- The seventh studio album by the band, released in August 1966.
- Recorded over two and a half months.
- The tracks Rain and Paperback Writer were both recorded as part of the Revolver block but released as a pre-promotional standalone single (meaning neither track actually featured on the album).
- Electric guitar very much takes centrestage on this recording, diverging from the folk-ish sound of Rubber Soul whilst pursuing the seeds of psychedelia that could be seen on that previous album. this was foreshadowed with the Paperback Writer single.
- As a result, this album is generally seen as being the musical starting point for the psychedelic era.
- Ten of the fourteen tracks were Lennon-McCartney compositions (though by this point they were mostly working on songs separately). Harrison contributed (an unprecedented) three tracks and even Ringo gets a song credit. As a result the album features a more diverse selection of original material than ever before, with the other members of the band having more input than before. Ringo also sings his (arguably) most famous Beatles track (The Yellow Submarine) and contributed some lyrical ideas.
- The cover art was created by Klaus Voorman, a friend of the band from their Hamburg club days back in 1962. The art has been heavily influential on album covers from later Beatles-like bands such as Jet and The Vines.
- The title of the album is a pun (much like 'Rubber Soul') that references guns and the revolving motion of a record on a turntable.
- When the Beatles went on tour after this album's release they did not play many songs from it (if any at all), owing to the advanced stages of composition they were now reaching. The recording techniques and layers of instrumentation now meant that many of their songs were difficult to replicate live.
- Many of the songs saw a lyrical shift towards third-person storytelling (as opposed to songs written in the first person).
- The album reached number one on both the British and American charts, and is now often regarded as one of the greatest albums of all time (at least according to VHS, Time magazine, Rolling Stone, Guitar World, etc).
- In addition to the Beatles, some seventeen other people provided vocals and extra instrumentation on the album. This includes a string quartet, fellow celebrities Donvan, Brian Jones and Marianne Faithfull, and a horn section.
- This album is the first time an automatic double-tracker was used to record vocals. Lennon in particular was very pleased with this as he hated recording his vocals twice, and this invention soon became regulation on pop recordings. This invention also eventually led to the invention of the chorus effect and chorus pedal for guitar.
- Other innovations made on Revolver include: tape looping, highly compressed vocals, other vocal effects achieved through rotating speakers and "vari-speeding", backwards guitar tracks, the increased incorporation of Indian instrumentation into pop music, deliberately hidden images in the artwork, and a song based around just one note.
- Revolver would be the last Beatles album to feature different tracklistings in America and the UK.
1. Taxman
- Written by Harrison, and arguably his first 'hit'.
- Harrison was 'inspired' to write this after finding out exactly how much of his earnings were being taxed (a higher percentage than normal due to how much the band was earning). The lyrics mark the emergence of Harrison's more tongue-in-cheek style.
- The distinctive bass-riff has inspired several other songs by later bands such as the Stone Roses, Ride and The Jam.
- Harrison asked Lennon to help him with the lyrics. Lennon didn't really want to help him but he felt bad because Harrison had been locked out on the songwriting front for the last few years and so he wrote some one-liners for use in the song. McCartney wasn't interested in helping Harrison either (McCartney was very much against Harrison-written songs taking up too many slots on the album) and Harrison knew this, hence why he went to Lennon.
- The lyrics mark the first time that public figures are mentioned in a Beatles song by name.
- Harrison continued to play the song live right into the 1990s, even adding extra lyrics such as "if you're overweight I'll tax your fat".
- The bit where Harrison sings 'Taxman!' just on its own towards the end of the bridge is a deliberate homage to the '60s TV show Batman.
- Harrison sings the lead vocals, with Lennon only providing backing vocals and some tambourine. Harrison also plays two separate guitar tracks on the recording. Ringo incorporates some cowbell into his drumming.
- As well as bass, McCartney also played the lead guitar on the track, much to Harrison's delight (Harrison later remarked in interviews about how happy he was to have McCartney contribute to the song, even noting that the famous solo features a little indian-sounding bit as a nod to him).
