Why The Beatles’ ‘Sgt. Pepper’ Includes Chicken Sounds
TL;DR:
- Paul McCartney said The Beatles made Sgt. Pepper at Abbey Road Studios.
- The group included chicken and elephant sounds on one of the songs.
- Sgt. Pepper was significantly more popular in the United Kingdom than in the United States.
Many sound effects appear on The Beatles‘ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. For example, one of the album’s tracks features chicken sounds and elephant sounds. Paul McCartney explained why the song includes such odd noises.
Paul McCartney explained how The Beatles created a chord on ‘A Day in the Life’
In the 1997 book Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now, Paul discussed working on Sgt. Pepper at Abbey Road Studios. “The great thing about working at EMI Abbey Road was that anything you needed was within reasonably easy reach,” he said. EMI was so multidimensional they had everything covered and we took advantage of all this.”
Paul recalled working on The Beatles’ “A Day in the Life.” “We used Daniel Barenboim’s piano that he’d just recorded on; they would sometimes lock it but we would just ask, ‘Can you unlock it?’ and they’d say, ‘Sure,'” he remembered. “That was used on the big chord at the end of ‘A Day in the Life.'”
Paul McCartney said The Beatles had access to a catalog of sound effects while making ‘Sgt. Pepper’
Paul said many sound effects were available in Abbey Road Studios. “There were so many grand pianos laying around, there were Hammond organs, there were harmoniums, there were celestes, and there was a sound-effects cupboard which they used for doing plays and spoken-word albums,” he said.
Paul recalled working with The Beatles’ producer, George Martin, on “Good Morning Good Morning.” “George Martin said, ‘There is a library, what do you want?’ and we said, ‘What have you got?’ so we got the catalog,” he said. “‘Right, elephants, cock-crowing, the hunt going tally-ho, we’ll have that.'”
How ‘Good Morning Good Morning’ and ‘Sgt. Pepper’ performed on the charts in the United States and the United Kingdom
“Good Morning Good Morning” was not a single, therefore it didn’t hit the Billboard Hot 100. The Beatles included the track on Sgt. Pepper. The album topped the Billboard 200 for 15 weeks, remaining on the chart for 233 weeks in total.
The Official Charts Company reports “Good Morning Good Morning” didn’t chart in the United Kingdom either. Meanwhile, Sgt. Pepper was even more popular in the U.K. than it was in the U.S. There, Sgt. Pepper was No. 1 for 28 weeks. It lasted on the chart for 277 weeks altogether. It lasted longer on the U.K. chart than any of the Fab Four’s other albums.
“Good Morning Good Morning” is a classic track that makes innovative use of animal sounds.
