Sgt. Pepper Inner Groove

When we came to putting the record together, Paul said: ‘You know, when these records are pressed, there’s a run-out groove that takes the needle to and fro to get the automatic change working. Why don’t we put some music in there? Something silly.

George Martin – From “All You Need Is Ears“, 1979

To close up their 1967 album “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band“, The Beatles decided to put some music, created from a random assemblage of nonsense talks and noises, in the run-out groove of the LP’s second side. Those few seconds of sound play as an endless loop on record players that don’t automatically return the tonearm to its resting place at the end of an LP.

Just before the run-out groove, The Beatles also added a few seconds of 20-kilohertz tone, an idea to make dogs react when listening to the album.

Some listeners tried to interpret the sounds in the run-out groove and imagined hearing some naughty words when playing the track backwards.

The run-out groove was omitted from the American versions of the album. In 1980, it was released on the US album, “Rarities“, under the name “Sgt. Pepper Inner Groove.” In later releases, it was included on all worldwide CD, cassette and vinyl versions of the “Sgt. Pepper” album.

When we came to putting the record together, Paul said: ‘You know, when these records are pressed, there’s a run-out groove that takes the needle to and fro to get the automatic change working. Why don’t we put some music in there? Something silly.’

‘O.K.,’ I said, ‘if you want a bit of a joke. I don’t think anyone’s ever done it, but why not?’

‘Let’s go down and do something in the studio, then,’ he said. So the four of them went down and chanted silly little things, each one different, without any sense; ‘yum tum, tim ting’ sort of sounds. I snipped about two seconds off the tape of that and put it into the run-out groove so that it went round and round for ever. Of course, when the record came out, all the fanatics heard this weird noise on the run-out groove and started wondering what it was, and why they had done it. Then the interpretations started.

Finally, it came back to me as the craziest of all Beatle analyses: ‘Hey, if you play that backwards, it says an obscene phrase.’ Well, with a huge stretch of the imagination I suppose it did, but that was certainly never intended. It was simply typical of what the Beatle cult could produce, with every record being turned inside-out and upside-down in an effort to discern hidden meanings.

They even discovered the dog’s recording, which was intended, but only as a private joke; it was never publicly announced. Not content with his nonsense in the run-out groove, Paul had said, ‘We never record anything for animals. You realise that, don’t you? Let’s put on something which only a dog can hear.’

‘All right,’ I said. ‘A dog’s audio range is much higher than a human’s. Let’s put on a note of about 20,000 hertz.’ It was a little private signal for dogs. They heard it, all right. But they weren’t Beatle-lovers; they hated it, and they whined whenever it was played. I doubt very much if it’s still there on modern pressings of the record. Knowing the EMI hierarchy, I expect they have said, ‘It’s a silly waste of time. Snip it off.’ Not being a dog, however, I just don’t know.

George Martin – From “All You Need Is Ears“, 1979

At the end of Pepper, when we finished the whole thing, we all felt pretty elated to have finished it. So, as a little in-joke for ourselves, we decided to fix the end of the record so that there would be something on it. On the run-out grooves on the album, on the second side, we put a bit of nonsense. In fact, the way we did it we said, ‘Let’s just put a noise on the end, so people will say, ‘What the hell is that?’ And Paul, John, George and Ringo went down into the studio and just started shouting, saying a lot of gibberish in a chaotic sort of way. I recorded them for about thirty seconds and I took, literally, about four seconds and we wrapped it into the groove around the centre, so it just kept on going round and round, the same noise. It was a completely random recording. EMI engineers thought I had taken leave of my senses when I explained what I wanted. But, a month after the album was released, we found out that people had been playing the damn thing backwards, and found out, by playing it backwards, there was an obscene word to be heard. And, sure enough, Paul said, ‘Have you heard it?’ And when you play it, it does say an obscene word.

