At The Ed Sullivan Show.

As we turn to the letter S, I am going to kick off our exploration with a great, classic Beatles song, a double S song, “Sexy Sadie.” I am not going to get too deep into the details of the whole business behind the song because I do not have any inside information; I was not there in India. I only know what we all know from reading.

John Lennon wrote “Sexy Sadie” about the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, whom the Beatles had visited in India in early 1968. John discovered the Maharishi hitting on some of the female disciples, and generally behaving like a normal revolting bloke and not like a guru or a god, which John found disappointing but does not surprise me a bit. “Sexy Sadie” is an acerbic, somewhat bitter song, which was the way John undoubtedly felt about the Maharishi at the time he wrote the song in India. It must be said that if John turned against someone, he could be pretty vehement, as indeed “Sexy Sadie” is.

There are also a lot of excellent non-Beatles rock and roll songs that begin with the letter S, and one of them Ringo covered as a solo artist. It is on Ringo’s ninth album, Old Wave, but the song itself is a classic from 1965, “She’s About a Mover,” which was recorded originally by the Sir Douglas Quintet, a significant band. Their other big hit was “Mendocino,” also a fine record. “She’s About a Mover” is essentially a twelve-bar blues. And it has been pointed out that much of the song is very similar to “Can I Get a Witness” by Holland, Dozier, & Holland, the big Marvin Gaye hit. Sing both titles and you’ll see that it’s pretty much the same melody. But the original version of “She’s About a Mover” is an exceptionally cool arrangement, kind of Tex-Mex, with a great Vox Continental organ sound heavily featured. Ringo very wisely sticks close to the same arrangement (same tempo and key) and does a convincing version—both recordings feature some fine aggressive maracas playing. I like Ringo’s vocal very much, but I would give points to the original version for the distinctive and highly effective reverb on the organ part—for anyone, like me, nerdy enough to notice such things.

And on we go with a not unrelated song, this one a Paul McCartney track. It’s also a twelve-bar blues and states (somewhat tautologically) that “She’s a Woman.” I called this a Paul McCartney track, but while it was mostly written by Paul, I think John took credit for the line “Turn me on when I get lonely.” John and Paul were always delighted with any kind of even passing drug reference that got past the censors and was played on the radio. For example, in another song about a love interest, “Girl,” one of the interesting things about it is the major inhalation that takes place after the word “girl”—and this was indeed a marijuana reference—is the sound you make when you smoke a really good joint. And this sounds as if it was very good.

John Lennon was a great rock and roll singer and loved the classic rock and roll songs, several of which begin with S. One classic (based on an old hymn) that immediately comes to mind is “Stand by Me,” the Leiber & Stoller song originally co-written and recorded by Ben E. King, who was formerly with the Drifters. John recorded his own version on his Rock ’n’ Roll album, along with many other classics, including what could be said to be a double S song, “Sweet Little Sixteen” by Chuck Berry.

I have noted previously that Chuck Berry was a hero to all four of the Beatles, and I suspect they covered more of his songs than anyone else’s in the course of their careers. They loved his songs, and I still do to this day. Beyond writing these very funky bluesy melodies, Chuck Berry was an extraordinary lyricist. His lyrics are deceptively simple but literate and wholly engaging. One of his best S songs is “School Days,” the lyrics of which I think you’ll have to agree are fascinating. First of all, nothing repeats. It is a new song from beginning to end with no repeated verses. The lyrics tell a story, and they scan brilliantly. Concise phrases like “Drop the coin right into the slot / You got to hear something that’s really hot / With the one you love, you’re making romance / All day long you’ve been wanting to dance.” It’s just good stuff. And of course, the end is one of the best rock and roll tributes ever penned: “Hail, hail, rock and roll / Deliver me from the days of old.” People often forget that this is one of the things rock and roll does: it takes you out of the past and into the future—or at least that was the way my friends and I felt when we first heard it. To us it was genuinely new and exciting music, even though it derived from African-American musical forms like the blues and jazz and so on. Rock and roll struck us like a giant truck and changed our lives—and made us all the more eager to explore its origins.

S is also for “sad,” which brings us to George Harrison and a genuinely sad song of his called, appropriately, “So Sad” (two S’s for our collection!) from his 1974 album Dark Horse. I think it was written when his marriage to Pattie was falling apart or had already fallen apart, and it expresses the opposite sentiment to “Here Comes the Sun,” another George classic. “So Sad” has a bit of doom and gloom about it, but it is a good song and certainly worth listening to.

