Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)

From Wikipedia:

“Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)” is a modified repeat of the opening song [of the “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” album] at a faster tempo and with heavier instrumentation. The track opens with McCartney’s count-in; between 2 and 3, Lennon jokingly interjects “Bye!” Ringo Starr starts the song proper by playing the drum part unaccompanied for four bars, at the end of which a brief bass glissando from McCartney cues the full ensemble of two distorted electric guitars (played by George Harrison and Lennon), bass, drums and overdubbed percussion. In addition, McCartney overdubbed a Hammond organ part onto the track.

While the first version of the song had stayed largely in the key of G major (except for transient modulation to F and perhaps C in the bridges), the reprise starts in F and features a modulation, to G. The mono and stereo mixes of the song differ slightly: the former has a fractionally different transition from the previous song, and includes crowd noise and laughter in the opening bars that are absent from the stereo mix.

The idea for a reprise was Aspinall’s, who thought that, as there was a “welcome song”, there should also be a “goodbye song”. The song contains broadly the same melody as the opening version, but with different lyrics and omitting the “It’s wonderful to be here” section. At 1:18, it is one of the Beatles’ shorter songs (the shortest is “Her Majesty” at 0:23). The reprise was recorded on 1 April 1967, two months after the version that opens the album. At the end of the track, Martin’s applause sample segues into the final track of the album, “A Day in the Life”. A run-through of the reprise is included on the outtakes album Anthology 2 (1996).

In 2006, the reprise was re-released on the album Love, which was a theatrical production by Cirque du Soleil. The updated version is a remix featuring samples of other Beatles’ songs and fades out before the cross-fade into “A Day in the Life”.

Sgt Pepper is called the first concept album, but it doesn’t go anywhere. All my contributions to the album have absolutely nothing to do with this idea of Sgt Pepper and his band,- but it works, because we said it worked, and that’s how the album appeared. But it was not put together as it sounds, except for Sgt Pepper introducing Billy Shears, and the so-called reprise. Every other song could have been on any other album.

John Lennon – From “The Beatles Anthology” book, 2000

Getting very near the end, the Beatles recorded the last new number for Sgt. Pepper just two days before Paul was committed to fly out to America, the sessions over. Possibly for this reason, but also because it was technically less complicated than the other tracks, this final song – the reprise version of the title cut – was started, completed and mixed in a single session, albeit one that didn’t finish until six o’clock the following morning. The master was Take 9, with overdubs – the version here is a basic track, Take 5, with Paul’s guide vocal.

From Anthology 2 liner notes, about alternate take 5

From The Usenet Guide to Beatles Recording Variations:

[a] mono 1 Apr 1967. edited. crossfaded 6 Apr 1967.
UK: Parlophone PMC 7026 Sgt Pepper 1967.
US: Capitol MAS 2653 Sgt Pepper 1967.

[b] stereo 20 Apr 1967. edited. crossfaded 20 Apr 1967.
UK: Parlophone PCS 7026 Sgt Pepper 1967.
US: Capitol SMAS 2653 Sgt Pepper 1967.
CD: EMI CDP 7 46442 2 Sgt Pepper 1987.

The crossfade joins this to the following song, A Day in the Life. The edit in mono [a] is better, so the last note hits the first chord of A Day in the Life, while there is a delay in stereo [b].

Mono [a] starts with unknown spoken words not in stereo [b], then both have a countdown with someone saying “bye” (?) behind it, then [a] has more drum beats to start. During the sequence just described, crowd noise in mono [a] starts louder, dies down, then up to a cheer, while crowd noise in stereo [b] stays steady at medium volume– the crowd noise seems to have been added during mixing. Right before the vocal is a “woo”, louder in mono [a]. Toward the end in mono [a] Paul is heard shouting unintelligible phrases (“we are the greatest”?, “the band, the one and only band”? among other things) starting near the last “Sgt Pepper’s lonely”, while in stereo [b] John is heard nearer the end saying something like “hold my guitar for me”.

Lyrics

Variations

• A Mono version • From "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Mono)"
• A2009 2009 mono remaster • From "The Beatles in Mono (2009)"
• A2014 2014 remaster • From "The Beatles In Mono (Vinyl boxset - 2014)"
• B Stereo version • From "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Stereo)"
• B2009 2009 stereo remaster • From "The Beatles • The Original Studio Recordings (2009)"
• C Take 5 • From "Anthology 2"
• C2016 Take 5 - 2016 remaster • From "Anthology 2 (2016 remaster)"
• D 2006 "The Beatles Love" mix • From "Love"
• E 2017 stereo mix • From "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (50th anniversary boxset)"
• F Speech and Take 8 • From "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (50th anniversary boxset)"
• G 2017 Dolby Atmos mix
• H 2022 Dolby Atmos mix
• L1 Live version • ""Under The Staircase" Spotify show" • Jul 23, 2018

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“Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)” has been played in 262 concerts and 1 soundchecks.

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