George Martin – From “The Beatles: Off the Record” by Keith Badman, 2008

As I say, nine times out of ten, it’s really nothing. The backward thing, at the end of Sgt Pepper, ‘We’ll f*ck you like supermen.’ Some fans came around to my door, giggling. I said, ‘Hello, what do you want?’ They said, ‘Is it true that bit at the end? Is it true? It says, ‘We’ll f*ck you like supermen.’ So, I said, ‘No, you’re kidding! I haven’t heard it, but I’ll play it.’ It was just some piece of conversation that was recorded and turned backwards. I went back inside after I had seen them and played it studiously, turned it backwards with my thumb against the motor, turned the motor off and did it backwards. And there it was, sure as anything, plain as anything. ‘We’ll fuck you like supermen.’ I thought, Jesus, what can you do? During one of the recording sessions, I suggested that we should include a track especially for the dogs. And so, in a pause after ‘A Day In The Life’, there is an electronic note pitched at 18 kilocycles, a whistle inaudible to the human ear, and outside the range of modest record-players, but on high fidelity equipment, a loud and clear call to all dogs.

Paul McCartney – From “The Beatles: Off the Record” by Keith Badman, 2008

We write songs; we know what we mean by them. But in a week someone else says something about it, says that it means that as well, and you can’t deny it. Things take on millions of meanings. I don’t understand it.

A fantastic example is the inner track on the back of Sergeant Pepper that plays for hours if your automatic doesn’t cut off. It’s like a mantra in Yoga and the meaning changes and it all becomes dissociated from what it is saying [the changing meaning of an endlessly repeated phrase is the subject of experiments by Dr Chris Evans at the National Physical Laboratory]. You get a pure buzz after a while because it’s so boring it ceases to mean anything.

But have you heard the incredible thing some people have found about it? If you play it backwards, with your finger turning the record, it says ‘Fug your fugging superman’. It really says it and this seems incredible, because all we did was to get round the mike and jabber, saying all sorts of things. I only found out this week from two giggling girls. I thought it must be something dirty. It’s amazing people should think we go into it to that extent.

Paul McCartney – Interview with The Observer, November 1967

Believe me, this wasn’t intentional. We put those extra words on the end of Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band for all the people whose record players do not turn off automatically.

Paul McCartney – About the naughty words heard when playing the track backwards – From “The Beatles: Off the Record” by Keith Badman, 2008

I am surprised at this further refinement to the LP. It would be absolutely fortuitous if the final phrase reversed into anything meaningful. It is a good example of the myths that grow up around the boys.

George Martin – From “The Beatles: Off the Record” by Keith Badman, 2008

[The high-pitch sound] was done at the same pitch as the police dog whistles. My dog hears it now when I play the record. The dog will suddenly sit up and look around and I’d think ‘Oh yeah, that’s the one with the 15 KC on the end!’

Harry Moss – Engineer at EMI Studios who created the master of “Sgt. Pepper” – From “The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions” by Mark Lewisohn, 1988

Sgt Pepper’s secret words not even the Beatles know

AT the very end of the second side of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” is something that no-one else seems to have heard, which sounds like: “Must say aa the other way aa” and repeats indefinitely. Please explain (W. Henderson, Aberdeen). As the needle lifts off Side 2 an unusual sound is made. Is it deliberate or accidental? (J. B. Lord, Slough). It ‘ seems to be one of the Beatles talking with a lot of noise in the background. Is mine the only record with it? (N. A. Le Grice, Brackley, Northants).

We have been inundated with similar enquiries. Everyone wants to know what the Beatles say at the end of the record, but we just don’t know! The boys were fooling about on one of their sessions and the actual words uttered were just meant as nonsense and have no significance whatever. It was left on the master tape just for fun. and noone, not even the Beatles, can remember what was said that day. Actually, most record-players switch the record off before these words are heard, but they are on every record. — GEORGE MARTIN, A and R manager for the Beatles, AIR (Record Productions) London Ltd.

From Melody Maker – September 2, 1967

What was that you said, Sgt Pepper?

SERGEANT Pepper’s secret was bound to come out in the end, and what a shocker it is for the Beatles.