- An alternate take featured different backup vocals. They're kinda bad and can be heard on the Anthology albums.
2. Eleanor Rigby
- Written primarily by Paul McCartney, although all four members contributed to the lyrics.
- The song is one of the first indications of how far the band was moving away from the more straight-ahead pop of the era.
- Working title was 'Ola Na Tungee'.
- McCartney wrote the song on his piano, with the lyrics originally centered around the names 'Daisy Hawkins' and 'Father McCartney'. He later settled on Eleanor, after the actress Eleanor Bron (who had co-starred with the band in the movie Help!). Ringo added the line about "writing a sermon that no one will hear" and suggested putting in a bit about darning socks (lol, wtf) and Harrison came up with the "ahhhhh look at all the lonely people" refrain featured at the start of the song and throughout. Lennon claimed in subsequent interviews that he wrote most of the lyrics by himself but pretty much everyone else involved has gone on record to say that he only contributed a single line at most. Pete Shotton, a friend of Lennon's, also contributed some ideas to the lyrics - mainly the last section of the song where the priest's and Eleanor's lives intersect at a funeral.
- None of the band plays any instruments on the actual recording, however McCartney, Lennon and Harrison all sing on it. The instrumentation is made up of 4 violins, 2 cellos and 2 violas, all conducted by George Martin. Microphones were placed very close to the instrumets to get a raw and up-close sound. It's said that McCartney's vision for the arrangement came from the score to the film Fahrenheit 451.
- George Martin also takes credit for the combining of the two different vocal parts that work together in parts of the song, a musical vocal technique known as 'counterpoint', perfected in the renaissance era.
- Eleanor Rigby was released as a single in the UK concurrently with the album Revolver.
- All sorts of things have been written in praise of this song - McCartney won a grammy for his vocals in it, and esteemed musical analysts and composers such as Howard Goodall have gone as far as saying it pretty much single-handedly saved pop music.
- There is a real grave in Liverpool marked 'Eleanor Rigby'... she died at some point in the '40s and McCartney has remarked that his use of the name may have been subconscious as he and Lennon spent a lot of their childhood in the area where the grave is featured.
- Liverpool has an Eleanor Rigby statue in honour of this song. It was erected in 1982.
- Runs for two minutes and took 15 takes to complete.
3. I'm Only Sleeping
- My absolute favourite Beatles song ever. This song got me into the Beatles and, more specifically, into the album Revolver.
- Written mostly by Lennon.
- Lennon sings the lead vocals, with McCartney and Harrison providing harmony.
- The lyrics were initially simply about Lennon's love for sleeping in, though re-writes later brought in some drug-overtones.
- The rhythm guitar played throughout is electronically compressed to give it a strange 'dream-like' sound.
- The further compound this dreamy quality the instrumentation was slowed down slightly after recording, and Lennon's vocals were then slowed down even more before being sped up to match the speed of the rest of the song.
- The guitar solo was composed very carefully by George Harrison in a fashion that would allow it to melodically fit when played backwards, and it was subsquently run backwards after recording. It it comprises of two guitar tracks, one with a fuzz effect and one without.
- Around the 2 minute you can hear McCartney yawning, a few seconds before it if you really strain to hear it you can also hear Lennon saying 'Yawn, Paul'.
- Runs for three minutes and took 13 takes to complete.
4. Love You To
- Written by Harrison.
- The only Beatles song to not feature Lennon or McCartney in any fashion. McCartney recorded some backing vocals but they were eventually not used for the final mix.
- Harrison plays the sitar throughout this track, as well as a tambura (another classical indian string instrument). It is the first Beatles song to seriously show the influence that Ravi Shankar's sitar-tuition had on Harrison, with the guitarist basing the entire song around the hypnotic drone of traditional Indian music.
