All you need is love – and a lot of hard work – to make the world a

By John Whitehead

The Sixties were much more than a time of hippies, music, drugs and free love. In fact, there were three distinct cultural streams that flavored the decade: 1. The Kennedy years. 2. The Beatles. And, 3. The Vietnam era.

All these cultural streams converged in the Beatles’ 1967 masterpiece album, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

When the album was released 40 years ago on June 1, it was a major cultural event.

“It was the soundtrack to summer, and winter for that matter,” notes author Barry Miles. “You could not get away from it.”

Paul Kantner of the rock band Jefferson Airplane said, “Something enveloped the whole world at that time and it just exploded into a renaissance.”

And as one musicologist observed: “The closest Western Civilization has come to unity since the Congress of Vienna in 1815 was the week the Sgt. Pepper album was released.”

Sgt. Pepper had such an impact because it simultaneously mirrored its times and offered a solution to the social and political upheavals of the time. The solution offered by the Beatles was love for our fellow human beings.

Although the album begins as a light farce, it moves to a sobering awakening. George Harrison’s “Within You, Without You” quotes from the Bible and is a warning not to get lost in materialism or we will lose our souls.

And if we cannot regain our sense of spirituality and love for one another, then we face a foreboding future. The album’s final song, John Lennon’s “A Day in the Life,” points to the horrors of existence if humanity doesn’t rein in its destructive tendencies.

From Sgt. Pepper on, rock music was considered an art form. The summer of love followed. Optimism was in the air. There was hope that peace – and love – would eventually prevail.

But soon the color of the times faded to stark black and white. By 1968, student rebels had adopted more militant tactics. Flower power was replaced by raised fists as cultural heroes Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated.

The Beatles too were disbanding. The love that once united them grew cold. Thus, by the end of 1968, it was obvious that neither the Beatles nor love would save the world.

But the music of the Beatles is still with us – full of hope that we can live in a peaceful world. The lesson is that evil does not have to triumph but that good can prevail. But we have to work for it.