Another George song that I love—one of my favourites, actually—is “Savoy Truffle.” The lyrics are so expertly original in the way he uses all the delicious names of the various species of chocolate confection, like “Montelimar,” assigning that particular word an elegant rising chromatic melody. Just brilliant writing. George got the idea for the lyric from the insert in a box of Mackintosh’s Good News chocolates that contained a little picture of what each chocolate looked like and listed all the various flavours. And he used pretty much all the real names from that guide to the chocolates and added a couple of his own. What I also discovered is that the song owes something to the fact that Eric Clapton had bad teeth and needed a huge amount of dental work, and the dentist had threatened him with the consequences of eating too many chocolates. So were Eric to have eaten his way through the list as far as the Savoy Truffle, he might’ve had to have all his teeth pulled out! That is the origin of the line in the song, “But you’ll have to have them all pulled out after the Savoy Truffle.” I find it hilarious that “Savoy Truffle” is a mixture of the insert of a box of chocolates and an admonition to George’s friend Eric about his dental health. But the result was at least a great song. I have no idea as to the current state of Eric’s teeth and have no intention of asking him.

A couple of other interesting things about “Savoy Truffle.” The track was produced by Chris Thomas, who had stepped in for George Martin while he was away on holiday. Apparently, when Chris came back to his desk from his own holiday, there was a note from George saying, “Dear Chris, hope you had a nice holiday. I’m off on mine now. Make yourself available to the Beatles. Neil and Mal know you’re coming down.” And there he was, producing the Beatles all of a sudden. And he did “Savoy Truffle.” One of the other things I love about that track is the horn arrangement. Very good writing for the brass section and excellent playing. A lot of the best horn players in London at the time played on that track, including two of my favourites, Ronnie Ross on baritone and Art Ellefson on tenor. I like to give those guys some recognition because they do get forgotten all too easily. I used to go to Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club as often as I could to hear their brilliant contrapuntal duet improvisations. The British jazz scene was a thriving one, and the Beatles used a lot of these great musicians on their records. Ross and Ellefson also played on “Got to Get You into My Life,” from Revolver, and Ross is famous for playing the solo on Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side,” a classic rock and roll baritone sax solo.

Now, we cannot give a fair treatment to the letter S without stopping on “She Loves You.” When Beatlemania hit America, and the band had the top five records in the Billboard chart, “She Loves You” was No. 3. It helped to begin the Beatles’ domination of the world of popular music, but it is an important song in another way as well. This was the first specifically narrative song that John and Paul wrote, a song addressed to (and about) a third party rather than just being a song of self-reflection. In other words, it wasn’t about I this and I that. Or even I Want to Hold Your Hand. It was a song telling someone else that his girlfriend loves him. It was about a couple and their relationship, which is an interesting switch because, when you think about it, most rock and roll songs are written about what the singer himself or herself is feeling. And in this case, the singer is telling a story about other people, and this provides an early example of how the Beatles’ approach to lyrics was already growing in sophistication and experimentation even in these very early days.

We all know that the Beatles made their first U.S. television appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show on February 9, 1964, a performance that changed the American musical landscape forever. This was when American Beatlemania really exploded. It seems that everyone in America watched it, parents and kids. Some parents disapproved violently; some kids went absolutely nuts and thought it was the greatest thing they had ever seen and heard in their whole lives. One way or the other, everyone felt strongly about it, and everyone talked about it the next day. It had a power that I am not sure television has anymore, now that it is so diffuse, because there are so many different choices and so little unanimity about what to watch. Back then there were few channels and few choices—and in this instance, everyone had got the message to watch Ed Sullivan, everyone saw the Beatles live, and everyone, one way or another, reacted simultaneously, vigorously, and instantly.

I was not there, of course. I was back in London, and it was right about the time Gordon and I were recording our very first tracks at EMI Studios. So our first voyage to New York was yet to come. The Beatles were enjoying their chaotic first visit and having the time of their lives. Their brilliant, record-breaking, and convention-defying performances on Ed Sullivan opened the door for the British Invasion.

The first song that many people in America heard the Beatles sing that famous night was “All My Loving,” an energetic tune with great harmonies and chord changes that announced the arrival of a new kind of sound, energy, and youthful intensity. The next song they did was a surprise because one might think they would stick to rock and roll songs to establish themselves firmly in the American genre they so loved. But based on whatever advice they may have been given or discussions they had (I would be curious to know), the second song was “Till There Was You.” It was not written by the Beatles, though I guarantee you some of the kids who heard it were not aware of its original incarnation. By the same token, it must have surprised those audience members who did know the song.

It was written, both words and music, by Meredith Willson, a terrific songwriter who wrote musicals, one of which, The Music Man, included this wonderful song. The Beatles obviously loved the song so much that they figured out the chords and did a very good version of it themselves. The original had been sung on Broadway by the legendary Barbara Cook and in the movie by Shirley Jones. They both sang the song beautifully—perhaps Shirley Jones’s version is the best known. It is very different from the Beatles’ version, but it is a lovely interpretation. And if the name Shirley Jones rings a bell with those of you who don’t remember The Music Man and do not know her version of that song, that is likely because she became extremely famous playing the mother on the television show The Partridge Family.

After “Till There Was You,” the Beatles returned to rock and roll with “She Loves You,” and the crowd went crazy. That ended their first set. Later in the show, they came back onstage to do two more songs, “I Saw Her Standing There” and their first American No. 1 hit, “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” and all of America got excited when they heard it on Ed Sullivan.

