As England, and the rest of the world, went crazy over the Beatles’ official version of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Capitol records still wasn’t quite sure about this whole “concept album” nonsense. What they really wanted was a nice hit single that they could put on the album and help boost sales, despite the weird art-rock contents within.

On June 25th, 1967, the Beatles finally taped something to Capitol’s taste. And better yet they did it live on TV via satellite to the whole world. Once All You Need Is Love b/w Baby You’re A Rich Man came out, Capitol knew they had a way to fix this huge mistake of an album that the Beatles had created. Using the left-over tracks that weren’t included on Northern Songs as well as some outtakes and this new single, the American market was able to get a much more commercially friendly record, now retitled Sgt. Pepper & Friends.

Sure there were a couple of weird experiments on here. The strings on She’s Leaving Home had at least been presaged by stuff like Yesterday and Eleanor Rigby. Even the weird, Indian Within You, Without You had its precedent with Love You To. Still it had they first two songs sorta mashed together with the audience noises and reprise at the end where the Beatles all pretended they were this other band, but with the big smash single on there, the album did almost as well in America as it did in the rest of the world.

But now the Beatles’ manager was dead. What would they do next? Could they be counted on to keep pumping out product and merchandise? Would United Artists still be able to get another film and accompanying soundtrack album out of them? The band isn’t going to be so greedy/stingy as to deprive their American record company with an album to release in time for the Christmas ’67 rush, were they?