Revolver

The Beatles in 1966   It's early 1966 and John Lennon has been taking acid regularly since the beginning of the year, systematically blowing his mind apart. He's reading The Tibetan Book Of The Dead (simply explained as A How-to Buddhist guide preparing for death and moving towards The White Light)...   The Tibetan Book Of The Dead "...This is a must have title for anyone who has an interest in Tibetan Buddism. Thurman's* translation of this central Tibetan text is lucid and inspiring. His personal experience as an ordained monk, student of the Dalai Lama's and his many years of bringing the Dharma to (the) West make him thoroughly and uniquely qualified to offer this brilliant translation..." Amazon reviewer D.Golden   **********   Lennon is also immersed in The Psychedelic Experience, written by ex-Harvard Psychology professor, Timothy Leary, later known as the one who coined the phrase: "Turn on, tune in, drop out."   His book is a manual about how to succeed with LSD...   Timothy Leary: The Psychedelic Experience "...This is undoubtedly Leary's definitive work.This guide book is absolutely essential if you are going to take a psychedelic drug. It really makes sense of the visions and sensations you will encounter in the different stages...of the trip.To put it simply and to the point, Lennon said of this book "...Leary's method is the only way to trip..." It really is a great guide book that should send you in the right direction.  Amazon reviewer mr.samgalloway   N.B.: Timothy Leary's partner-in-crime at Harvard was Dr. Richard Alpert. His remarkable psychedelics-to-mysticism tale is told in the fascinating Be Here Now, a counter-culture classic.   **********   Meanwhile, Paul McCartney, happy with marijuana, is hob-nobbing with swinging London's with-it artists & cognoscenti (see: Got To Get You Into My Life, below) George Harrison is delving into the sitar, reincarnation & all things Indian, while No-one seems to be reporting on what Ringo is doing.   * Thurman is Uma Thurman's father

The Beatles Revolver

Sessions are well under way for the album which will soon become Revolver, which proves, when it's released, that the cuddly Beatles of Beatlemania are gone. The public gets a brief inkling with the release of the McCartney-written single, Paperback Writer, propelled by his own (not Harrison's) urgent, treated guitar, which sounds serious and business-like:

"...It's a dirty story of a dirty man
And his clinging wife doesn't understand
His son is working for the Daily Mail
It's a steady job but he wants to be
A paperback writer..."

             Paperback Writer

While Paperback Writer certainly isn't deep, it's nevertheless, subject matter that the screaming teenies are certainly not going to "get".

The B-side is Rain with the first-ever (as far as I'm aware) recorded backward guitars, heavily treated vocals and dirge-like intensity. It's Lennon's comment on nuclear war fallout, possibly influenced by the play, The Bed-sitting Room:

"...When The Rain comes
You run and hide your head
You might as well be dead
When The Rain comes

If the sun shines
You slip into the shade
And sip your lemonade
When the sun shines
 
R-a-i-n...I don't mind..."

        Rain

This is a different Beatles, a changed Beatles, this is ambivalent, apocalyptic Beatles. Then, in March 1966, while giving an interview to Maureen Cleave of the U.K. tabloid The Evening Standard, Lennon lets slip:

"...Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue about that. I'm right and will be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus now. I don't know which will go first, Rock'n'Roll or Christianity. Jesus was alright but his disciples were thick and ordinary..."

The quote didn't cause any ripples in the U.K., where intellectual debate, like in much of Europe, is encouraged. In particular, in the U.K., the eccentric is considered a boon, a release-valve personified, through which a rigid society can then vicariously live through.

Christ, You Know It Ain't Easy According to Albert Goldman's biography of Lennon, The Lives Of John Lennon, John had a long-running belief that he was Jesus, Jesus reincarnated or would become The Messiah in his next life. In 1969 it's apparently on record that he convened a meeting at Apple to announce that he was, in fact, Jesus...and he wanted to discuss with the other Beatles how to release the details to the world's press. And also in 1969 he penned The Ballad Of John & Yoko with the lyric: "...Christ, you know it ain't easy, you know how hard it can be, the way things are going, they're gonna crucify me..."

Back to Revolver:

The first track the boys start laying down is The Void which eventually becomes known as Tomorrow Never Knows, the closing track. Lennon wants a thousand chanting Tibetan monks...

"...I'd imagined...that in the background you would hear thousands of monks chanting....I should have tried to get near my original idea, the monks singing. I realize now that was what I wanted..." John Lennon 1968 (see Beatles quotes about Revolver, below)

...but settles instead for brilliantly improvised echo recording techniques for his vocals, backwards guitars, psychotic sound bubbling with everything underpinned by Ringo's relentless tribal thump:

"...Turn off your mind
Relax and float downstream
It is not dying
It is not dying
 
Lay down all thoughts
Surrender to The Void
It is shining
It is shining
 
That you may see
The meaning from within
It is being
It is being..."

