''It Was Twenty Years Ago Today'' (also known as ''Sgt. Pepper: It Was Twenty Years Ago Today'') is a 1987 British-made television
documentary film
A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...
about the 1967
Summer of Love
The Summer of Love was a social phenomenon that occurred during the summer of 1967, when as many as 100,000 people, mostly young people sporting hippie fashions of dress and behavior, converged in San Francisco's neighborhood of Haight-Ashbury. ...
. It premiered on 1 June 1987, twenty years after the official release date of
the Beatles
The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatles, most influential band of al ...
' album ''
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
''Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'' is the eighth studio album by the English rock band the Beatles. Released on 26May 1967, ''Sgt. Pepper'' is regarded by musicologists as an early concept album that advanced the roles of sound composi ...
'', and presents the album as the central factor behind the events and scenes that led to the full emergence of the
1960s counterculture
The counterculture of the 1960s was an anti-establishment cultural phenomenon that developed throughout much of the Western world in the 1960s and has been ongoing to the present day. The aggregate movement gained momentum as the civil rights mo ...
.
The film was directed by John Sheppard for
Granada Television
ITV Granada, formerly known as Granada Television, is the ITV franchisee for the North West of England and Isle of Man. From 1956 to 1968 it broadcast to both the north west and Yorkshire but only on weekdays as ABC Weekend Television was it ...
. In addition to archive footage, it features interviews with key figures from the period, including
Derek Taylor (who also served as consultant on the production),
George Harrison
George Harrison (25 February 1943 – 29 November 2001) was an English musician and singer-songwriter who achieved international fame as the lead guitarist of the Beatles. Sometimes called "the quiet Beatle", Harrison embraced Indian c ...
,
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney (born 18 June 1942) is an English singer, songwriter and musician who gained worldwide fame with the Beatles, for whom he played bass guitar and shared primary songwriting and lead vocal duties with John Lennon. One ...
,
Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...
,
Abbie Hoffman
Abbot Howard "Abbie" Hoffman (November 30, 1936 – April 12, 1989) was an American political and social activist who co-founded the Youth International Party ("Yippies") and was a member of the Chicago Seven. He was also a leading proponen ...
and
Timothy Leary.
Its release was accompanied by the book ''It Was Twenty Years Ago Today'', written by Taylor. After the documentary's initial broadcast on the
ITV
ITV or iTV may refer to:
ITV
*Independent Television (ITV), a British television network, consisting of:
** ITV (TV network), a free-to-air national commercial television network covering the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islan ...
network in the UK, it was shown by
PBS
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...
in the US on 11 November 1987.
Historical context
Together with the
Monterey International Pop Festival
The Monterey International Pop Festival was a three-day music festival held June 16 to 18, 1967, at the Monterey County Fairgrounds in Monterey, California. The festival is remembered for the first major American appearances by the Jimi Hendrix ...
, held in California on 16–18 June 1967, the release of
the Beatles
The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatles, most influential band of al ...
' ''
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
''Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'' is the eighth studio album by the English rock band the Beatles. Released on 26May 1967, ''Sgt. Pepper'' is regarded by musicologists as an early concept album that advanced the roles of sound composi ...
'' is usually cited by historians as the start of the
Summer of Love
The Summer of Love was a social phenomenon that occurred during the summer of 1967, when as many as 100,000 people, mostly young people sporting hippie fashions of dress and behavior, converged in San Francisco's neighborhood of Haight-Ashbury. ...
.
Sociomusicologist
Sociomusicology (from Latin: ''socius'', "companion"; from Old French ''musique''; and the suffix ''-ology'', "the study of", from Old Greek λόγος, ''lógos'' : "discourse"), also called music sociology or the sociology of music, refers to bo ...
Simon Frith
Simon Webster Frith (born 1946) is a British sociomusicologist and former rock critic who specializes in popular music culture. He is Tovey Chair of Music at University of Edinburgh.
Career
As a student, he read PPE at Oxford and earned a ...
described 1967 as the year that "it all came together", in terms of the realisation of the 1960s youth movement's search for independence from societal norms and a new path dedicated to enlightenment.
[ Available a]
Rock's Backpages
(subscription required). This movement manifested as a
counterculture
A counterculture is a culture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, sometimes diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores.Eric Donald Hirsch. ''The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy''. Hou ...
, embracing communal living, pacifism, consciousness-raising hallucinogenic drugs, psychedelic fashions and art, and Indian mysticism. The main centre was the
Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco, while movements were also underway in London, Los Angeles, New York, Amsterdam, Berlin and Paris.
