How ‘Sgt Pepper’ inspired Simon and Garfunkel’s classic album ‘Bookends’
Have you ever heard of this little band called The Beatles? Believe it or not, they were a pretty big deal back in the day, to the point that what they did with their music inspired many other bands at the time. Arguably, they were one of the most influential groups of their era and are still considered by many as such.
The trend tended to be that The Beatles would release an album, the album would be ground-breaking, and it would change music forever. These days, when you look at many different subgenres, if you were to trace them back, patient zero, a lot of the time, would be a specific Beatles record. Though there are countless debates, essays and pub arguments about which of their records was the best, their high concept and psychedelic-infused LP Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band brewed up a storm.
When the album came out, people saw a side to The Beatles that they had never seen before as they leaned heavily onto psychedelia to create a trippy concept that read like a fully blown story instead of just an album. It ended up being an instant classic and inspired artists worldwide.
Of course, while the album massively inspired some artists, some were utterly nonplussed. For instance, if you were a big fan of Bob Dylan at the time, you likely might not have even realised the record existed, given he paid no attention to it and his sound remained completely unchanged. He was happy in the world of folk music and, as such, had no interest in deviating from it. One folk act who certainly was influenced by Sgt Pepper, though, was Simon and Garfunkel, who went on to release their classic album Bookends.
There are a few sounds on the album that are clearly inspired by The Beatles album. For instance, ‘Save the Life of My Child’ pushes the boundaries of the music that Simon and Garfunkel were used to. Not to mention, ‘She’s Leaving Home’ and ‘A Day in the Life’ both took listeners well outside the parameters the folk duo had previously set for themselves.
The most significant way that The Beatle’s influence can be heard on Bookends, though, is that Simon and Garfunkel started to look at how their album could be one cohesive piece of work rather than just a lot of songs thrown together. Art Garfunkel even commented on how the band’s attitude towards the album as an art form eventually led to Bookends. “The Beatles were it,” he said, “When they made Rubber Soul and moved on to Revolver and Sgt. Pepper – [it was] not just a collection of songs, but the album as art form.”
He continued, “We were terribly impressed, and that shone a light on the path that led to Bookends.” The way that the album is put together, particularly side A, perfectly highlights how much Simon and Garfunkel were thinking about the bigger picture rather than taking it on a song-by-song basis. They worked on writing about the successive stages of life, all of which are “bookended” by a musical theme.
The influence The Beatles had on music hasn’t ever been replicated. When they released Sgt Pepper, they didn’t just affect how people wrote songs but also influenced how they viewed an album. Many masterpieces stemmed from that one album, one of the most notable of which was Simon and Garfunkel’s best work.