  Tomorrow Never Knows

Not so much a song as a Department of Lennon ministerial report on acid. Drugged out of his mind, he's inadvertently handed over artistic control of the group to McCartney who's entering a stretch, when for a few years, virtually every track he puts his hand to is, irrespective of quality, commercially memorable.

For Revolver, McCartney's at the very top of his game and I don't believe I have to say much about any of his tracks as they're all so well known. How's this for a bunch of demos that Paulie wants to develop:

1    the sumptuously saccharine Here, There & Everywhere

"...Here, There And Everywhere has a couple of interesting structural points about it... each verse takes a word. 'Here' discusses here, Next verse, 'there' discusses there, then it pulls it all together in the last verse with 'everywhere.' ...John might have helped with a few last words..." Paul McCartney circa 1994 (see Beatles quotes about Revolver, below)

2    the impossible-to-categorise but ridiculously funky Got To Get You Into My Life

"...I'd been a rather straight working class lad, but when we started to get into pot it seemed to me to be quite uplifting. It didn't seem to have too many side effects like alcohol or some of the other stuff, like pills, which I pretty much kept off. I kind of liked marijuana and to me it seemed it was mind-expanding, literally mind-expanding. So Got To Get You Into My Life is really a song about that. It's not to a person, it's actually about pot..." Paul McCartney circa 1994 (see Beatles quotes about Revolver, below)

3    the eternal here-comes-summer bonhomie of Good Day Sunshine

"...Good Day Sunshine was me trying to write something similar to (The Lovin' Spoonful's) Daydream. John and I wrote it together at Kenwood, but it was basically mine and he helped me with it..." Paul McCartney circa 1994 (see Beatles quotes about Revolver, below)

then...the crown jewel...

4 the where-the-hell-did-that-come-from? poetry-of-the-lost, Eleanor Rigby, recorded with only George Martin's dramatic string quartet arrangement as a backing & finally

5 the sweet, pensive For No-one (further developed on Sgt. Pepper to become  She's Leaving Home)

Then George pitches in with the deliciously droll:

1  Taxman (including John & Paul's hilarious backing vocals)

2  the culturally bizarre Love You To all joss sticks, Indian bubble-gum philosophy & Indian musicians (a combo that George would perfect with Sgt. Pepper's Within You & Without You) and then

3  I Want To Tell You, a piano-led look at druggy introspection or perhaps reincarnation:

"...I want to tell you
My head is filled 
With things to say
When you're here
All those words 
They seem to slip away

When I get near you
Games begin
To drag me down
It's alright
I'll meet you maybe
Next time around

But if I seem to act unkind
It's only me, it's not my mind
That is confusing things..."

    I Want To Tell You

Modest as it is, I Want To Tell You improves remarkably, merely by setting up the stellar Got To Get You Into My Life.

Ringo's contribution (vocally) is the still-wonderful Yellow Sumarine

"...Yellow Submarine is Paul's baby. Donovan helped with the lyrics. I helped with the lyrics too...written for Ringo..." John Lennon 1980 (see Beatles quotes about Revolver, below)

"...every time we'd all get around the piano with guitars and start listening to it and arranging it into a record, we'd all fool about. As I said, John's doing the voice that sounds like someone talking down a tube or ship's funnel as they do in the merchant marine. (laughs)...As I seem to remember, there's a few screams and what sounds like small crowd noises in the background." George Harrison 1999 (see Beatles quotes about Revolver, below)

Of course, Lennon's contribution is about drugs, drugs...and more drugs:

I'm Only Sleeping, perhaps the best song ever written about laziness, tempered by the info that Lennon claimed to have consumed 1,000 tabs of acid (+ numerous other narcotics) during 1966-67. 

"...Everybody seems to think I'm lazy
I don't mind, I think they're crazy
Running everywhere at such a speed
Till they find there's no need

...Please don't spoil my day
I'm miles away
And after all
I'm only sleeping...

...Please don't wake me
No, don't shake me
Leave me where I am
I'm only sleeping..."

        I'm Only Sleeping

She Said about Peter Fonda (changed to "she" to divert any homo inferences) freaking him out during Lennon's second ever acid trip.

