Written by: Jules Dowling
I’ve grown up listening to The Beatles whether I would have liked to or not. I’ve heard them on the radio, in commercials, in my parents’ car, or from the speaker in my brother’s room. I grew to like some of their greatest hits like “Blackbird,” and “Here Comes the Sun” because of how consistently I heard them, and because now, they remind me of my childhood.
However, I always struggled to understand or even like The Beatles’ music. I say “struggled” because when you constantly hear about how this one band is the most influential in all of music history, you start to wonder–– Why don’t I get it? Why do I not understand why they are so “great?”
While I always knew they were the start of the “British Invasion,” and that they have quite a knack for songwriting, I could never get myself to sit down and listen to an album of theirs all the way through. Little by little, I would add a few of their songs, “In My Life,” “Now and Then,” etc., to my Apple Music library–– but only if I really liked the song. I thought eventually, I would grow to appreciate their artistry for every song I downloaded into my library. Well, I was wrong.
I remember a friend once told me–– this friend being a huge fan of The Beatles–– that an affinity for this band just snaps into place. I didn’t believe him, as I thought my slow gathering of their songs would be all the admiration, if any, I had for them. Things continued to go this way until I listened to Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band about a year later. Listening to this album all the way through for the first time felt like finally unlocking a jammed door. There was humor, sadness, beautiful chords, and a sound that I had never heard before–– not even in their songs I had previously collected.
It all really clicked for me when I first listened to “A Day in the Life” off this album. I couldn’t tell you how I happened upon this song, but either way it somehow fell into my lap. I was stung by its heavy lyrics and the lighthearted nature it jumps to when Paul McCartney begins to sing Woke up, fell out of bed/Dragged a comb across my head. What could be better than a song that is able to capture comedy and melancholy at the same time? It seemed the whole album, and not just this one song, would fulfill this combination of emotion as I would later find out.
I felt that this time around, I was truly listening to their music; and that’s because Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club is something to hear.