When we confront a propaganda system, our first task is to decode it. (...) Whenever we hear about ‘freedom’ we should ask ‘freedom for whom? At what cost?’

George Monbiot, “The Problem With Freedom”, The Guardian - 2017

 

I can’t wake you up: you have to wake up.

John Lennon, Playboy interview - 1980

 

 

(...)

 

In Britain, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” went on sale on a Thursday. And because they calculated the charts on Saturdays, it only went to number 2. By the following Thursday, however, it had sold 250,000 copies.

 

It was a mass baptism that attuned the world’s tastes as never before. Kennen Tynan called it “a defining moment in the history of Western civilization.” And in “Flowers in the Dustbin” James Miller recounted the experience of hearing the same music across the West from California to Greece. As it happened to Langdon Winner, traveling coast-to-coast on Interstate 80.

 

Today, the 50th anniversary will unleash a storm of television reports, specials and ‘exclusive’ offers, including a rich box set to be released on May 26 with a new master, confirming “Pepper’s” as an indestructible moneymaker: in the UK it is “the best-selling LP of all time” (in the world it is among the top five), with 207 weeks at the top. Even if I prefer (like the patron saint of blowuppists Saint Christian Zingales – BU#194/195) the “Doppio Bianco”, “Pepper’s” remains a different case, rarefied music, for a fine music lover.

 

And above all it is a transcendent gift of games of mirrors and dazzling reverberations of the Zeitgeist of the time. The greatest meta-musical product in the history of rock.

 

(...)

 

It was said that just asking “which Beatle do you prefer?” was a psychological test, but with this collage on the cover the hidden game increased in complexity by an order of magnitude. This intimate display of favorites was a sort of Rorschach with multiple levels of interpretation: Fraser and Blake (along with Paul and perhaps others) were proposing a cryptography to the entire world without providing the code.

 

Visually that rich scene had an indefinite flavor: was it a baptism (of the new “moustache look” of the Four)? a funeral (hence the wreaths of flowers)? the circus (that is life)? or a military-band divertissement? And why all those “important people”? And why that funny name?

 

(...)

Only two years earlier, a flop feature film (“All This and World War II”) had used the Beatles discography as a soundtrack in even more heterogeneous versions: Bryan Ferry, Status Quo, Richard (not Riccardo) Cocciante in an unlistenable Michelle, Peter Gabriel (with Strawberry Fields Forever), Elton John, David Essex etc.

 

The cognitive delirium came from the video commentary: clips from WWII archive, mixed with Gregory Peck, “Tora Tora” and propaganda films. The pairings with the “music of ’67” give you an idea of ??that strangeness: The Fool on The Hill (for the Hitler in color in the Berghof retreat), Lucy In The Sky... (during the Allied bombings) and A Day In The Life (blasting with the rear of the Normandy landings' troops).

 

(...)

 

Ono: In these times, society prefers singles. It pushes towards divorce or separation or being single or gay... whatever. Companies want singles - they work harder if they don't have families (...) Society will do less of the roles of men and women. Babies will be born from test tubes and incubators.

Lennon: And then you're in Aldous Huxley.

Yoko Ono & John Lennon, Playboy interview - 1980