- Also features more backwards guitar work from Harrison. He also uses a fuzz pedal to replicate the Indian drone-sound on guitar.
- Ringo plays a tambourine throughout the track.
- Anil Bhagwa (who I assume was an indian session musician of sorts, or someone Harrison met via Shankar) plays the tabla (an Indian percussion instrument) for the track.
- Some other additional Indian musicians were used (the Asian Music Circle), playing sitars and swarmandal (a harp-like instrument). They were encouraged to just jam on the song in an open-ended sort of fashion, and their improvisation was edited into the song.
- Provisionally titled Granny Smith.
- Runs for two and a half minutes and took seven takes to complete.
5. Here There and Everywhere
- Written by McCartney.
- Both McCartney and George Martin list this as one of their favourite Beatles songs. And, even at his most bitter and anti-Paul, Lennon could say that this was one of McCartney's greatest songs.
- In the early stages of writing, the band tentaively offered a vocal-less version of the song to instrumental band The Shadows. They must have changed their minds though as The Shadows never received a copy to listen to.
- It's a rather subtle and moving tune, the major-orientated verses segue into minor-based choruses. McCartney intended for the backing vocals to be reminiscent of the Beach Boys, perhaps influenced by similar bittersweet tracks of the era such as God Only Knows.
- McCartney's high-vocals in the chorus were influenced by the style of Marianne Faithfull, and were recorded at a slower speed and then sped up. They were also double-tracked to further help achieve this effect.
- Lennon doesn't play any instruments on the recording but he does provide backing vocals. McCartney plays both bass and rhythm guitar.
- Harrison plays his 12-string guitar for the recording.
- All four Beatles contributed clicking fingers to the recording. Huzzah!
- The band never played this song live, but McCartney would later play it solo during the '90s.
- McCartney later re-recorded the song in 1983 for the film Give My Regards to Broad Street.
- Took 14 takes to finish and runs for about two and a half minutes.
6. Yellow Submarine
- The song originated as a few bits and pieces and ideas by McCartney, specifically as the album's song for Ringo to sing. Lennon and '60s singer Donovon helped contribute some lyrics and the song wasn't really written properly until the band were all together in the studio.
- Lead vocals by Ringo. Backing vocals by McCartney, Lennon and Harrison.
- Harrison does not play any guitar on this track but his does provide some tambourine. Ringo also provides a maracas track.
- Ringo originally recorded a spoken word introduction for the song but this was dropped before release.
- Contrary to the oft-speculated belief that the song is somehow about drugs, McCartney has exasperatedly explained time and time again that it was written simply as a kids song for Ringo to sing.
- George Martin used a whole gaggle of sound effects that he had previously collected together for use on the radio comedy series The Goon Show. These were added in a week after the song was recorded. The cash register sound effect is the same one later used on the Pink Floyd song Money. Some sound effects were also created from scratch, EG. Lennon blew through a straw into water for a bubbling sound, McCartney talked through tin cans for the captain's voice, the sound assistants swished some heavy chains about in a bathtub full of water for suitably water-y sounds.
- Several famous guests came onboard to make the party/crowd sounds, none were listed in the song's notes on the album but known contributers include - Pattie Boyd, Marianne Faithfull, Brian Jones, Neil Aspinall and the band's chauffeur.
- Released as a double A-side single in the UK with Eleanor Rigby. The single got to Number 1.
- The U.S. release of the single failed to get to #1, instead peaking at #2 - most likely due to the 'bigger than jesus' controversy that Lennon had sparked in the U.S. at the time of the single's release.
- The band later used this single as the starting point for a 1968 animated film (they owed United Artists a third film as part of their contract with them - they weren't enthusiastic at the time, probably due to the lacklustre reception of their television project The Magical Mystery Tour, so they saw an animated film as their easy way out. They didn't even do their own voices for said film, but did agree to a cameo appearance at the end after they saw the final project and were impressed with the result).
- Runs for two minutes and 45 seconds, and took 5 takes to complete.
