Saturday, June 9, 2007

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (The Beatles)

I'm a week late with this information, but it's no less important: forty years ago, on June 1, 1967, the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album was released by the Beatles in London - the album was 15 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard charts and has sold to date 11 million copies. Rolling Stone magazine ranked it No. 1 in its 500 Greatest Albums of All Time in 2003 - the album, which took 129 days to make, changed rock and roll for all time... and the cover of the album and the clothes marked a high point in pop art. Someone on one of my discussion lists posted this link to a wonderful article - great in-depth and historical viewpoint...

SONG: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles

BOOK: The Beatles: 10 Years That Shook the World by DK Publishing

POEM: (006) Let Us Picnic Together In Strawberry Fields by Leanndra O'Lear

Let us picnic together in Strawberry Fields
my delightful, melodious girl;
let us sit in the shade
sipping pink lemonade
as awakening blossoms unfurl.

We can twitter a tune by The Beatles, my love,
if we lounge for a time in the park;
I will sing 'Love Me Do'
then grin widely as you
pipe 'A Day In The Life' on a lark.

If we harmonize well, a Fab-Fourian spell
might enrapture the city, my sweet -
then each cabbie and cop
in Manhattan will hop
to a hip, Beatlemanian-Beat.

Should the spirit of Lennon appear to us, dear,
with George Harrison close to his side,
I will beam as you cling
to my arm when they sing
a rendition of 'Ticket To Ride'.

When we venture at sunset
from Strawberry Fields
and meander down Central Park West,
I will nod when you say: “Other bands are okay -
but The Beatles were surely the best.”

QUOTE: "We were all on this ship in the sixties, our generation, a ship going to discover the New World. And the Beatles were in the crow's nest of that ship." ~ John Lennon

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