IT WAS 50 years ago today (yesterday). “Love Me Do”: they say it’s your birthday, happy birthday to you. Let’s all get up and dance to a song that was a hit before your mother was born, though she was born a long, long time ago. Oh, I believe in yesterday: Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play. They’ve been going in and out of style. But they’re guaranteed to raise a smile. So may we introduce to you, the act you’ve known for all these years, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Roll over Beethoven, And tell Tchaikovsky the news. The music will never stop, grooving up slowly. We’ve got no kick against modern jazz, but dig these rhythm and blues. Any old way you choose it, it’s got a back beat, you can’t lose it, it’s gotta be rock and roll music.
Listen to the music playing in your head, something in the way it moves, attracts us like no other. And we find the things that it does make us feel alright, Christ you know it ain’t easy – it’s everything we need.
The more we go inside, the more there is to see: roll up for the mystery tour. Penny Lane is in our ears and in our eyes there beneath the blue suburban skies, blackbird singing in the dead of night, Lucy in the sky with diamonds, a boat on a river with tangerine trees and marmalade skies, and Maxwell Edison, majoring in medicine in an octopuss garden in the shade. Don’t you step on my blue suede shoes. Eleanor Rigby, Polythene Pam, Strawberry Fields, and Mother Natures son, jai guru deva, and Michelle, ma belle...
There is a place, where I can go, when I feel low, when I feel blue, and it’s my mind, and there’s no time when I’m alone.
Whispered words of wisdom. Sont des mots qui vont très bien ensemble, très bien ensemble.
But now these days are gone. And now our life has changed in oh so many ways, and we’re getting older, losing our hair, we know that we just need you like we’ve never done before. We’re getting by with a little help from our friends, and still they lead us back to the long and winding road. There is still a light that shines on us. Still the guitar gently weeps. We have enjoyed the show. Who could ask for more?
Yours sincerely, wasting away.
With apologies to The Beatles for minor liberties – “Love Me Do”, the band’s first single, was issued on October 5th, 1962. It only went to No 17 in the charts, but there was no looking back. With Elvis Presley, they are the only musical acts to sell one billion records.