“The right moment in time”: Why Paul McCartney called ‘Sgt Pepper’ impossible to top
Anyone who ever thinks that they are going to outdo what The Beatles did during the 1960s is already fighting a losing battle. It’s always nice to hold the Fab Four in high esteem, but the moment that someone starts to claim that they are making something at the same level as John Lennon and Paul McCartney is usually the minute in which they climb up their own ass and start making the most pretentious music of their career. Even Macca knew that measuring up to his old band was going to be a challenge, but he had the understanding that nothing was going to measure up to this album.
When talking about The Beatles’ output, though, it’s practically a treasure trove of hits no matter where you look. Although there are pieces of their early career, like Beatles for Sale, that don’t exactly hit the mark in the same way that Rubber Soul does, there are hardly any projects from 1965 onward that don’t have at least some degree of brilliance on it, whether that’s the broken beauty of Let It Be or the insane raga rock on Revolver.
Even as musicians, it’s easy to see each member become better as the years go on. Although many people would claim cool points by saying that Revolver is their best project, Abbey Road is still one of the most spellbinding pieces they ever created, even if you have to sit through the whimsy of ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’ to get to the jaw-dropping medley awaiting on the second side.
Because listening to the album in full is what the band always strove for. The album format wasn’t worth more than a collection of singles when they got started, and while the LP had started to become more conceptual thanks to Frank Sinatra with In the Wee Small Hours, Rubber Soul became the first Beatles album that had songs that spoke to each other from beginning to end.
And since they had abandoned the touring life in 1966, McCartney crafted an elaborate concept for what would become Sgt Peppers. Despite no other member grasping onto the message of the fictional Mr Pepper and his imaginary band, you can hear their adventurousness through every song, whether that’s Lennon taking us to the circus on ‘Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite’ to George Harrison exploring his spirituality on ‘Within You Without You’ or Macca getting up to his signature sunshine-y tunes like ‘When I’m 64’.
Even years after the fact, McCartney thought that he’d be a fool if he ever tried to match what he did on Pepper, saying, “Pepper was a peak in terms of that kind of thing. It hit the right notes, the right moment in time. It embraced all the things you want to embrace as an artist. In terms of impact, it hit the whole world across the back of the head with a plank of wood. At the same time, it was smart and soothing, and it resonated. A very clever trick, that. But it was always going to be impossible to top. Not just for me and The Beatles, but for everyone, even now.”
And part of the beauty of the Fab Four’s career is that they never tried to top it. Although Magical Mystery Tour exists as a stop gap in terms of their psychedelic period, having their next record be a huge mess with 30 tracks of varying degrees of quality was the best of giving them a clean slate before they bowed out gracefully.
So even though Sgt Peppers is the kind of watermark that most artists only get once, its impact is still reverberating around the world. Most people might still look at it as the album that defined the hippie movement, but anyone who has ever used their album to tell a story owes this album their highest praises.
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