I haven’t written my review of Help! yet, but that album marked a turning point for The Beatles. It is at that point that the boys are just plain tired of Beatlemania, and ready to try something new. While you get some hints of what is to come on that album and Rubber Soul, they feel to me almost a reflection on where they came from before they move forward; in other words, it was the last hurrah of the “old days.”So what do the “new” Beatles sound like? Revolver reveals them to sound generational. This is quite possibly the finest album by The Beatles, and all four of them are firing on all cylinders for all 35 minutes.
My personal story with the album is a little more complicated than that. When I first got into The Beatles, I first listened to Sgt. Peppers, before going on to, and falling in love with, Abbey Road and Let It Be. While I had heard “Yellow Submarine” and “Got to Get You Into My Life” before, whenever I tried to listen to this album I’d get through “Taxman” and “Eleanor Rigby” amazed before “I’m Only Sleeping” managed to coincide with me needing to something over and over again. It was like I was cursed to not hear this one! When I finally had heard it, I was listening to The Beatles a lot less, so the album just became the one in the middle I wasn’t really attached to. Recently, though, I have been listening to music before school, and one day I said, “I haven’t heard this one too often, let’s put it on!” What a choice that was! Listening to this album was comparable to discovering something amazing just sitting there in front of you.
But to get to the point and look at this album, as I said, the boys are firing on all cylinders. The album opens with “Taxman,” a track by George Harrison. I’ve always found him to be a solid contributor to Beatles albums, although he tends to be limited by usually only getting a track or two per album. “Taxman” almost feels like a definitive statement: George is a songwriting force as strong as John and Paul. If you need proof, he’s literally opening the album. The track, the first overtly political statement by the band, is a critique of British taxes led by some absolutely fantastic guitars. George’s vocal drives the song, bringing a little bit of hate into the track. It opens the album in such a unique way compared to any Beatles album before it: tracks like “Drive My Car” and “I Saw Her Standing There” are fun, happy openers. This time, the boys seem angry.
Part of this anger stems from how they were seen. A factoid about this album is that McCartney once shared the album with Bob Dylan, and Dylan simply replied, “I get it. You don’t want to be cute anymore.” It’s not entirely an accurate assessment, as there’s still a cute track or two in here, but Paul himself continues the album’s vibe with the second track, “Eleanor Rigby.” Even compared to “Yesterday,” which at that point seemed to be one of the biggest songwriting risks Paul had taken, this one feels bigger. “Yesterday” still had a guitar, even if it was a rare sad Beatles song. “Rigby” goes all-in on a string quartet as Paul sings about lonely people, occasionally with John and George joining in on these wonderful harmonies. The track is also a highlight of the increased amount of time they spent with studio overdubs working on every last detail of the songs. Revolver is a much denser album than its predecessors, and it’s all the better for it.
“I’m Only Sleeping” continues the album, and it exemplifies this studio experimentation. It features the use of tape effects, specifically a backwards guitar part. Tape effects and backmasking are used throughout the album, and though I will give them immense praise on one track in particular, every track that uses them is fantastic; it’s a beautiful sound which I love to hear when it is in a song. It is also used in the non-album single “Rain,” which is fantastic, and I’m very sad I can’t mention as part of this album. “Love You To” is the second of George’s contributions to this album. In fact, with the exception of the double-length White Album, Revolver marks the highest amount of George tracks on a Beatles album. After the usage of sitar on Rubber Soul’s “Norwegian Wood,” this track shows a full influence from Indian classical music. George will continue to do this throughout the remaining Beatles albums, and I adore all of those tracks as well so I can’t say for certain which my favorite among them, “Love You is To” feels like he nailed it on the first try.
After the opening four tracks, we get a small break into more mellow tracks, though they still demonstrate the newfound complexity in the boys’ songwriting. “Here, There and Everywhere,“ a track inspired by The Beach Boys, is a beautiful song. Paul’s lead vocal mixed with the lovely harmonies by the other two are just simply angelic. “Yellow Submarine” is the album’s sole track where lead is sung by Ringo, although it was written by John. It is usually considered the first “kid’s” Beatles song, and critics of the track usually say it’s very simplistic and repetitive to the point of annoyance. What they fail to consider though, is that this song is just fun! Usually by the first chorus I’m already singing along, laughing while repeating “we all live in a yellow submarine.” I especially love when John serves as a little backing vocal, yelling, but also serving as an echo. It’s hilarious.
