I had vaguely recognized this before, but my most recent obsession with the "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band" has revealed to me an underlying theme to nearly all the songs. A "concept" if you will. In fact, you might go so far as to call this a "concept album."
The only thing is, the concept isn't some imaginary band and their songs. The concept is Maturity. The album's recording sessions were kicked off with the songs "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Penny Lane." Both of these songs, appropriately enough, focus on the composers' childhood. From there, John and Paul seemed to be inspired, consciously or not, to explore the themes of growing up. It's probably no coincidence that all this came after their very first break from touring and recording in nearly four years. They must have finally had time to sit back and analyze their lives. And with touring now a thing of the past, they were undoubtedly pondering their futures, almost as if they were recent college graduates.
Paul's songs, being more literal, are easiest to dissect. Other than the Sgt. Pepper songs, his songs are: Getting Better, Fixing A Hole, She's Leaving Home, When I'm Sixty-Four, and Lovely Rita. Getting Better speaks of school in the past tense (as does John's Good Morning Good Morning), Fixing A Hole is concerned with home repairs (and the larger metaphor of getting your life in order), and She's Leaving Home and When I'm Sixty-Four are pretty obvious, aren't they?
John's contributions are a bit more abstract, and maybe require a little more creative thinking to link them to the concept. Maybe even out of context, the connection would be more tenuous. But there isn't a collection of Lennon songs with more obvious influences from his life than those here. Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds was inspired by a painting by his son and then by his favorite childhood book, Alice In Wonderland. Being For The Benefit of Mr. Kite! is taken almost word for word from a promotional poster from the 1800s. A Day In The Life is literally taken from articles from a newspaper. And Good Morning Good Morning is imaginatively reworked from phrases overheard from the television.
Their one co-written song, With A Little Help From My Friends, again pushes the boundaries of the connection. But George's contribution Within You Without You makes up for it by giving McCartney's theme a spiritual counterpart.
At least, I found this interesting.
A couple other obscure points about the recording sessions that interested me: John and Paul sang the backing parts to With A Little Help From My Friends in unison, then went back and sang the higher harmony part again in unison. Instead of their earlier practice of John taking the low part and McCartney taking the high part, then double tracking themselves.
Also, I think that the story of the famous edit in Strawberry Fields Forever may be just a little exaggerated. I had the opportunity to hear the original trumpet and cello backing track before it was slowed down to match Take 7. I'm pretty sure the basic backing track was recorded in the original key and tempo, then the tape was sped up for the overdub, with the intention of slowing it all back down again. Therefore, the only amazing coincidence was that Ringo played them in exactly the same tempo. Given his track record, this was hardly a fluke.
