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When returning from Africa in 1966, the idea for Sgt. Pepper hit Paul. The following is an excerpt of an interview from Barry Miles' excellent biography of Paul, Many Years From Now (Henry Holt & Co: 1997):

        PAUL: "Then suddenly on the plane I got this idea. I thought, Let's not be ourselves. Let's develop egos so we're not having to project an image which we know. It would be much more free. What would be really interesting would be to actually take on the personas of this different band. We could say, 'How would somebody else sing this? He might approach it a bit more sarcastically, perhaps.' So I had this idea of giving the Beatles alter egos simply to get a different approach.... I thought we can run this philosophy through the whole album. [...]
        "Me and Mal often bantered words about which led to the rumour that he thought of the name Sergeant Pepper, but I think it would be much more likely that it was me saying, 'Think of names.' We were having our meal and they had those little packets marked 'S' and 'P'. Mal said, 'What's that mean? Oh, salt and pepper.' We had a joke about that. So I said, 'Sergeant Pepper,' just to vary it, 'Sergeant Pepper, salt and pepper,' an aural pun, not mishearing him but just playing with the words.
        "Then, 'Lonely Hearts Club', that's a good one. There's a lot of those about, the equivalent of a dating agency show. I just strung those together rather in the way that you might string together Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show. All that culture of the sixties going back to those traveling medicine men, Gypsies, it echoed back to the previous century really. I just fantasised, well, 'Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.'"

The Beatles began recording Pepper on November 24, 1966. The LP ultimately included 13 tracks, 12 of which were composed by John & Paul, 1 of which was composed by George:

The cover for Sgt. Pepper's was designed by Peter Blake, and the album's photography was done by Michael Cooper. The Beatles chose various idols and historical figures to be "posing" on the cover of the album with them (including, of course, their wax counterparts from Madame Tussauds).

The following is an image map of the figures on the cover, as included with the CD release of Sgt. Pepper.

1. Sri Yukteswar Gigi (guru)
2. Aleister Crowley
3. Mae West (actress)
4. Lenny Bruce (comic)
5. Karlheinz Stockhausen (composer)
6. W.C. Fields (comic)
7. Carl Gustav Jung (psychologist)
8. Edgar Allen Poe (writer)
9. Fred Astaire (actor)
10. Richard Merkin (artist)
11. The Varga Girl (by artist Alberto Vargas)
12. Leo Gorcey (Painted out because he requested a fee)
13. Huntz Hall (actor)
14. Simon Rodia (creator of Watts Towers)
15. Bob Dylan (musician)
16. Aubrey Beardsley (illustrator)
17. Sir Robert Peel (politician)
18. Aldous Huxley (writer)
19. Dylan Thomas (poet)
20. Terry Southern (writer)
21. Dion di Mucci (singer)
22. Tony Curtis (actor)
23. Wallace Berman (artist)
24. Tommy Handley (comic)
25. Marilyn Monroe (actress)
26. William Burroughs (writer)
27. Sri Mahavatara Babaji (guru)
28. Stan Laurel (comic)
29. Richard Lindner (artist)
30. Oliver Hardy (comic)
31. Karl Marx (philosopher/socialist)
32. H.G. Wells (writer)
33. Sri Paramahansa Yogananda (guru)
34. Anonymous (wax hairdresser's dummy)
35. Stuart Sutcliffe (artist/former Beatle)
36. Anonymous (wax hairdresser's dummy)
37. Max Miller (comic)
38. The Pretty Girl (by artist George Petty)
39. Marlon Brando (actor)
40. Tom Mix (actor)
41. Oscar Wilde (writer)
42. Tyrone Power (actor)
43. Larry Bell (artist)

44. Dr. David Livingston (explorer)
45. Johnny Weissmuller (swimmer/actor)
46. Stephen Crane (writer)
47. Issy Bonn (comic)
48. George Bernard Shaw (writer)
49. H.C. Westermann (sculptor)
50. Albert Stubbins (soccer player)
51. Sri lahiri Mahasaya (guru)
52. Lewis Carroll (writer)
53. T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia)
54. Sonny Liston (boxer)
55. The Pretty Girl (by artist George Petty)
56. Wax model of George Harrison
57. Wax model of John Lennon
58. Shirley Temple (child actress)
59. Wax model of Ringo Starr
60. Wax model of Paul McCartney
61. Albert Einstein (physicist)
62. John Lennon, holding a french horn
63. Ringo Starr, holding a trumpet
64. Paul McCartney, holding a cor anglais
65. George Harrison, holding a flute
66. Bobby Breen (singer)
67. Marlene Dietrich (actress)
68. Mohandas Ghandi (painted out at the request of EMI)
69. Legionaire from the order of the Buffalos 70. Diana Dors (actress)
71. Shirley Temple (child actress)
72. Cloth grandmother-figure by Jann Haworth
73. Cloth figure of Shirley Temple by Haworth
74. Mexican candlestick
75. Television set
76. Stone figure of girl
77. Stone figure
78. Statue from John Lennon's house
79. Trophy
80. Four-armed Indian Doll
81. Drum skin
82. Hookah
83. Velvet snake
84. Japanese stone figure
85. Stone figure of Snow White
86. Garden gnome
87. Tuba

The record initially included a page of cut-outs as well (please pardon the shabby scanning I did of the cutouts - the page is too big to fit in my scanner). The page also features a guide to the cut-outs: "SGT. PEPPER CUT-OUTS: 1. Moustache 2. Picture Card 3. Stripes 4. Badges 5. Stand Up"

Please fill out the form below to share your thoughts about Sgt. Pepper with Endless Rain's visitors.

Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is an album that changed my life: it gave me The Beatles, and it thus gave me music as a whole. Years ago, a friend recommended this album to me. I was intrigued by the concept and picked up a copy of it, having never really listened to the Beatles before (I'd heard their songs on the radio a few times, but I really wasn't that involved in music previously). I put Sgt. Pepper on and found myself just sitting on my floor listening to the album. Normally, I would put on a CD just as background music while I did homework and such. Pepper, however, refused to be merely background noise. It drew me in. I put the album on repeat and simply couldn't get enough of it. Every song seemed like a perfect and necessary part of the album. I finally ventured out and bought 1, and I was struck by the diversity of the Beatles' music...and the rest is history. Suddenly, music was my life, and the Beatles were the core of that music. "Hey Jude" and "Let It Be" were always there to brighten up sad times and to highlight all the good times. And, of course, Sgt. Pepper's remains the definitive album for me.

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