Timothy Leary, a former Harvard professor, extolled students and young professionals to "
Turn on, tune in, drop out", a phrase that became a catch-cry for the hippie phenomenon. With the Beatles as the most popular and influential act of the era, music was the principal agent of these changes.
Having become a leading publicist in Los Angeles following his work with the Beatles in 1964,
Derek Taylor co-founded the Monterey festival. This event showcased the diversity of musical styles and influences that constituted the new "
rock
Rock most often refers to:
* Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids
* Rock music, a genre of popular music
Rock or Rocks may also refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...
" medium, as well as pop music's ascendancy to the level of art.
Pop's maturity beyond the category of teenage entertainment had only recently been recognised at this time. In the United States, it was marked by the appointment of the first rock critic,
Richard Goldstein, at ''
The Village Voice
''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the crea ...
'' in June 1966 and, in April the following year, the screening of a television documentary hosted by classical composer
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein ( ; August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, pianist, music educator, author, and humanitarian. Considered to be one of the most important conductors of his time, he was the first America ...
, ''
Inside Pop: The Rock Revolution''.
The latter sought to explain the merits of contemporary pop music to a mainstream audience and demystify the generation gap it represented. In Britain, the authorities had begun clamping down on the perceived threat posed by pop musicians and members of the
UK underground. These measures included the arrest of
Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones are an English Rock music, rock band formed in London in 1962. Active for six decades, they are one of the most popular and enduring bands of the album era, rock era. In the early 1960s, the Rolling Stones pioneered the g ...
members
Mick Jagger
Sir Michael Philip Jagger (born 26 July 1943) is an English singer and songwriter who has achieved international fame as the lead vocalist and one of the founder members of the rock band the Rolling Stones. His ongoing songwriting partnershi ...
and
Keith Richards on drugs charges, to which ''
The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...
'' responded with an editorial titled "
Who Breaks a Butterfly upon a Wheel?
"Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?" is a quotation from Alexander Pope's "Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot" of January 1735.
It alludes to "breaking on the wheel", a form of torture in which victims had their long bones broken by an iron bar while tie ...
", and the attempted closure of the ''
International Times
''International Times'' (''it'' or ''IT'') is the name of various underground newspapers, with the original title founded in London in 1966 and running until October 1973. Editors included John "Hoppy" Hopkins, David Mair ...
''.
''It Was Twenty Years Ago Today'' was directed and produced by John Sheppard,
whose previous television work included directing musical performances on the 1960s pop program ''
Ready Steady Go!'' and making pioneering segments for Granada's ''
World in Action
''World in Action'' was a British investigative current affairs programme made by Granada Television for ITV from 7 January 1963 until 7 December 1998. Its campaigning journalism frequently had a major impact on events of the day. Its producti ...
'' current affairs shows.
Sheppard said of 1967: "That summer there was a social, sexual and musical revolution and Sgt. Pepper was at the heart of it. It was the year of the hippie, of Peace,
Flower Power and the Summer of Love. All over the world young people were experimenting with new ways of living and seeking to create a better future. Hope was in the air."
Film content
The film includes footage from
ITN
Independent Television News (ITN) is a UK-based television production company. It is made up of two divisions: Broadcast News and ITN Productions. ITN is based in London, with bureaux and offices in Beijing, Brussels, Jerusalem, Johannesburg, N ...
's report from outside
EMI Studios on 20 December 1966, early in the recording sessions for ''Sgt. Pepper''. Each of the Beatles is asked to comment on rumours that the band are splitting up in the wake of an announcement that they had retired from live performance. Recalling the inspiration behind the album twenty years later,
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney (born 18 June 1942) is an English singer, songwriter and musician who gained worldwide fame with the Beatles, for whom he played bass guitar and shared primary songwriting and lead vocal duties with John Lennon. One ...
says: "we started to incorporate more of the crazy life that we were living at the time into the music. We started to believe there weren't that many frontiers, not too many barriers, really …"
Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...
, an American poet and counterculture figure, is shown providing a rundown of the album's themes, song by song.
Ginsberg remarks on the joyous celebration of life expressed throughout ''Sgt. Pepper''. Latter-day commentary on the album and the Summer of Love is also provided by
George Harrison
George Harrison (25 February 1943 – 29 November 2001) was an English musician and singer-songwriter who achieved international fame as the lead guitarist of the Beatles. Sometimes called "the quiet Beatle", Harrison embraced Indian c ...
