1 Overlooked Gem Song From Every Beatles Album
6. Lovely Rita - Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
Inspired by hearing the American term for traffic warden, McCartney’s Lovely Rita is the sound of Swinging Sixties London distilled into a pop record. Close your eyes and you could be strolling down Carnaby street, dressed in the coolest '60s fashion. Only you might wish you were driving so that you could be the one meeting the titular Rita, flirting your way out of a parking ticket and getting invited round for tea.
An extended coda takes the song in a psychedelic direction with moans, screams, sighs and a primitive kazoo sound on paper and comb. For this they used toilet paper from the studio bathroom, which was stamped “Property of EMI.” Previously the band had played sitars and hired orchestras to achieve the sounds they wanted but sometimes it seems you just can’t beat a few sheets of corporate branded bog roll.
Lovely Rita very nearly missed out on its place on one of the most acclaimed albums of all time. It only made the cut because the record company pressured The Beatles to put out Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields Forever as a single.