7. She Said She Said
- Written primarily by Lennon, though it is unclear whether or not McCartney was involved in the composition. Harrison made the claim that he helped come up with the bridge, which is probably true since it was rare for Harrison to claim any sort of involvement with Lennon-McCartney compositions.
- The lyrics concern LSD and one of Lennon's first acid-trips, in this case one that involved a real-life conversation with Peter Fonda.
- The incident that inspired the song was a get-together in the band's rented house in California, attended by the band, Peter Fonda and the Byrds. Everyone except for McCartney took some acid. Peter Fonda was really wasted and kept talking about his near-fatal childhood gunshot accident. Harrison was freaking out due to the drugs and Fonda was trying to comfort him by saying "I know what it's like to be dead". Lennon cracked the shits and told him to shut up because he was bringing everyone down and Fonda started complaining. At this point in time Fonda was only known for being Henry Fonda's son, he hadn't made the film Easy Rider yet. Both Harrison and Lennon weren't happy with Fonda's behaviour at the time, Harrison later remarked that "he was very uncool", recalling how Fonda kept showing them all his bullet wound.
- This was the final song to be recorded for Revolver and was hastily put down on tape when it was found that the album was still a song short with the deadline looming.
- The song was recorded from scratch in just 9 hours, complete with overdubs. George Martin was exhausted afterwards. McCartney had some kind of argument with Lennon near the beginning of the session and left in a huff, hence he isn't featured in the finished recording at all - Harrison plays the bass instead.
- The song's key is somewhat in dispute amongst music analysts... it is speculated that the guitars are either played with a capo on the first thret or that the guitar was sped up a semitone (something the band often mucked about with during this period).
- The complicated bridge section is in 6/4 timing.
- Ringo's drumming is arguably at it's most innovative in this song... on its own it would sound quite chaotic and crazed, but somehow it all fits with the song. He also plays a shaker on the recording.
- In addition to guitar, Lennon plays the harmonium. He also sings the lead vocals and backing vocals, with some added harmonising from Harrison.
- Runs for two and a half minutes and took four takes to finish.
8. Good Day Sunshine
- Written mostly by Paul McCartney, with some small input from Lennon.
- Neither Lennon or Harrison contribute any instrumentation on this one, it's all McCartney and Ringo, with George Martin playing the piano. I guess the band was starting to feel more comfortable with arranging songs without other bandmembers being all that involved in the recording process - probably due to the fact that they had made a conscious decision to no longer play live sets, meaning the rest of the band didn't neccessarily have to learn a song if they didn't really want to (lol).
- McCartney also provides a piano track in addition to the bass. No guitar features on the track at all.
- Harrison and Lennon aren't completely missing though, they provide harmony vocals and hand claps.
- McCartney wrote the song after being influenced by the upbeatness of American soul-pop band The Lovin' Spoonful (who are best known these days for the song Summer in the City).
- The song ends in a different key to that in which it starts.
- McCartney re-recorded the song for the 1984 film Give My Regards to Broad Street, and has performed it live a couple of times since.
- Runs for just over two minutes, and only took one take to record.
9. And Your Bird Can Sing
- Written by Lennon, though McCartney may have contributed to the bridge.
- Lennon later felt that this song wasn't much more than filler and listed it as amongst his worst songs.
- Provisionally titled You Don't Get Me.
- Originally written in the key of D, the song was transposed up to an E through the use of a capo.
- There is a wide array of speculation as to what the song is about, theories include - smoking pot (an alternate take of the song on Anthology features the band giggling in a possibly marijuana-induced manner, and the 'seven wonders' line may have been an in-joke referring to the McCartney's theory of 'seven levels' which he scrawled down on a piece of paper whilst high), a payout on Frank Sinatra - who had taken a few thinly veiled swipes at the band in the media at the time, Mick Jagger (the 'bird' of the title referring to his girlfriend at the time, Marianne Faithfull), or Lennon's failing marriage to his first wife Cynthia (she had given him a horrible mechanical bird in a cage for his birthday, which he felt was an apt metaphor for their relationship).
