The Johnny Rivers song “Summer Rain” contains a reference to “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” The reference is in the song’s bridge, which occurs twice. The first time Rivers sings “All summer long we spent dancing in the sand/And the jukebox kept on playing Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.”  The second time he sings “All summer long we spent grooving in the sand/Everybody kept on playing Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.”

The error is that in the summer of 1967, there was no way that anyone could have heard “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” or any song from the album on a juke box. The Beatles did not issue any singles from the album until many years later. Although some juke boxes in the sixties could play mini-LPs (known as compact 33 discs) that contained three songs from an album on each side, the only Beatles albums issued in that format were “Meet The Beatles!,” “The Beatles’ Second Album” and “Something New.”  So while it was true that “Everybody kept on playing Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” in the summer of 1967, no juke boxes were doing so. It just seemed that way.  “Summer Rain” peaked at #14 in early 1968.