After the Beatles stopped touring in 1966, they took what was seen as an extravagant amount of time recording a follow-up to Revolver. It was taking so long, that the record company pressured them to give them a couple of tracks as a single to tide the market over while they were holed-up, working away. At that point only three songs were done. When I’m 64 was completely inappropriate for a single, so the Beatles ended up releasing the double-A side: Strawberry Fields Forever / Penny Lane.

If Capitol had their way, they probably would not want to have the market go without a Beatles album as long as it did, fearing that the fad to would pass and the Beatles would become passé. As the record execs began to hear stories of a weird, conceptual album with the Beatles pretending to be some different band, they would probably push to get something on the shelves as soon as possible. And hopefully something that wasn’t as weird and trippy as what the Beatles were working on.

So Capitol took the two singles they did have: Paperback Writer b/w Rain as well as the Strawberry Fields Forever / Penny Lane single and then gathered some of the more straightforward tracks the groups had laying around to cobble together an album closer to spring of ’67 rather than the Summer Of Love.

The result was an album that was loosely tied together around the theme of the Beatles’ childhoods in Liverpool (which was the initial plan for Sgt. Pepper before the single got taken out of the running). While Paperback Writer may have felt like an odd fit on the album, the inclusion of Rain felt very at home with the trippy, psychedelic backwards vocals and such. even lyrically, it was a good pairing for Fixing A Hole.

While the resultant American version would not spark nearly the huge frenzy and resultant sales of the actual Sgt. Pepper, American fans were happy to have their hands on some new Beatles product before the rest of the world. Soon however, word leaked out from England and elsewhere about just how mind-blowing and amazing their Beatles album was, so soon Capitol was going to have to gift the US with their own version.