Sgt Pepper's Alternate Expanded Radio London Club Band

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Sgt Pepper’s Alternate Expanded Radio London Club Band

1. Alternate: the first two tracks recorded during the Sgt Pepper’s sessions were Strawberry Fields Forever and Penny Lane but they were selected as a double-A side single and therefore, following EMI’s principle of not including singles on Beatles albums, never made it onto the album. George Martin apparently said, “I wonder what the album would have been if those two corkers had been included”, so I had the idea to include them. That, naturally, raised the question of what to replace. The obvious choice for me was Paul’s ‘granny song’, When I'm Sixty-Four  which wasn’t written for Pepper (he’d been playing it since the Cavern days) and George’s misfit song, Within You Without You  (which is clearly not a rock song).

2. Expanded: since Beatles albums usually have at least one Harrison song, I felt I should  include the song George actually intended for Pepper, (It's Only) A Northern Song which was recorded at that time but vetoed by Martin as ‘not up to standard’. It sounds great on this recreation, in its original place rather than just on the cartoon soundtrack.

3. Radio London: in 1967, the ‘pirate’ radio station radio London ( 'Big L') had 16 million listeners and was given an exclusive 8-day preview window of Sgt Pepper’s. When later that year the British government brought in legislation to end the pirates, Big L was closed down at 3pm on 14th August 1967. The last song the station played was Pepper’s A Day In The Life. That historical moment is recreated here by adding London's original broadcast ending, where it displaces Pepper's original 'nonsense loop'.
This recreation was made using the mono versions (The Beatles' first true stereo album was Abbey Road).

Tracklisting:

1. Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

2. With A Little Help From My Friends

3. Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds

4. Getting Better

5. Fixing A Hole

6. She's Leaving Home

7. Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite!

8. Strawberry Fields Forever

9. (It's Only) A Northern Song

10. Penny Lane

11. Lovely Rita

12. Good Morning Good Morning

13. Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)

14. A Day In The Life

15. 14^th August 1967 (Big L Closedown)

Consider this mix as a fan’s tribute.

Chems Play Beatles

Listening for the umpteenth time to the Chemical Brothers' magnificent return to form, 2010's Forward, it finally clicked where all the trippiness was coming from -- not so much from allusions to Private Psychedelic Reel, but the Beatles' work circa 1967. Specifically, sections of Forward are reminiscent of the Fab's Strawberry Fields-Sgt Pepper-Baby, you're a rich man-Magical Mystery Tour period. This is apparent from as early as Forward's track 2, Escape Velocity: in this song there's even an upward-scaling chord crescendo that sounds so like A day in the life that at one point I began thinking of Radio London's Final Hour broadcast (A day in the life was the last track played by that pirate station).

But it's not just that crescendo. It's the figuration, the sounds themselves, the swirling effects, and the abrupt shifts in the musical textures the Chems have fashioned here. This album, not those of  E.L.O, is the culmination of I am the Walrus's and Blue Jay Way's legacy. The Beatles, of course, made trippiness a mass phenomenon, so evoking that period makes a lot of sense. On track 4, Dissolve, the trippy elements are there at the beginning, but then there's the refrain, Caroline, Caroline. At first I assumed it was a reference to a girl. But now I'm not so sure. Maybe it's a reference (even if unconscious) to the other big pirate station of 1967, Radio Caroline?