The Beatles: Revolver - 1966
"Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue about that; I'm right and I'll 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 all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me" - John Lennon
This was the one that is many people's favourite Beatles albums, particularly the cognoscenti and myself. The one that spawned Paul Weller, the Gallagher Brothers and a thousand-and-one other yay-sayers.
It is the one where drugged-up psychedelia, sonic experimentation, wry social comment, lovelorn melancholia and catchy pop all merged together perfectly, producing that classic Beatles chocolate box effect that will always trump Pepper in my book. It was also the period that saw the coolest look for the group, as they sported their Byrds-style shades, and the album's cover was a masterpiece of monochrome artwork too. If it was pretty clear on the previous albums as they progressed that Lennon, McCartney and Harrison all worked separately from each other then it was absolutely crystal here. You can pretty much tell which songs were written by who without even knowing. McCartney was loved up on here, Lennon was drugged up, Harrison was spiritual and Ringo was, well, Ringo.
Here, there and everywhere we go.....
The album begins with the staccato guitar stabs of Harrison's Taxman, one that rails at the contemporary tax situation in the UK, name-checking politicians Mr. Wilson and Mr. Heath with accompanying "ooh oohs". Musically, it is often the track that people use to demonstrate just how much better they think mono is than stereo, the latter incarnation of it being notoriously clumsy. The Jam appropriated the distinctive riff on their 1980 number one hit single, Start!
Poor old Eleanor Rigby's gloomy, evocative tale is told by McCartney and assembled string musicians, making it I think, the first song to only feature one Beatle. The others had nothing to do with it. It is just so bloody atmospheric, though, isn't it? I loved it when I first heard it as a kid and I still do, despite its melancholy. In fact it is that that draws me into it. It is a very visual song. I can see Rigby and Father McKenzie so clearly. Great characterisation. The rice on the floor always fascinated me too. Rice? I need to consult my history book. I don't need to, my wife has just told me that rice pre-dated confetti at weddings (as I presumed, I just wouldn't have thought people could afford to throw foodstuff around).Sung by Lennon, strangely, as "seeping", I'm Only Sleeping combines a surprisingly bright, vaguely music hall melody with a lyric that makes lazing in bed sound cool and sowed the seeds of Lennon's generous drug consumption and its effect on his subsequent compositions. He was marking his territory as the indolent one, the one who was free to do the hell he liked, man.
George goes solo now on Love You To, with Indian musicians ably assisting his first foray into tabla-drenched Indian music. Again, no other Beatles were involved. The track is an obvious precursor to the next album's Within You Without You. When you consider that Harrison had no training in the often complicated science of Indian music, it doesn't sound bad at all. It also was perfect for the zeitgeist of 1966-67 with its lyrics about making love all day long. Far out, man.
Here There And Everywhere was a McCartney love song to his current squeeze Jane Asher, at whose parents' house in London's Wimpole Street he was living. It is a masterpiece of melody and beauty, showcasing the sensitive side of McCartney and his ear for a killer tune at its best. It is said (by perceived wisdom) to be heavily-influenced by McCartney's favourite song, The Beach Boys' God Only Knows. You can hear their influence in it but, importantly, Pet Sounds wasn't released in the UK until a month after this track's recording. Were the two geniuses working and composing subliminally?She Said She Said is a musically conventional and quite hard Lennon rocker, detailing his cynical boredom with actor Peter Fonda with whom he had been talking (or being talked to about what it was like to be dead, apparently) at a party. The down-to-earth, always cynical Lennon loved taking swipes like this, didn't he? It is a strong song that sort of exemplifies Lennon's sound in this period, a leitmotif for the album's sound itself. Coming as it does after Yellow Submarine, it is also a blessed relief. They could rock after all.
Good Day Sunshine is a typically McCartney catchy summer song but one that carries big hints of Lennon in it too, for me. It is one that I remember my parents had on a tape recorder back in 1966, you know, one of those big old machines with two spools of thick brown tape going round. I asked them to play it over and over for me, eventually learning how to operate the thing myself. It was inspired by what was a glorious summer in England that year.
Another searing, buzzy Lennon rocker, And Your Bird Can Sing was said to be a side of the mouth Scouse dig at Mick Jagger, whose "bird", Marianne Faithfull had scored a few hit records (among other things). How dated is the phrase "bird", by the way? It is an archetypal piece of Lennon sneering, but it rocks, big time and is in possession of a killer hooks, both musically and chorally. Check out Lennon's guitar runs. The Jam also covered it well in the early eighties. It didn't surprise me when I read that Lennon soon grew to hate it.
McCartney's in love again on For No One, or seemingly so, because the disconnection he sings of hints that all was not well at Wimpole Street. He does it all over a delicious, gentle melody, unsurprisingly. Only Ringo appears on this one with McCartney, apart from Alan Civil who played the French Horn, an instrument that would become so heavily associated with The Beatles from now on. This was its first use on a Beatles song.Lennon wants some drugs and he knows he can get them from his mate Doctor Robert (a real character apparently). Once more, the track rocks like buzzsaw buggery, convincing many, including me, that this album's toughest tracks were the Lennon ones. They are the ones that always stick in my mind, for sure, being the very essence of Revolver.
Forgotten about poor old George? Fear not. He's back on this catchy piano-driven and pleasing I Want To Tell You with McCartney on a somewhat discordant piano, but what the hell, I still like it. It sort of gets forgotten when considerations of this album are trotted out - so I'm redressing the balance a bit. Needless to say the other Beatles rushed through the recording of this to keep George - who Lennon and McCartney definitely regarded as the inferior songwriter - happy
By McCartney's admittance, the brassy, bouncy, Motown-influenced Got To Get You Into My Life that has since become a Beatles classic was about his battle with succumbing to the lure of marijuana. I have never quite bought into that, but he says it's true so who am I to dispute it? I just can't get away from it sounding like jaunty young and cheery Grandmother's favourite Paul feeling happy and breezy. McCartney couldn't be edgy and druggy at this time if he tried, could he? Maybe in the seventies, but certainly not in 1966. He wasn't the last one to grow a beard for nothing. It's just a great pop song, but one that sits most incongruously with the general unnerving feel of the album. It was successfully covered by Cliff Bennett And The Rebel Rousers.
With Tomorrow Never Knows, Lennon has the last say on this edgy, strangely menacing album with a glorious mélange of tape loops put into reverse joined by the kitchen sink. It is the first sign of The Beatles "going weird" and is the absentee father of I Am The Walrus. It doesn't beggar any further analysis other than it is a brilliant work of accidentally-created genius. The Beatles became a completely different group with this track.
The album has been superbly remixed by Giles Martin in 2022, by the way, a recording I cannot recommend highly enough. It is a thing of aural beauty.
The non-album single from May 1966 was McCartney's superbly catchy, jangly and harmonious Paperback Writer backed with Lennon's beautifully dense and trippy Rain.
Interesting alternative versions to be found on the Anthology 2 compilation are of Taxman, with slightly different lyrics but still featuring the same clumsy stereo (albeit with a sharper guitar interjection); a funkier, soulful Got To Get You Into My Life without the brass; a more powerful Tommorow Never Knows with a full-on drum attack and fewer Eastern instrumentation and a giggle-laden ramshackle version of And Your Bird Can Sing, which is redeemed by a superbly rubbery bass line, one that surely influenced The Jam's Bruce Foxton (they covered the song too).
