You know what I mean. During the “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” intro before “A Little Help From My Friends,” they inserted crowd noises and applause to simulate a live performance. At one point, there’s a burst of laughter from the “crowd.”
I highly doubt there’s an actual factual answer to the question, but if any of the boys have talked about it in interviews or something, please do tell. If not, though, I’m sure some hard-core Beatlemaniacs over the years must have speculated on what the laughter was about.
And in the highly unlikely event I’m the first to ever raise the question, feel free to speculate wildly. What’s so funny?
Paul McCartney has said that the random bursts of laughter and applause were inspired by Stockhausen’s composition Momente, which includes large choral forces interjecting various whispers, cries, laughter, and assorted other non-singing noises.
The actual bit of taped laughter was of course from the studio sound effects library; If I remember correctly, the source was a Peter Cook-Dudley Moore performance.
I too have always imagined the band being funny as they came onstage, maybe someone doing a trademark wave or gesture. It’s wonderfully vague, gets your imagination running in the mood of the piece.
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Pardon the hijack, but this lyric has always given me pause. It seems incredible that this one man taught the entire band to play in a single day. Also, if they didn’t already know how to play, what business did they have calling themselves a band?
In my mind, it’s John (who else?) making fun of the horn section, either by doing an exaggerated trombone+march, or making it seem as if he’s farting the notes.