Greatest album coulda been better

Did George Martin short-change The Beatles?

When The Beatles got back together in Abbey Road Studios in London just before Thanksgiving in 1966 after their first extended break in a long time, they began work on what would later be called The Greatest Rock and Roll Album of All Time, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.”

At least it had that unofficial title from Rolling Stone Magazine for years and years and years until in 2020, there was a recount and Donald Trump was not involved. The powers that be at the magazine decided then that Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Goin’ On,” an album released 49 years earlier NOW was No. 1 of all time, they’d miscalculated. “Sgt. Pepper” slipped all the way down to No. 24. If George Martin had done things right, that never would happened.

Did George Martin screw up with "Strawberry Fields Forever/Penny Lane"?

Now let me first say this: I love Marvin Gaye. I bought “What’s Goin’ On” when it came out in 1971, loved it, still have it and applauded Gaye for doing a socially conscious album on Motown (against the wishes of Berry Gordy, by the way.)

But that record has perhaps three stunning songs: the title track, “Mercy, Mercy Me (The Ecology)” and “Inner City Blues” and the rest, like many Motown records (as Gordy would admit), was filler. If you match the albums, song-for-song, I don’t see how you can’t see The Beatles still on top. Especially after 49 years. Come on!

One move by Martin could have cinched it for all-time. And later, he called it a terrible mistake. What did he do? Since The Beatles were used to having something on the charts just about all the time and this extended break from August to November — and chart silence —after they had concluded what would prove to be their final tour made Martin and the record company nervous. Would people still love The Beatles? Had they crested already? Were they out of ideas?

Paul McCartney has talked about that, since their “long” period of silence, just a few months — things were different then — people openly wondered if they were finished. He knew, of course, that wasn’t the case. McCartney was toying around with a wonderfully tuneful little song, reflecting on his days growing up in Liverpool and a particular location that stuck in his mind. Maybe you’ve heard it? “Penny Lane.”

At the same time, John Lennon was returning from his film work on “How I Won The War” and he’d been fiddling with a song since being in Spain. Though he had no idea McCartney was reflecting on his childhood at the same time over in London, Lennon started writing a song that would become one of his more cherished, most daringly creative musical explorations, capturing a precious memory still dear to his soul, a number called “Strawberry Fields Forever.”

The two songs, similar in theme yet executed completely differently, once completed, Martin ultimately decided to release them both at the same time, a two-sided single and, possibly, the most remarkable single 45 in the history of 45’s. They just wanted to get something out there.

The record, released on the day before Valentine’s Day in 1967 did pretty well, reaching No. 2 in the UK, unable to unseat Englebert Humperdinck “Please Release Me” from the top spot. Reading that, aren’t you tempted to paraphrase H.L. Mencken and say “Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the (British) audience.” ENGLEBERT HUMBERDINCK? Over THE BEATLES?

It was the first time since 1963’s “Please, Please Me” that a Beatles’ single didn’t go automatically to No. 1. At one point, the top five Billboard singles were all Beatles’ songs. That’s how great they were.

It was true that the hard-working Beatles traditionally released four singles and two albums a year so this was keeping with tradition. But at what price?

So on February 13, 1967, “Strawberry Fields Forever” was released as a double A-side with “Penny Lane.” The album “Sgt. Pepper’s” officially came out on May 26 in England, June 1 here.

Years later, Martin called leaving those two songs off the album “a dreadful mistake,” and the worst decision he ever made as a recording engineer. And there’s no doubt adding the two songs to what The Beatles already had on “Sgt. Pepper’s” would have made a great album even better.

“Strawberry Fields Forever” with its dreamy, otherworldly soundscape, miraculously assembled from two different pitched takes by Martin, would have been the perfect Side Two opener, leading into George Harrison’s mystical tribute to Eastern music, “Within, Without You.” And “Penny Lane” might be the perfect closer for Side One, after the carnival sounds of “Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite,” a song so good, it might make you want to play Side One all over again.

Of course, it’s easy in hindsight for Martin to beat himself up and for us to say “Of course they shoulda been on the album, duh.” But in fairness to him, when The Beatles returned to the studio after their break, the sounds they were hearing, the music they sought, was so different, more profound, unlike anything anybody — including Martin had heard before. They were in new, undiscovered territory for pop music, they were out so far ahead of the pack, he must have been scrambling.

If you think I’m exaggerating, listen to Lennon’s vocal on “Sgt. Pepper’s” dramatic finale, “A Day In The Life.” As Martin said, “it raises the hair on the back of your neck.” I’ve heard it a hundred times. It still does.

In truth, it must have been a tad unsettling for the classically trained recording wizard and master musician trying to keep up with his precocious students and corralling their skills into the brilliant “Sgt. Pepper’s” album was an extraordinary achievement and, regardless of what Rolling Stone says, one of the most influential and important albums of all time. Period.

Lennon has said “Strawberry Fields Forever” was his finest Beatles’ song and truthfully, there is not a song like it. It unfolds before your ears in such a compelling manner, you are drawn into the exact center of the recording aren’t you? It’s an eerily comforting, fascinating, daring song, Lennon daring us to go along with him on this mystic musical journey.

McCartney was equally proud of “Penny Lane” and said that in some ways, it was almost an answer song to Lennon’s, even though they both started them in different places, at different times. They had a kinship, a rare, once-in-a-generation connection where musically, they could finish one another’s sentences. It was magic.

I would always wind up my AP Classes after we’d completed the end-of-the-year test with “A Week With The Beatles” and we’d spend one entire class just listening — no talking — to the entirety of “Sgt. Pepper’s.” I would always play “Strawberry Fields Forever” and “Penny Lane,” of course, too.

And the enchantment of the music of The Beatles, even for a collection of mostly minority students a generation or two removed from those English lads, somehow still worked.

An African-American student of mine, shared this extraordinary tale a few days after we’d heard the album and the single. She found herself in Wal-Mart one afternoon, doing a bit of shopping and found herself singing out loud the chorus of “Penny Lane.”

As she looked through some blouses, she sang softly, but audibly, “Penny Lane is in my ears…” And on the other side of the clothes display she was looking at, a sweet, white gray-haired lady looked up at her and smiled. Then finished the verse. “and in my eyes…”

Their eyes met. “The Beatles,” my student said, excitedly. “We were listening to them in my class.”

“Lucky you,” the elderly lady said, smiling. “Lucky you.”