If “Eleanor Rigby” was Paul trying to not be cute, “She Said She Said” is John’s attempt. The psychedelic guitars blend wonderfully with John’s vocal, and the lyrics of said vocal create this wonderful contrast. The song seems to be fighting between darkness, seen in the repeated lyric of “I know what it’s like to be dead,” and the instrumental and lyric of “No, no, no, you’re wrong” bringing that light back in. It’s a wonderful closer to the A-side, and the moment where the time signature changes create another fantastic moment of the boys trying these more complex musical moments.
The craziest thing about Revolver is that I can be over 1,000 words into a review of the album, and still say I haven’t gotten to the best of the album. While I can praise every song on the A-side for days, the album’s B-side is the strongest individual side of any Beatles album, and easily worth considering for the greatest single side of an album. Opening with “Good Day Sunshine,” the boys perform like they have to prove they deserve their success. This track, along with the one following it, “And Your Bird Can Sing” are McCartney and Lennon-led tracks respectively that feel like the merger of the moments of pure joy and whimsy seen on the previous Beatles albums and their newfound depth instrumentally. This especially benefits “Bird,” my second-favorite track on Revolver. The guitar creates one hell of a groove, and the vocal performance by Lennon, and especially those harmonies with McCartney are my favorite moments vocally on the whole album. The harmony at 1:20 into the song, on the lyric “You tell me that you’ve heard every sound there is” in particular is such a great moment.
“For No One” is a quieter moment on the album, and probably my third favorite on the album. I meant what I said when I called this the best side of any Beatles album. Featuring a French horn solo, this is experimentation in mixing baroque-era melodies into a traditional pop song. It’s such a wonderful track, and McCartney’s vocals bring a nice sweetness to it.
“Doctor Robert” is yet again another song led by a fantastic guitar groove. I especially like the moment where Paul sings in harmony, that bridge is yet another wonderful vocal harmony to add. If there’s one thing to say was the greatest impact of The Beatles getting to hone in on the music in the studio, it is how good these harmonies get.
“I Want To Tell You” opens with this wonderful guitar riff, and through that riff, a very dissonant piano chord, and this almost random vocal melody, the song seems a bit chaotic, but it all blends together into a great song about not being able to communicate ideas despite having so many. It’s just like my reviews! Kidding, of course, but this track is probably the finest application of complex songwriting on the album. It is used not just to make a more interesting song, but actually to serve the song, which is really cool.
“Got to Get You into My Life” features a wonderful horn section, and is a song I’d heard many times without knowing it was even a Beatles song! I had heard it on a 70s rock station my mom loves, and obviously the Beatles had broken up by then, but even 10 years on Capitol could release a track as a single and have it chart! That’s how I had known it, as it charted in 1976, managing to reach #7 in the US. Again, this is a Beatles track that was already on an album released 10 years after-the-fact. That’s one of the most impressive facts about the legacy of The Beatles. But to get to the song itself, yeah it’s great!
Before I get to the final track, I’d like to again highlight just how strong this album is for each Beatle. George has 3 songs, the most of any single-length Beatles album, and all three are fantastic. Paul takes the lead on “Eleanor Rigby,” “Here, There and Everywhere,” “Good Day Sunshine,” “For No One,” and “Got to Get You into My Life,” an incredible 5-piece of songs. Both of these guys are also giving fantastic performances in the guitar parts and bass parts of this album. Even Ringo gets “Yellow Submarine,” one of his most famous songs! I can understand saying any of the four as the “MVP”
of this album. But in my mind, it is John who gives the best work on the album, and this is because of the album’s closing track, “Tomorrow Never Knows.”
On both Help! and Rubber Soul, people tend to complain that the album has a weak closing track. And while I tend to like both of those tracks more than most, I do also agree that they are not anywhere close to the best on the album. Fortunately, “Tomorrow Never Knows” is good enough to make up for a thousand weak album closers. Every last bit of experimentation you hear on this album, from the organs and keyboards, tape loops, sitar and tambura, and of course the backwards instruments, are all on this track. It feels like the culmination of everything presented to the album. From the opening drone note into Ringo’s phenomenal drumming on this track, the song feels almost definitive, almost as if it’s calling out saying “this is it.” John’s lyrics, focused upon mediation, and drenched in reverb, feel like he is calling you into another dimension. It’s a song that’s particularly hard to write about, because there’s almost too much to say. I’ve heard full albums with fewer ideas throughout than seconds of this track!
As I’ve gone on for 2,000 words on how much I love every last track of this album, I further realize just how great it is. Revolver is maybe The Beatles’ finest hour not because it has the best song they ever made (though close), or because it has the most avant-garde ideas they ever tried, but simply because it manages to show the boys at their best. In their first attempt at experimenting in the studio, they created something wonderful. I can listen to it again and again.