, Taylor, Leary and
Yippie activist
Abbie Hoffman
Abbot Howard "Abbie" Hoffman (November 30, 1936 – April 12, 1989) was an American political and social activist who co-founded the Youth International Party ("Yippies") and was a member of the Chicago Seven. He was also a leading proponen ...
. Other interviewees include
William Rees-Mogg
William Rees-Mogg, Baron Rees-Mogg (14 July 192829 December 2012) was a British newspaper journalist who was Editor of ''The Times'' from 1967 to 1981. In the late 1970s, he served as High Sheriff of Somerset, and in the 1980s was Chairman of th ...
(former editor of ''The Times''),
Barry Miles (''International Times''), Hollywood actors
Peter Fonda
Peter Henry Fonda (February 23, 1940 – August 16, 2019) was an American actor. He was the son of Henry Fonda, younger brother of Jane Fonda, and father of Bridget Fonda. He was a prominent figure in the counterculture of the 1960s. Fond ...
and
Peter Coyote (the latter a countercultural playwright in 1967
and a member of the San Francisco
diggers
The Diggers were a group of religious and political dissidents in England, associated with agrarian socialism. Gerrard Winstanley and William Everard, amongst many others, were known as True Levellers in 1649, in reference to their split from ...
), music critic
William Mann, musicologist
Wilfrid Mellers
Wilfrid Howard Mellers (26 April 1914 – 17 May 2008) was an English music critic, musicologist and composer.
Early life
Born in Leamington, Warwickshire, Mellers was educated at the local Leamington College and later won a scholarship to Dow ...
, and Californian musicians
Roger McGuinn,
Paul Kantner
Paul Lorin Kantner (March 17, 1941 – January 28, 2016) was an American rock musician. He is best known as the co-founder, rhythm guitarist, and vocalist of Jefferson Airplane, a leading psychedelic rock band of the counterculture era. He cont ...
and
Michelle Phillips. The only female interviewee,
Phillips recalls the ethos behind the Summer of Love: "We were going to take care of the world and its problems, and we were going to do it through a unified front of people who cared."
Among footage used to establish the context of 1967 is film of Jagger and Richards' court hearing
and, following their acquittal, Jagger's arrival by helicopter to meet with establishment figures such as the
Archbishop of Canterbury
The archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and a principal leader of the Church of England, the ceremonial head of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. The current archbishop is Justi ...
.
Aside from the Beatles, contemporary music is represented through footage of
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...
, the Rolling Stones,
the Byrds
The Byrds () were an American rock band formed in Los Angeles, California, in 1964. The band underwent multiple lineup changes throughout its existence, with frontman Roger McGuinn (known as Jim McGuinn until mid-1967) remaining the sole cons ...
,
the Grateful Dead,
Jefferson Airplane
Jefferson Airplane was an American rock band based in San Francisco, California, that became one of the pioneering bands of psychedelic rock. Formed in 1965, the group defined the San Francisco Sound and was the first from the Bay Area to ac ...
,
Otis Redding,
Jimi Hendrix
James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix (born Johnny Allen Hendrix; November 27, 1942September 18, 1970) was an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. Although his mainstream career spanned only four years, he is widely regarded as one of the most ...
,
Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd are an English rock band formed in London in 1965. Gaining an early following as one of the first British psychedelic music, psychedelic groups, they were distinguished by their extended compositions, sonic experimentation, philo ...
,
Buffalo Springfield
Buffalo Springfield was a rock band formed in Los Angeles by Canadian musicians Neil Young, Bruce Palmer and Dewey Martin and American musicians Stephen Stills and Richie Furay. The group, widely known for the song "For What It's Worth", relea ...
and
Janis Joplin
Janis Lyn Joplin (January 19, 1943 – October 4, 1970) was an American singer and musician. One of the most successful and widely known Rock music, rock stars of her era, she was noted for her powerful mezzo-soprano vocals and "electric" stage ...
.
The era's fascination with India is represented by archival film of Indian classical musician
Ravi Shankar
Ravi Shankar (; born Robindro Shaunkor Chowdhury, sometimes spelled as Rabindra Shankar Chowdhury; 7 April 1920 – 11 December 2012) was an Indian sitarist and composer. A sitar virtuoso, he became the world's best-known export of North Ind ...
and
,
whose
Transcendental Meditation technique
The Transcendental Meditation technique (abbreviated as TM) is the technique associated with the practice of Transcendental Meditation developed by the Indian spiritual figure Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. The practice involves the use of a private man ...
the Beatles soon turned to as an alternative to
LSD. The film and television clips also include footage of the
Human Be-In and other hippie events in Haight-Ashbury, and anti-
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...
demonstrations.
