The Beatles – ‘Revolver’
In early 1966, The Beatles found themselves with an unprecedented amount of free time. Having vetoed a proposed film project, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr were looking ahead to three glorious months free from professional engagements, providing them ample time to start work on their new album, the follow-up to 1965’s immensely successful Rubber Soul, which had already seen them spurn their image as loveable mop-topped rogues. With Revolver, they announce that those Beatles are dead and buried – replaced by older, wiser and groovier musicians looking to push the boundaries of their craft from inside the studio.
Revolver represents a rebirth in every sense of the word. For one thing, the Lennon-McCartney songwriting partnership no longer proves to be unrivalled: George Harrison not only enters the mix but rather cements himself as an essential voice within the group, penning Revolver’s opening number, ‘Taxman’. Though rooted in a distinctly British political dissatisfaction, ‘Taxman’ is undoubtedly a product of The Beatles’ time in America. Coated in lashings of US funk, there’s something ineffably transatlantic about this angular groover, with its offbeat guitar stabs and tight harmonies.
The Beatles had intended to record Revolver in America, but EMI refused to hand over the money for the recording facilities. While the likes of ‘Taxman’ and ‘Got To Get You Into My Life’ may well have sounded a little sunnier, recording in America would have destroyed ‘Eleanor Rigby’, the brilliance of which – besides those Betjemanesque lyrics – lies with the string arrangement. As McCartney quipped: “string players in America aren’t so good”. So, with that bullet dodged, the song is given the best chance to transfigure morose mundanity into cinematic drama.
One of Paul McCartney’s most outstanding compositional achievements, ‘Eleanor Rigby’ is a Booker-winning novel in the guise of a two-minute pop song. It typifies the “new British sound” exhibited in tracks like ‘Here, There and Everywhere’, ‘Yellow Submarine’ and ‘I’m Only Sleeping’, the latter of which includes soporific susurrations courtesy of John Lennon and a mind-melting backwards guitar solo from George Harrison.
If it wasn’t for the strength of Lennon and McCartney’s songwriting, I’d be tempted to call Revolver ‘The Harrison Album’. There was a time when the guitarist’s contributions were regarded as unfortunate necessities. Songs like ‘Don’t Bother Me’ were inserted for diplomacy’s sake, with Lennon claiming that everyone was too shy to say how they actually felt about his material. Rubber Soul included two Harrison tracks -‘ Think For Yourself and ‘If I Needed Someone’ – but Revolver is an entirely different beast.
While Lennon and McCartney’s eyes are fixed on opposite sides of the Atlantic, Harrison’s gaze stretches beyond the confines of the West. We got a taste of his sitar skills on ‘Norwegian Wood’, but they were purely ornamental. In ‘Love You To’, The Beatles finally embrace the structural idiosyncrasies of Indian classical music, rejecting 500 years of Western harmonic theory in favour of a single tanpura drone. It proves utterly revolutionary.
In earlier albums, Harrison’s globe-trotting would have felt out of place. Luckily, Lennon and McCartney are equally hungry to explore. Just as we’re getting used to one sonic landscape, Lennon heads off into the Californian sunset with ‘She Said, She Said’, a blissed-out hymn to the mind-altering effects of hallucinogenics.
We hit a rough patch with ‘Good Day Sunshine’ and ‘Your Bird Can Sing’, but McCartney settles the weather with the artful melodies and baroque piano of ‘For No One’. Then, just as he’s beginning to wax a touch twee, we plough headlong into ‘Doctor Robert’, another one of Lennon’s autobiographical accounts of drug-fuelled fantasy. By this time, the whole band’s onboard and even oh-so-straight McCartney gives a shout-out to pot on ‘Got To Get You Into My Life’, though he’s sensible enough to disguise it as a love song.
With ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’, The Beatles save the best till last. Like ‘Love You To’, this captivating song showcases George Harrison’s newfound passion for classical Indian instrumentation. But where ‘Love You To’ was an experiment in influence, ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ is an experiment in technology. Crafted using tape loops – one of McCartney’s bright ideas – Ringo’s drums provide a mesmeric pulse over which Harrison’s sitar drone rests like a perfumed cloud. Lennon’s stunning vocals enter the mix, and it becomes clear that we’re listening to a band working at the peak of their collective ability. If Revolver were 40 minutes of ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’, it would still be a masterpiece. It’s unlike anything else, a dateless composition of mystic awe.
Revolver sees The Beatles at the peak of their collaborative and musical ability. It’s the first record where Lennon, McCartney and Harrison’s personalities are perceptibly distinct, a characteristic echoed in the makeup of this multifaceted, erratic, yet somehow perfectly balanced record. Though John, Paul and George are each staring at different sunsets, they’re far from blinkered. Miraculously, influences from America, Britain and India are allowed to co-exist and intermingle. But at the end of the day, the creative courage of Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Starr enables The Beatles to take those influences and transform them into this immersive musical landmark. Revolver is a whirlwind of sound and scenes that entrap you in the best possible way.
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