40 years ago, 'Sgt. Pepper' changed the world

It was 40 years ago this week — to be precise, June 1, 1967, in Britain, a day later in the former colonies of America — that the Beatles changed the world.

Of course, the Beatles had changed the world many times before, but the release of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" was different.

It was called "a decisive moment in the history of Western civilization," one of its tunes ("She's Leaving Home") was credited with being one of the three great songs of the 20th century, and in the week after the album came out, "the irreparably fragmented consciousness of the West was unified, at least in the minds of the young."

Because those comments were made by, respectively, the Times of London's noted critic Kenneth Tynan, New York Philharmonic conductor Leonard Bernstein and New Yorker writer Langdon Winner, they signified the acceptance and triumph of "Sgt. Pepper" and the Beatles in the arts — and adult — community.

Young people, meanwhile, thought the album was cool and far out.

"Sgt. Pepper" emerged in a context of great creative experimentation in rock 'n' roll and social upheaval.

The Beatles themselves had led the way in 1965 and '66 with their path-breaking "Rubber Soul" and "Revolver" albums. Bob Dylan, having moved from folk to rock, burst the limitations of the two-minute song. The Beach Boys' Brian Wilson and the Mothers of Invention's Frank Zappa broke new ground with "Pet Sounds" and "Freak Out." And the Beatles' friends and rivals the Rolling Stones were keeping pace with their "Aftermath" and "Between the Buttons" albums.

John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr were also as much a part of the youth movement of the '60s and affected by it personally as they were key influences upon it. Resistance to illegitimate authority, the generation gap, the use of recreational drugs, a freer attitude toward sexuality and a communal ethos are all given new expression in "Sgt. Pepper."