IT WAS FORTY YEARS AGO TODAY

It was actually 40 years ago today that the Beatles released their monumental album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, and though I would not be born for 14 years after its release I can assure you that it's still as good as the first time I would have heard it.

I am not going to bore you with a note by note reference guide as to what and why this piece of music is so brilliant; or even how it has influenced the music of that generation, or even my generation. We all know it has. It's kind of strange to talk about an album that was released so long before I was born; so as I write this I think to myself, what does this album mean to me?

Well it does not sum up the summer of 1967 for me, but rather my entire childhood of listening to the Beatles and watching "The Beagles" at the local Chuck-E-Cheese's in 1983-85. When I was around the age of two I was enamored, along with every other child my age, by the prospect of spending the day at the wonderland that was Chuck-E-Cheese's. Except I was not interested in the rides or the balls, or ski ball (which I did enjoy), but rather with a fictional group called "The Beagles."

"The Beagles" were a set of four animatronic dogs that fascinated me with their music, Liverpudlian-humor, and robotic movement, which happened to resemble another group I was becoming familiar with called "The Beatles." My favorite song by "The Beagles" was a little obscure tune called "Lovely Rita," which just so happened to appear on the aforementioned album.

Though I would eventually grow up, and no longer see my favorite band anymore, I began my lifelong relationship with the band that inspired them. The Beatles are forever my favorite band, and I will listen to this album and every album the created in their brilliant seven years as the greatest rock 'n' roll band of all-time.

Whenever I think of "Sgt. Pepper" I think of this moment in my childhood. Of course, I have so many memories with this particular album, and all of "The Beagles" catalogue, but "Lovely Rita" will always be my absolute cherished memory.