Some months later, Gordon and I had our opportunity to play on that same stage, but our appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show did not happen the way you—or we—might have expected.

Our first record, as you know, was “A World Without Love,” which went to No. 1 in the UK, in Europe, and eventually in America. And for Gordon and me, the most exciting thing about that news was that we would get to go to America ourselves. Now, Ed Sullivan was the show that most of the British Invasion acts did first, if they had a big enough hit, but we were not able to do so. And here’s why: there was an American manager called Allen Klein, who features in the Beatles’ story quite a lot later on, and one very clever thing he did at the beginning of the British Invasion—he was not a stupid man by any means—was to arrange for somebody in London to send him the new releases each week because he knew there were many hit songs coming out of the UK. He had thus heard our record of “A World Without Love” the instant it came out and suggested it to a famous singer he represented, Bobby Rydell. So Rydell recorded “A World Without Love” very shortly after it came out in the UK and quickly released his version in America.

Now, in terms of becoming a hit, Rydell’s version got off to a decent start but then slowed down, and I’m happy to say that when ours came out, it knocked out Rydell’s record, and we shot past him and went to the top of the charts. However, Bobby Rydell was a regular performer on The Ed Sullivan Show, and when he released his version of “A World Without Love,” he appeared on Ed Sullivan that same week, singing it live. When our agents and managers tried to get us on Ed Sullivan for our first American visit, the people who booked it were initially receptive to the idea because they knew we were a new English duo and doing well. But once they realized that the song we needed to perform was “A World Without Love,” they said, “Thanks, but no thanks. We can’t have the same song on our show just three weeks after Bobby Rydell did it.”

It was not until the end of 1964, several months later, that Gordon and I made it onto The Ed Sullivan Show, singing one of our follow-up records, “I Don’t Want to See You Again,” another excellent song that Paul McCartney wrote for us. And one of the things I love about that particular recording is that it features a dual oboe solo—as you know, an instrument dear to my heart.

I’ve spent a lot of time talking about Ed Sullivan, but he is not the S with which I want to close this chapter. We really need to come back to the Beatles and one of their greatest achievements, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The importance of that album has been so widely documented and discussed there may be little to add, but you cannot imagine the effect it had on all of us when we first heard it. Everyone in the record business, everyone who played a musical instrument, everyone who did not play an instrument but just loved listening to good music, everyone who had nothing to do with the record business—we all knew that this was something entirely different and special. Just like Salieri, who is moved to tears when he reads Mozart’s music (and hears it in his head) in those great scenes in Amadeus, no one could ignore the radical genius and groundbreaking inventiveness of what the Beatles had accomplished.

It was a concept album before that concept existed. The songs were all tied together in a brilliant way. It was a story. It created an imaginary and mysterious entity, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. I remember distinctly the day that Paul brought Sgt. Pepper to our home in Wimpole Street. I had heard only a couple of bits of the album, having visited the studio here and there in the early months of 1967, but now Paul played the whole thing for my family. He had an acetate, which is an individually cut pre-pressing disk, and he played it on our little mono record player in the family dining room. Even on that small built-in speaker, it blew our minds. Both my parents were listening, I was listening, my sisters, Jane and Clare, were listening, and we were all impressed and moved beyond measure. It was one of those occasions when you just know, perhaps like when people first saw the Mona Lisa or first heard Beethoven’s Fifth. You kind of just say, “Wow, this is a game changer. This is a new thing.”

Along with the title track (and the reprise late on side two), there are two S songs associated with Sgt. Pepper, one obvious and one not so much. The first is the beautiful “She’s Leaving Home,” one of my favourite Beatles songs. The strings were arranged by Mike Leander, an excellent British songwriter and arranger, who also wrote a big hit for Peter & Gordon called “Lady Godiva”—a very different song, more of a comedy-novelty song. But as much fun as “Lady Godiva” was and is (I still enjoy singing it frequently, as I play along on my banjolele), “She’s Leaving Home” was an achievement of a different order, not only for Mike Leander as an arranger but also for John Lennon and Paul McCartney as writers. The lyrics are brilliant, with Paul narrating the action and John singing the parents’ thoughts as a musical and emotional counterpoint to the young woman seeking her own path in the world. It’s a truly great song.

The other S song never made it onto the album, though it was a big hit on its own, and that’s “Strawberry Fields Forever.” It was recorded during the Sgt. Pepper sessions, but when the executives at EMI told George Martin that they needed a new Beatles single and could not wait for the album to come out, he and the band pulled out “Strawberry Fields Forever” and “Penny Lane” and released them as a double A-side single. I’ll talk about the brilliance of “Strawberry Fields Forever” in a later chapter, but it is astonishing and enlightening to realize that its creation stemmed from that same unbelievable outpouring of creativity, unconventional recording techniques, and collective genius that changed forever the parameters of what pop music could do, what artistic ambitions it could realistically nurse, and what effect it could have on music and on the world. And that seismic change took place under the expert baton of Sergeant Pepper—conducting on behalf of his creators: John, Paul, George, Ringo, and George Martin.