"...That was written after an acid trip in L.A....where we were having fun with The Byrds and lots of girls...We were on an acid trip and the sun was shining and the girls were dancing and the whole thing was beautiful and Sixties and this guy - who I really didn't know - he hadn't made 'Easy Rider' or anything...kept coming over, wearing shades, saying, 'I know what it's like to be dead'..." John Lennon 1980 (see Beatles quotes about Revolver, below)

"...She said
'I know what it's like to be dead!
I know what it is to be sad...' 
And she's making me feel
Like I've never been born

I said:
'Who put all those things in your head?
Things that make me feel that I'm mad...'
And you're making me feel
Like I've never been born..."

             She Said
  

And Your Bird Can Sing with a killer Paperback Writer kind of guitar riff and acid nonsense for lyrics with a tragically wasted middle-8 that screams for a more memorable song:

"....When your prize possessions
Start to bring you down
Look in my direction
I'll be round
I'll be round..."

    And Your Bird Can Sing

Dr. Robert  about Lennon's contact in London who provided him with the very best quality acid.

"...Hey my friend, I see you called Dr. Robert
Day or night he'll be there at any time at all
Dr. Robert

...If you're down he'll pick you up
Dr. Robert
Take a drink from his special cup
Dr. Robert

He's a man you must believe
Helping everyone in need
No-one can succeed like
Dr. Robert..."

            Dr. Robert

...and finally, the best known song on the album, perhaps one of the best known of all time, the Lennon-led kiddie-movie-in-a-song, Ringo's Yellow Submarine, about Nembutal (then yellow & submarine-shaped), a barbituate that Lennon apparently consumed like candy, prior to acid.

With the album finished, The Beatles went on an ugly incident-filled tour of Japan & the Phillipines, where they ran foul of Imelda Marcos, then flew in to the USA facing a hostile press for the first time ever. American Christians were going bananas upon reading Lennon's reprinted interview comments about Christ from months before. There were Beatle record burnings, death threats, boycotted shows with resultrant falling attendances and finally, a public apology by Lennon.

The Beatles: Revolver

"...Quite simply the greatest album by the greatest band of all-time. A mind boggling collage of perfect songcraft and sheer sonic joy, Revolver, like its predecessor Rubber Soul, stunned the pop world when released in 1966..." Amazon reviewer paperbackriter

"...Stylistically fearless, the Fab Four break new ground with the greatest of ease:

• the lovely, gothic Eleanor Rigby flows like a concerto
• I'm Only Sleeping could just as easily be cited as blues as it could be country
• Love You To was an early glimpse of World Pop
• also ahead of its time was Tomorrow Never Knows...who'd have guessed that the rhythms of the drum-&-bass movement in 90's dance music was experimented with over thirty years ago by Ringo Starr? (And let's not forget the track's trippy sonic boom, either, falling somewhere World Music and acid trip.).." Amazon reviewer John Jones "musician"

"...It is simply inconcievable that any band could release an album so full of classic songs, stretching their creativity in so many musical directions simultaneously, include absolutely no clunkers whatsoever, make it appear to be an effortless production and greatly expand what was already the largest fan base in musical history. Yet the Beatles did it all with REVOLVER. What's even more amazing is that they hadn't peaked yet..." Amazon reviewer David Bradley

The Beatles: Revolver poster

In August 1966 The Beatles retired from touring and Revolver was released to an unsuspecting public. In November, they began work on the epoch-defining  Sergeant Pepper.

Linda McCartney's Sixties, photographs of the Rock Aristocracy

"...I first saw this book at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and was amazed at the photographs. Mrs. McCartney didn't seem to take posed pictures with bright lights in the musician's eyes. She used natural light and caught the musicians in their natural state. I love this book so much because of the honest quality to the photos. I'd definately recommend it!.." Amazon reviewer Anon

"...Portraits include...a stunning Jimi Hendrix in performance, Bob Dylan scratching his ear, Frank Zappa holding his baby daughter Moon Unit and Janis Joplin hoisting a bottle of Southern Comfort..." Amazon blurb

Ready Steady Go, The Rise And Fall Of Swinging London

"...(Screen-writer) Levy explores the rise of London from drab postwar center to the hippest city in the world by the 1960s. He writes from the perspective of the people who brought it to prominence: fashion photographer David Bailey and his wife, model Jean Shrimpton; the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, or "anti-Beatles, pop singer/model Marianne Faithfull, hair stylist and former Israeli soldier Vidal Sassoon, actors Terrence Stamp and Michael Caine and a constellation of other stars..." Amazon blurb

"...This is a fun, fascinating, engrossing portrait of one of the most exciting moments of the past several decades: London in the sixties...a kaleidoscope, a never ending swirl of colors and images. READY, STEADY, GO! is a series of snapshots rather than a precise replication, but while it fails, of course, to do the period full justice, neither are the images in any sense not accurate reflections of what happened..." Amazon reviewer Robert Moore