I Met the Walrus_ How One Day With John Lennon Changed My Life Forever - Jerry Levitan [6]
The first record I ever owned was Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. It was a bar mitzvah gift. I was already fully aware of the album. Both my sister and brother had copies, and it permeated the times. But having my own copy was a thrill. Nothing had sounded anything like it before. The level of production was rich and innovative. Each song was a complex story told with flair and style. The Beatles had spent some six months recording the album, which was unprecedented for the time. But again, it was the album cover that perhaps made the biggest statement.
This was the Beatles deconstructing themselves. Dressed in spectacularly colorful satin uniforms, they were depicted attending their own funeral. With knowing smirks on their faces, the Beatles surrounded themselves with life-size cutouts of seventy of the most famous and infamous people in the world—including the Fab Four themselves in wax, on loan from Madame Tussauds. This rebirth was overseen by iconic images of W. C. Fields, Bob Dylan, Marilyn Monroe, Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, and Edgar Allen Poe. They knew it was zeitgeist time and they had broken the barrier. Everyone talked about that album. When Sgt. Pepper came out, the Beatles owned the world.
Following the Beatles’ story became the driving force of my young life. I was their fiercest defender and proponent and made it clear to everyone and anyone that they were my number one heroes. And they never, ever let me down. After Sgt. Pepper came Magical Mystery Tour. How fantastical was that? The album from their self-produced TV film proclaimed that the Beatles of old were gone, that Sgt. Pepper was not a fluke, and that they were truly gods walking the earth. At least that’s how I saw it. On that 3-D album cover were the Beatles in animal costumes amidst stars and psychedelic colors. On the inside was the song that became the soundtrack of my life: “I Am the Walrus.” John’s powerful epic poem that hovered around a constant wailing siren made my heart beat fast and furious. Every word and thought, every enunciation overwhelmed me. Still does.
The albums never grew old. I listened to them so often that I must have owned three or four copies of each title over the years because of the wear and tear. The Beatles released at least two albums a year, and if that was not enough, they always treated their fans with singles in between: “All You Need is Love,” “Penny Lane” and “Strawberry Fields,” “Lady Madonna.” These singles had lives of their own.
The Beatles stopped touring after their Candlestick Park concert in San Francisco on August 29, 1966. As George would later say, “The audience gave their money…we gave our central nervous systems.” Instead, they focused on the recording studio. To keep in touch, they pioneered the music video, sending film to accompany their singles to Ed Sullivan and other top variety shows. That in itself was an event that would be advertised: “See and hear the Beatles’ latest single on the next Ed Sullivan Show.” “Paperback Writer” and “Rain” had the Beatles cavorting about in a garden. Increasingly they became more comfortable and carefree on screen. Paul showed off a chipped tooth from a car accident. John wore groovy sunglasses. Hip, sporty, and casual. “Penny Lane” had the Beatles mustached, dandied up, walking through childhood routes in Liverpool. A candelabrum was placed on their table by Victorian servants as they dined in the park with their instruments.
For “Strawberry Fields,” we witnessed the arrival of John’s trademark granny glasses, his eyes ever-peering, glazed, and all-knowing. Psychedelic pop was born. “Hello Goodbye” had the Beatles in party overdrive, dancing with hula girls and sporting their Sgt. Pepper outfits. The anticipation of watching these gifts from the Beatles on TV was electric.
When “Hey Jude” premiered on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour on October 6, 1968, it displaced Jeannie C. Riley