One side of the bestselling disc ends with Paul McCartney saying: “Never could be any other…” On some record players which do not shut off automatically, the record will keep on going round and McCartney’s words are repeated.
BUT pop fans found if they stopped the record player with the needle still on the groove and then pushed the disc backwards a new and far more startling sound could be heard. Pushed backwards at a certain speed the disc seemed to be producing an obscene phrase.

Paul McCartney tried out the method at his home in St. John’s Wood, North London, and sure enough, there were those naughty words. Paul said: “Believe me this wasn’t intentional. We put those extra words on the end of Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band for all the people whose record players do not turn off automatically.”

From Sunday Mirror – September 3, 1967

BEATLE PAUL’S HOWLER – Our ‘Pooch-box Jury’ gives it a MISS!

THE ATMOSPHERE in the room of electronic dills end controls was tense. I gave the signal. A turn-table revolved.
And the sound of the Beatles poured out of hi-fi speakers. Closely, I watched the sharp, alert face of Heyshott Laddie, prizewinning border collie and champion sheepdog, sitting among the expensive equipment and electronic engineers. Then we heard it… A high-pitched whistle. All of us, that is, except Heyshott Laddie. He just sat there unmoved, like he was a Monkees fan.

It was the final paws-down from my panel — voting the latest Beatles L.P. a complete MISS as far as the dogs of Britain are concerned. The biggest canine letdown since Hollywood discovered Lassie was a male.

The Beatles claim that the L.P. “Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” (which has sold 400,000 copies to humans), includes a special message for dogs. It is said to be an electronic whistle pitched so high that it cannot be heard by humans. But dogs, with their super-sensitive hearing, are supposed to sit up. ears pricked, ready to charge after sheep or rabbits at the sound. Beatles recording manager George Martin said: ‘‘The Beatles are very fond of dogs and it seemed a novel way to round off the record.”

Paul McCartney, who has a Shetland sheepdog called Martha, told me: “I planned it as a message for Martha and for all the other dogs in the world. I wanted them to have something completely to themselves.”

Even “The Times” gravely reported that the whistle, coming just after the track called “A Day in the Life,” was “a loud and clear call to all dogs.” Loud and clear? Not to the dogs on whom I tested the record. Heyshott Laddie, owned by sheepdog trainer Mr. William Wallace, of Henfield, Sussex, is conditioned to respond to ultra-sonic signals blown by his master, on a special whistle. To make sure he had every chance I took him to Largs, the electronics people in Holborn, London, and played the record to him on a super machine — a Quad Stereophonic Control Unit and Amplifier, using an SME pick-up arm with a Shure M55E cartridge. And, as I say, Heyshott Laddie did not react.

How then did we manage to hear this “inaudible” sound?

Mr. Arthur Barrows, the Largs electronics expert, told me: “The whistle isn’t ultrasonic at all. It’s pitched low enough to be heard by humans — even your grandmother.”

The second member of my pooch-box Jury was Skipper, an 11-year-old collie owned by Mr. Len Franklin, of Woking, Surrey. This dog, Mr. Franklin proudly assured me, is normally responsive to the TV signature tunes of “Z-Cars” and “Softly, Softly.” He also howls when Frank Ifield sings. Skipper did not even twitch his ears to the Beatles’ message.

Dog Number Three was Merlin, a one-year-old Great Dane owned by Mr. Graham Rogers, of Hayes, Kent. No reaction. I thought he looked, if anything, somewhat depressed. But his owner assured me this was Merlin’s normal expression indoors. “He’s afraid of knocking the furniture,” Mr. Rogers explained.

There we were. Three dogs and not a bark or howl between them. It all seems more of a howler by the Beatles. But if you’re thinking of trying out the record on your dog be warned. Only expensive hi-fi equipment, costing £100 or more, can reproduce the sound.

My conclusion after this investigation, then, is as follows: Providing the equipment is good enough, the Beatles’ record will cause the ears to be pricked, the nose to twitch and the breath to pant. The owner’s, that is. The dog won’t even budge.

From The People – July 16, 1967

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