- Lennon sings the lead vocals, with McCartney and Harrison harmonising.
- Harrison and McCartney play dual lead guitar for the riff throughout the song. A Byrds-style sounding 12 string guitar was used for the intro at one point but was later dropped for the final edit of the recording.
- Lennon also plays a tambourine on the recording in addition to guitar.
- Another song with handclaps!
- Took ten takes to record and runs for two minutes.
10. For No One
- Written by McCartney.
- Another ballad (this, along with Here, There and Everywhere earlier on the album, is one of McCartney's best songs).
- Written about the end of a relationship, and inspired by McCartney's troubles with his partner at the time. The original title of the song was Why Did It Die?, and he wrote it in the bathroom of a ski resort in Switzerland while on holidays.
- Harrison and Lennon do not appear on the track at all. Ringo plays the drums, maracas and tambourine, and McCartney plays the piano, bass and clavichord (a stringed European keyboard-like instrument).
- Features Alan Civil on the french horn for the solo-part of the song. Civil was reputed to be the greatest french horn player in the UK at the time and subsequently felt his performance in this piece was his most accomplished - mainly owing to the fact that McCartney pushed him to play a note that was beyond the instrument's usual range. Civil actually got irritated at the time as McCartney asked for something better after Civil had managed to play the 'impossible' note.
- McCartney recorded the bass a full step lower (Bb) than the rest of the song and then sped the recording up so that it would be in key (C). This was further complicated when Civil recorded his french horn track in the lower key (Bb) and the whole track had to be shifted back down again (to Bb). The result sounded a little strange so it was then sped up to be in another key (B... the note between Bb and C).
- Lennon liked this song a lot.
- Runs for two minutes and took 14 takes to finish.
11. Doctor Robert - Written primarily by Lennon, though McCartney may have helped finish it off with the "well, well, well" bridge section.
- Several songs on Revolver were singled out by the press for being about drugs. Most of the time the press was mistaken, and one song that wasn't singled was this one - the one that is primarily concerned with drugs and pretty much nothing else. In seems quite strange in hindsight, as it's pretty obvious!
- Lennon claims the Doctor Roberts of the title is a reference to himself, as he was the pill distributor of the band, but it's more likely he is referring to a real Doctor - either Dr. Robert Freymann or Dr. Charles Roberts - both renowned in the era for handing out copious amounts of amphetamines to celebrities. Other theories include Bob Dylan and art dealer Robert Fraser.
- In addition to providing lead vocals and guitar, Lennon also plays a harmonium for this track - giving it an almost 'christmas carol'-like feel, and Harrison shakes up some maraca action.
- For music buffs, the song appears to be in the key of A at the outset but this is a bit of trickery (probably subconsciously) employed by Lennon before the song segues into it's actual key of B major.
- Runs for just over two minutes and took 7 takes to complete.
12. I Want to Tell You
- Written by Harrison, and the marking the first time more than two of his songs were included on a Beatles album.
- This slot was originally intended to be for another Lennon song, but Lennon wasn't feeling very creative so the band worked on an extra Harrison song instead - hence why three of his songs made it onto the album. Harrison originally intended to record Isn't It a Party but the others didn't like it, meaning the song remained unrecorded until Harrison's first solo album.
- Although not as overtly Indian-sounding as some of Harrison's other recently penned tracks, this song makes use of a drone-like structure... never really straying from the one chord and featuring relatively-flat lead vocals from Harrison. The song also features a strong bass and piano presence, and Harrison uses a distinctive guitar riff to separate the otherwise similar verses and choruses.
- Lennon and McCartney add in a lot of dynamic backing vocals, something they often found to be a lot of fun on Harrison's songs.
- The second Beatles song to begin with a fade in.
