Fifty years ago today (June 1), the greatest band in the history of the world released – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Among the reviews, tributes and nonsense clickbait articles saturating the internet this summer (lol), many writers are claiming never to have liked the Beatles – some even going so far as to describe the Fab Four as ‘over-rated’.

Here are 15 things you didn’t know about The Beatles’ masterpiece

To be clear, these people are utter morons.

The Beatles represent the indisputable high-watermark of popular culture in the 20th century – greater than Andy Warhol, greater than 1984, greater than The Simpsons – and deserve nothing less than the grovelling adulation of every man, woman and child on earth.




Why, you ask?

They were sexy

Proper sexy. Behold rich, talented, doe-eyed Paul in his heyday.

The Beatles had a dishy one for all tastes.

Alpha male John.

Brooding, dark-horse George.

Adorable fixer-upper Ringo.

So sexy, The Ramones were named after them

(Picture: Fiona Adams/Redferns)

Oh, cool, you have a Ramones t-shirt.

Get this: back in the early days, when Paul McCartney was banging groupies he’d check into hotels under a fake name.

That name? Paul Ramon.

So the New York punk rock icons (apparently so-much-cooler than the Liverpudlian mop-tops) genuinely styled themselves after the nailing-chicks alter ego of the goddamned bass player.

Oh yeah, an unbeatable back catalogue

(Picture: Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)

Everybody you know can name 10 Beatles songs. No other band can come close. Don’t believe me?

Yellow Submarine, Hey Jude, Let It Be, Help, She Loves You, When I’m 64, All You Need Is Love, Yesterday, Here Comes The Sun, Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds.

I could go on.

They did it in no time flat

(Picture: Chris Walter/WireImage/Getty)

In just seven years, from 1963 to early 1970, the group cranked out 13 albums and hundreds of classic songs – most are still played on the radio, covered by big artists and danced to at weddings today – not to mention their three films, two books of poetry by Lennon (well worth checking out) and innumerable tours.

Nowadays, a band considers themselves hardworking if they crank out a record every three years.

Put it this way – George Harrison was just 26 when they split up.

But they still found time for naughtiness

(Picture: David Magnus)

By those numbers, and weeding out the crap tunes (yes, there are few howlers), The Beatles can be said to have written a classic song about once a fortnight.

Yet still they put away drugs like nobody’s business.

And observe McCartney’s deft handling of an interviewer regarding his fondness for LSD:

Also check out this surreal 1974 jam session – McCartney on drums and Lennon on vocals – where Lennon can clearly be heard, about 16 seconds in, offering Stevie Wonder a line of cocaine.

Sheer dazzling variety

(Picture: David Magnus/REX/Shutterstock)

No other band is as sonically diverse – they have covered everything from rockabilly to jazz, folk, gospel, children’s songs, country and western, classical, baroque, Indian raga, hard rock and everything in between.

If there’s a genre they didn’t explore, it’s only because they hadn’t got around to inventing it yet.



They were hilarious in interviews

The world has never fallen so comprehensively head-over-heels for a band, so naturally journalists were constantly peppering them with questions.

And of course, the boys bossed it.

Reporter: What kind of girl do you like?

John: My wife.

Reporter: What about you, George?

George: John’s wife.

They snuck some quality filth onto the records

(Picture: John Loengard/Life Magazine/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images)

Despite their wholesome, goody-two-shoes reputation, the boys loved a bit of grot.

On nostalgic paen to their hometown, Penny Lane, The Beatles cheerfully reference ‘finger pie’, causing consternation to decades worth of American tourists who visit Liverpool, hoping to sample one from a chip shop.

On Hey Jude – one of the most played records in the history of music – John (audibly, just) mucks up their part and shouts ‘f***ing hell’.

The backing vocal for Girl has George and Paul, quite deliberately and knowingly, singing ‘tit-tit-tit-tit-tit-tit-tit…’

They wrote for other people

(Picture: Bob Thomas/Getty Images)

Sometimes they wrote songs for other musicians using fake names, just to see if they could make hits without the leg-up of their reputations; (spoiler: they could).

Most famously, they offered The Rolling Stones a nifty number called I Wanna Be Your Man, which scored Jagger and co one of their first hits.

The Beatles also recorded a version of the track, but let an off-key Ringo sing the lead vocal.

‘That shows how much importance we put on it,’ snarked John in a later interview. ‘Well, we weren’t going to give the Stones anything great, right?’

It was all about love

In the early days, their songs were about love between a boy and a girl.

Later they turned hippy and wrote about love for everyone.


Ridonkulously ahead of their time, they even covered trans love.

And wrote probably the best song ever about patching up a relationship after an argument.

F***, I love The Beatles.

And if you don’t, you’re an idiot.

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