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TL;DR:

  • Howard Stern first heard The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band when he was 13.
  • He said listening to The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper felt like a major discovery.
  • Stern got closer to his mother because of the album.

Howard Stern first heard The Beatles‘ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band when it was new. He said he had a strong reaction to one classic song from Sgt. Pepper. Subsequently, the experience influenced his attitude toward music as an adult.

Howard Stern felt like a rabbinical student while analyzing The Beatles’ ‘Sgt. Pepper’

In his 2019 book Howard Stern Comes Again, Stern discussed hearing The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper for the first time in the summer of 1967 when he was 13. “I had a record player in my room, and I called to my mother: ‘Mom, come in here! You gotta hear this!'” he said. “She sat on my bed next to me and we listened to the entire album.” Stern said listening to Sgt. Pepper felt like a major discovery for him.

“The song lyrics were printed on the back — it was one of the first times a band had done that, maybe even the first,” he said. “As the music played, my mother and I read along. I have vivid memories of a scholarly moment when, like two rabbinical students, we poured over the lyrics to ‘Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!’ The experience was more personal and profound than any religious training I’d received up until then.”

Howard Stern said he grew close to his mother because she liked The Beatles’ ‘Sgt. Pepper’

Stern said analyzing “Being for the Benefit of M. Kite!” was a great moment in his relationship with his mother. “It might be the closest I have ever felt to my mother,” he said. “To my astonishment, she actually enjoyed the music. It made me so proud that as an older woman, she could get into The Beatles, especially because all of her friends hated them.”

Because of this experience, Stern decided he would keep up with new music, even as he grew older. He’s not always aware of what’s going on with the modern music industry, but he’s a big fan of Ed Sheeran, both as a musician and as a person.

Related

Paul McCartney: Elvis Presley Inspired The Beatles’ ‘Sgt. Pepper’

Paul McCartney said ‘Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!’ inspired many misinterpretations

In the 1997 book Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now, Paul said some fans read too much into “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!” He said some listeners told him they were Mr. Kite. Paul had to explain that Mr. Kite was fictitious.

Something similar happened with Billy Shears, a fictional character mentioned in the song “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” Paul said he once met someone who claimed to be Mr. Kite and one person who claimed to be Shears over the course of one tea time.

The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper meant a lot to Stern even if it inspired some misinterpretations.

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