “lesser” Britain, the island was thereafter called Great Britain.
A BIT OBTUSE?: England
After the Roman rule of Britain ended in 406 A.D., it became a battleground for many invaders. The most prominent were the Germanic tribes the Angles and the Saxons. The Angles came from a fishhook-shaped region in northern Germany called Angul (believed to be the origin of the word angle—to fish).
WHY DON’T THEY SPEAK GERMAN?: France The Franks were a Germanic tribe that settled along the Rhine River in Germany during the third and fourth centuries. (Frankfurt is named after them.) They would go on to conquer nearly all of northern Europe, eventually settling in what is now France.
OVERCOATIA: Gabon
In the 15th century, Portuguese traders were the first Europeans to visit this land in Africa. They thought the Como River’s estuary was shaped like a traditional hooded overcoat from their country called a gabao, so that’s what they called it—which became Gabon.
During the French and Indian War, four bullets ripped through George Washington’s coat and two horses were shot from under him.
HOLLYWOOD QUIZ
(Answers for page 352)
1. c) Jay Leno. “As a
matter of fact, now he does live on the same street I do,” Lemmon added.
2. b) It’s common for newspapers to write the obituaries of elderly celebrities in advance, so that when they die the obituary is ready to go on a moment’s notice. Canby had already written the obituary when he died in October 2000 at the age of 76.
3. c) “In Mexico certain insects are a delicacy,” she says. “We have the crickets, and then the ants’ eggs, and then we have these worms. You fry them and put them in a tortilla. And you add guacamole, otherwise they are slippery and fall off the tortilla.”
4. a) Barely two months after Chaplin’s death, kidnappers dug up his coffin and demanded a $600,000 ransom from the Chaplin family. While the family haggled the kidnappers down to $250,000, police traced the calls and arrested the kidnappers. Chaplin’s body was recovered and re-buried…this time sealed in concrete.
5. c) “For Professor Marvel’s coat, they wanted grandeur gone to seed,” publicist Mary Mayer recounted years later. “So the wardrobe department went down to an old second-hand store on Main Street and bought a whole rack of coats. Frank Morgan (who played Professor Marvel and the Wizard) chose one at random.” He wore it in the film, and on one hot day he turned out a pocket and saw the name “L. Frank Baum.” How’d that happen? It was a complete coincidence. (Baum’s widow and his tailor both identified the coat as authentic.)
Uncle John’s Unstoppable Bathroom Reader Page 56