Just let it be

IT was 40 years ago (almost) today when Sgt Pepper and his Lonely Hearts Club Band learned to play.

But isn't it surprising that since then those talking heads of the music business and so-called experts on pop culture have been at lengths analysing the album?

Does it really matter?

Let's forget about there being a hidden meaning behind Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, or A Day in the Life.

Really, does it matter? Of course it doesn't.

And it didn't matter to us as teenagers when we rushed out to purchase the album.

The real meaning of The Beatles and Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band comes from the fact that it did much to change the direction of pop music and, perhaps, even more important it has survived as a classic album.

Perhaps I really should say that it is the classic album.

There had been nothing like it before - or since.

And it wasn't just the tracks that seemed so different.

It was the cover, too. We spent hours working out who was actually who: from Marilyn Monroe to Diana Dors; from Bob Dylan to Marlon Brando.

And there was the innovation, too, that here we were given the words to each track.

We could - and I know we did - have a kind of sing-along Sgt Pepper session.

The producer, George Martin, has said of the album that it was the "most innovative, imaginative and trend-setting record of its time".

That, quite simply, is what Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is all about.

Mr Martin, we have to say, got in right.

Those studying pop culture or giving lectures on the subject may believe that there is a need to analysis each lyric and each change in emphasis in the work.

Well, let me tell them, they are wrong.

We don't need academic works on a subject which, after all, happens to be a pop album.

It's an album that has survived for 40 years because it just happens to be so brilliant.

It's as simple as that.

Anyone working on a thesis about the album is simply wasting their time.

The music speaks for itself - and for its age.