The ideological division between hippies and the older generation is shown in footage of tourist coach trips around Haight-Ashbury, and a clip from ''Inside Pop''
in which, referring to a character in Dylan's song "
Ballad of a Thin Man", Leonard Bernstein asks: "You know who Mr Jones is, don't you? Us!"
Performances are shown from the Monterey Pop Festival,
as is the Beatles' appearance, before an audience estimated at up to 400 million, on the ''
Our World'' satellite broadcast, where they performed the purpose-written song "
All You Need Is Love". The film also covers the attempted levitation of
the Pentagon
The Pentagon is the headquarters building of the United States Department of Defense. It was constructed on an accelerated schedule during World War II. As a symbol of the U.S. military, the phrase ''The Pentagon'' is often used as a metony ...
in
Washington, DC
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan ...
,
an event initiated by Hoffman in October 1967. In the conclusion to the documentary, several of the interviewees are asked whether they believe that "Love is all you need", as the Beatles had contended in "All You Need Is Love".
Harrison, McCartney and Coyote agree that it is,
while Hoffman firmly disagrees and says, "''Justice'' is all you need." In Ginsberg's opinion, "awareness is all you need ... love stems from awareness."
Coyote rebuts the idea, as proposed in 1987 ideology, that the 1960s were merely "a drug-induced euphoria ... a failure", and he adds: "The times they are changing. They really are."
Release and reception
''It Was Twenty Years Ago Today'' was broadcast on the
ITV
ITV or iTV may refer to:
ITV
*Independent Television (ITV), a British television network, consisting of:
** ITV (TV network), a free-to-air national commercial television network covering the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islan ...
network in Britain on 1 June 1987. It was one of many television and radio programs honouring the twentieth anniversary of the release of ''Sgt. Pepper'', although the actual release date in 1967 had been brought forward to late May. In addition to the publication of Taylor's book, the album was issued on
compact disc
The compact disc (CD) is a Digital media, digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. In August 1982, the first compact disc was manufactured. It was then rele ...
for the first time
and peaked at number 3 on the
UK Albums Chart
The Official Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales and (from March 2015) audio streaming in the United Kingdom. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the Official Charts C ...
. In a contemporary interview, Taylor said: "I haven't seen anything like this in a number of years. I have a feeling of dread that we have
Beatlemania
Beatlemania was the fanaticism surrounding the English rock band the Beatles in the 1960s. The group's popularity grew in the United Kingdom throughout 1963, propelled by the singles "Please Please Me", "From Me to You" and "She Loves You". By ...
back again."
The documentary was shown by
PBS
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...
in the US on 11 November.
The documentary received highly favourable reviews.
Richard Harrington of ''
The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'' described it as "much more than musical nostalgia or a Beatles memorial. It's a thoughtful, expansive look back at the times, the dreams, the rude realities and the untarnished aspirations of many of its key players." He said that Harrison offered the most insightful comments on the times, and added: "One comes away from 'It Was 20 Years Ago Today' with a remembrance of the invitations that defined the era. Invitations not just to 'feed your head' or 'turn on, tune in, drop out,' but to participate in a new community, to explore changes and exchanges, to experiment, to join in a 'tide of playfulness.'"
Writing in ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', John Corry welcomed the two former Beatles' insights, although he rued the presence of Leary, Hoffman and Fonda, and that the frequent interview comments limited the amount of music that was heard. Corry also questioned the filmmakers' contention that the Beatles were solely responsible for the cultural changes of 1967 and said that "The paradox in the documentary is that Mr. McCartney and Mr. Harrison ... claim a good deal less than their apostles."
Hoffman said that Sheppard's film was "simply brilliant" and "the only thing I'm ever going to recommend to anybody about the 60s".
When asked in a ''
Q'' magazine interview in late 1987 why he had been the only person to unequivocally agree with the sentiments of "All You Need Is Love", Harrison replied: "They all said All You Need Is Love but you also need such-and-such else. But … love is complete knowledge. If we all had total knowledge, then we would have complete love and, on that basis, everything is taken care of. It's a law of nature."
References
Sources
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{{Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
1987 television specials
Documentary films about the Beatles
Documentary television series about music
Television programmes about the Beatles
ITV documentaries