This Is What Happens When Star Wars Meets Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

Josh Hallett via Flickr//CC BY-SA 2.0
Josh Hallett via Flickr//CC BY-SA 2.0 | Josh Hallett via Flickr//CC BY-SA 2.0

The Beatles and the Star Wars franchise both celebrate important milestones this year: The British pop group released their studio album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band 50 years ago on June 1, 1967, and Star Wars: A New Hope turns 40 on May 25, 1977. Can’t decide which you’re more excited about? Commemorate both by watching the video below.

As Gizmodo explains, the mash-up combines video scenes from A New Hope with parody versions of Sgt. Pepper songs, rewritten with satirical, Star Wars-themed lyrics. (Sample verses: "Luke is in the desert and whining," "You're gonna die with illicit help from your friends," etc.) The tracks are taken from a parody album created by comedy music group Palette-Swap Ninja.

"Our new album merges both into one full-length concept album titled Princess Leia's Stolen Death Star Plans," singer and guitarist Dan Amrich writes on his group's website. "It's the entire Beatles album as accurately as we could record it, only now it tells the story of Star Wars: A New Hope—in order."

"We sweat the details on both sides in an effort to do both cultural milestones justice," Amrich adds. "Writing hyper-specific lyrics that match the original songs' cadences; reverse-engineering everything the Beatles recorded, from distorted saxophone riffs to Indian rhythms; recording everything from scratch and learning as we went."

Watch Palette Swap-Ninja's Princess Leia’s Stolen Death Star Plans YouTube playlist below, or download it for free here.