ABSTRACT
You want a piece of music to encapsulate the period it was written in, and Sgt. Pepper does seem to do that.1
It was the closest Western Civilisation had come to unity since the Congress of Vienna in 1815…. At the time Sgt. Pepper was released I happened to be driving across country on Interstate 80. In each city I stopped…the melodies wafted in from some far-off transistor radio or portable hi-fi. It was the most amazing thing I’Ve ever heard. For a brief moment, the irreparably fragmented consciousness of the West was unified, at least in the minds of the young.2
