Marianne Faithfull Said The Beatles’ ‘Sgt. Pepper’ Is ‘Unsettling’

Marianne Faithfull is a singer who served as a muse for The Rolling Stones‘ Mick Jagger. She said The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is darker than it seems upon first listen. Notably, John Lennon was not the biggest fan of the record.

Marianne Faithfull said The Beatles’ ‘Sgt. Pepper’ is ‘very weird’

Faithfull is a singer most known for her hit “As Tears Go By” and her cover of The Beatles’ “Yesterday.” In her 2007 book Memories, Dreams & Recollections, the singer wrote about her feelings about the Fab Four. “Their sweetness is very superficial,” he said. “You hear the undercurrent in Paul’s bass playing, you hear it in John’s harmonies, you hear it in the call-and-response stuff. Maybe not the first couple of records, but when you get to Revolver and Rubber Soul, things begin to darken. 

“And there’s something very weird about Sgt. Pepper, too,” she opined. “It’s not at all what it appears to be. I’ve found subsequently that listening to Sgt. Pepper can be a bit of an unsettling experience. [The Beach Boys’] Pet Sounds still comes across as very beatific, so innocent and yearning, whereas Sgt Pepper really doesn’t.” For context, Sgt. Pepper and Pet Sounds are often compared to one another for their innovative and influential psychedelic sounds. They are undoubtedly two of the most acclaimed albums ever made.

Marianne Faithfull said The Beach Boys paved the way for The Beatles

The “As Tears Go By” star discussed the impact that Sgt. Pepper had on other rock musicians. ‘After Sgt. Pepper everybody wanted a crack at the rock Gesamtkunstwerk, but it was not on,” she wrote. “Gesamtkunstwerk” is a German word meaning “total work of art.”

Faithfull cited The Who’s Tommy as an attempt to recapture the magic of Sgt. Pepper. “The only person who managed anything like it, and, in fact, preceded it, was Brian Wilson with Pet Sounds,” Faithfull said. “And it was Pet Sounds that helped give Sgt. Pepper wings.” Pet Sounds definitely paved the way for Sgt. Pepper. Despite this, Sgt. Pepper was far more popular and famous.

What John Lennon said about ‘Sgt. Pepper’

The book All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono features an interview from 1980. In it, the “Power to the People” singer was asked if he had any favorites among The Beatles’ albums. He said that he didn’t think that any of the Fab Four’s record was great all the way through. However, the former Beatles expressed some affection for specific Beatles records like Sgt. Pepper, Revolver, Rubber Soul, and The White Album. He also had some fondness for The Beatles’ debut record, Please Please Me, because they recorded it in a matter of hours. 

John recalled loving two albums, neither of which were Beatles albums. One was Elvis Presley’s debut album, Elvis Presley. The other was a Carl Perkins record. John couldn’t remember if it was Perkins’ first or second record. Notably, The Beatles covered three of Perkins’ most famous records: “Honey Don’t,” “Matchbox,” and “Everybody’s Trying to Be My Baby.”

Sgt. Pepper has an unsettling quality, and Faithfull is one of the few rockers who have noticed that.