I posted this on Facebook. I thought some of the denizens here might find it worth a look.
----------
Sgt Pepper..... I opened my mouth and already I have been thoroughly misunderstood so I will try and put some thoughts down.
It's not the 50th anniversary yet but already the nostalgia industry is in full swing. I haven't had the heart to really investigate it but it seems there is some kind of box being made available. It will contain the stereo and mono mixes, a DVD and Blu-Ray of the "Making Of..." documentary that was made to celebrate the 20th anniversary (i.e. a mere 30 years ago), a 122 page illustrated book and a disc of outtakes and similar cuttings from the studio floor to entice the really hardcore fan to part with what will almost certainly be a large amount of money.
Why does this bother me? Because it does.
Consider: In 1967, 50 years ago would have been 1917. The 1st World War was still decimating Europe like a monstrous plague. The popular music of the day was being made by the likes of Marie Lloyd and Harry Lauder - "Has Anybody Here Seen Kelly?", "Hold Your Hand Out, You Naughty Boy". Gems to which only people like me and Lawrence Napper ever give a moment's thought. The idea that in 1967, we could have been celebrating such material with lavish re-isssue packages would have been utterly preposterous. Now I know that the comparison is more or less arbitrary, and therefore meaningless. In 1967 the world was still full of warfare and poverty, starvation and cruelty, but there was hope in the Western World. There was a kind of revolution going on involving a relatively small number of people but which, nevertheless, was to have long lasting and far reaching consequences in the affluent society where I live. It's easy and not entirely inaccurate to put it down to the influence of LSD on popular culture. LSD was fashionable for awhile. But the impact of LSD: the inescapable fact that life on this planet is all interconnected and that we are living in an electro-magnetic field and that we would be better off being considerate and nurturing each other than killing and being cruel - THAT was beyond fashion. That was really quite a radical notion. And there, right in the middle of it all, there were The Beatles, singing songs of love and strange alienation. Yes, it was just pop. It was good pop - mostly, some of it was great - but it mattered because The Beatles were so popular. And because pop mattered then. It really mattered. It was the primary mode of communication amongst the young. It was more than just marketing. It was a moment. It was a high-water mark of Western culture. And there at the end of it was "A Day In The Life". A genuinely disturbing and brilliant piece of popular art - perhaps the single most disturbing and brilliant piece of Pop Art in the 20th C. I don't want to argue about it, it's entirely subjective after all. But I was six years old when I first heard it and it knocked me off my feet. I'm nearly 57 now and it still does.
There's no point in talking about the Beatles "Sgt Pepper" album. It's all been said so many times. Pro and Con. For and against. It's not a bad album. It's flawed, yes, but it's... It's "Sgt Pepper"... In the run of Beatle albums in the 60s it probably wasn't as good as "Revolver" etc etc etc but that misses the point. The point was it crystallised a moment when the youth of the affluent West were, to a larger extent than any time before or since, unified in favour of love instead of hate, of peace instead of war, of brotherhood and kindness instead of cruelty. That mattered. And the fact that it seems (was) so long ago, and so completely out of reach now, that makes me sad.
Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr will make a lot of money from the re-issue. Fine. I have no problem with that. So will Yoko Ono and George Harrison's family. OK. The rich get richer, after all. That's the way of the world. Will the marketing campaign make "A Day In The Life" any more knowable? No. It will remain inscrutable and apart as ever. Thank God for that.
"I read the news today, oh boy".............