- The title of the album was inspired by little Salt and Pepper packets that came with an airline meal. Paul McCartney and tour manager/assistant Mal Evans were flying home from Kenya and were given packets marked "S and P" with their meal. McCartney somehow extrapolated "Sergeant Pepper" from salt and pepper as he played with the words. He added "Lonely Hearts Club Band" and decided it would be a crazy name for a band "because why would a Lonely Hearts Club have a band?"
- It took the Beatles 700 hours to record the album, compared with 10 hours for their first album, Please Please Me.
- At the time, the popularity of the Beatles had been waning somewhat because they had retired from performing live (hence Sgt Pepper was never performed live) and they were under pressure to produce a big hit single. They took two songs they'd recorded for the album, Strawberry Fields Forever and Penny Lane and released them as a double A side single. Because it was the practice at the time not to include singles as album tracks, those two classics didn't make the cut for the album.
- Another song, It’s Only a Northern Song, didn't make the cut either but was included on the soundtrack to the group’s 1969 film Yellow Submarine.
- Ringo Starr didn't write any songs for the album and so was left out of a lot of the technical discussions on how the songs would be recorded. This meant a lot of waiting around for him – he spent the time learning to play chess. He did, however, have a say in the lyrics he was to sing. He refused to sing "What would you do if I sang out of tune? Would you stand up and throw tomatoes at me?" because fans had been throwing jelly babies on stage for years because he said he liked them, and thought if he sang those words, he would literally get tomatoes thrown at him wherever he went.
- Some facts about the tracks: John Lennon‘s song Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite! was inspired by an 1843 circus poster. She's Leaving Home was inspired by a newspaper article Paul McCartney read about a 17 year old who went missing for 10 days. The same teenager won a miming contest on the TV show Ready Steady Go! on which McCartney was the judge. Fixing a Hole was said to have been inspired by Paul McCartney's DIY projects at his house in Scotland.
- Several of the songs were banned by the BBC because of alleged references to drugs in them. Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds was thought to be about LSD, although John Lennon insisted it was based on a drawing by his son Julian. The BBC also thought A Day In The Life promoted "a permissive attitude toward drug-taking" because of the lines "found my way upstairs and had a smoke" and "Four thousand holes in Blackburn" which the BBC interpreted as injection holes in a junkie's arm. As a result of the BBC's bans, three songs were omitted from the album when it was released in South Asia, Malaysia, and Hong Kong.
- The cover was created by Peter Blake and Jann Haworth, who won the 1968 Grammy for Best Album Cover. Haworth was the first woman to win in that category. The band's original list of historical figures to appear included Jesus Christ (not allowed because it might re-ignite the hoo-hah over John Lennon's claim that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus), Ghandi (ruled out because he might spark another controversy) and Hitler (who is actually there but hidden behind the Beatles). Elvis Presley wasn't considered at all because he was deemed "too important and too far above the rest even to mention.” Mae West at first refused to let her image be used, because, she said, “What would I be doing in a lonely hearts club?” However, the Beatles wrote to her and she relented. Actor Leo Gorcey was painted out because he requested a fee.
- Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was the first album to have the lyrics printed on the cover and to have tracks which merged seamlessly into the next. This meant there was a continuous flow of Music rather than short silences between tracks.
- Just before the backwards talking at the very end, there is a 15-kilohertz high-frequency whistle that humans can't hear, but Dogs can.
MY LATEST BOOK!
Killing Me Softly
Sebastian Garrett is an assassin. It wasn’t his first choice of vocation, but nonetheless, he’s good at it, and can be relied upon to get the job done. He’s on top of his game.
Until he is contracted to kill Princess Helena of Galorvia. She is not just any princess. Sebastian doesn’t bargain on his intended victim being a super-heroine who gives as good as she gets. Only his own genetic variant power saves him from becoming the victim, instead of Helena.
Fate has another surprise in store. Sebastian was not expecting to fall in love with her.
Until he is contracted to kill Princess Helena of Galorvia. She is not just any princess. Sebastian doesn’t bargain on his intended victim being a super-heroine who gives as good as she gets. Only his own genetic variant power saves him from becoming the victim, instead of Helena.
Fate has another surprise in store. Sebastian was not expecting to fall in love with her.
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