- McCartney sings over the outro, something done in a fashion which wikipedia tells me is 'melisma' (which can apparently mean one of two things - either the singing is done in a female fashion, or a syllable is matched over several notes rather than one). This is something often employed in some genres of traditional chanting, and also harkens back to the Indian-influence used in Harrison's work.
- Working titles for the song include Laxton's Superb and I Don't Know.
- The lyrics concern Harrison's frustration at assembling his thoughts in a coherent or understandable manner and other internal difficulties. This song can (lyrically) probably be seen as a lead up to the bands meditation retreat to India.
- More handclaps from all of the band, Ringo also overdubbed some maracas. Lennon doesn't play any instrument on this track other than a tambourine. The piano was played by McCartney. Harrison plays both guitar tracks and his vocals are double-tracked.
- McCartney recorded his bassline the day after. It was the first time he did this separately, marking the beginning of increased songwriting independence within the band.
- Runs for two and a half minutes and took 3 takes to finish.
13. Got to Get You Into My Life
- Written by McCartney.
- Lennon later said that this song and For No One were two of his favourite McCartney-written Beatles songs.
- McCartney was influenced by American soul music, particularly the big-horn Memphis variety mainly featured on the Stax label.
- A lot of work was done on this song in the studio, with the song changing a fair bit between takes - with different fade outs and the like.
- Humourously, McCartney later confided that the lyrics weren't about a girl but specifically about marijuana.
- Harrison plays two separate guitar tracks, and Ringo provides a tambourine track in addition to his drums. George Martin also plays the organ on this recording.
- The guitar tracks by Harrison and Lennon ended up being almost mixed out of the song altogether.
- Releasd as a U.S. single in 1976 with Helter Skelter as its b-side, to help promote a Billboard Hot 100 compilation album. It was the last time the Beatles would be in the U.S. charts until the release of their anthology single Free as a Bird in 1995.
- Joe Pesci recorded a version of this in the late '60s, when he was a struggling singer known as Joe Ritchie.
- Some session musicians (Eddeie Thornton, Iam Hamer, Les Condon, Alan Branscombe and Peter Coe) were brought in to play trumpets and saxophones. This song marks the first time the band uses traditional brass instruments in a recording. Some of these musicians were from a band called Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames, who McCartney had seen play in the club (and who had inspired him to insert some horns into his song).
- Engineer Geoff Emerick decided to put the microphones directly into the bells of the brass instruments to make them sound punchier. This quickly became standard practice for recording brass in rock songs. McCartney still wasn't convinced they were in-your-face enough, so they the five brass instruments were also double-tracked.
- Runs for two and a half minutes and took 8 takes to complete.
14. Tomorrow Never Knows
- Written by Lennon.
- The first song recorded during the Revolver sessions.
- Automatic double-tracking was used for Lennon's vocals, and they were recorded after being run through a Leslie speaker cabinet (which is normally used as a speaker for a Hammond Organ, and helps create the suitable effects for such an instrument).
- The lyrics concern the comparison between LSD-induced 'ego'-death and actual death. Lennon had just read a book co-written by Timothy Leary that concerned psychedelia and drug-taking in particular (some of the lyrics are directly lifted from this book).
- The song was provisionally titled Mark I as Lennon was too embarrassed about the philosophical nature of the lyrics to give it a proper name. He eventually settled for a Ringo saying, Tomorrow Never Knows, and it is one of the earliest Beatles songs to feature a title that isn't mentioned in the lyrics.
- This is also the first Beatles song to use rhyming lyrics.
- This song is pretty much as close as the Beatles got to succeeding in their quest to base a song entirely around just one chord, in this case C. It marks yet another time the band was influenced by the Indian drone-style, though this time it was Lennon and McCartney rather than Harrison.
- Lennon wanted the vocals to sound like 'a thousand monks chanting'. He came up with the idea of having himself tied to a rope and then spun around a microphone while he sang. Martin didn't take him seriously, but Lennon was completely serious (it was that part of the Beatles era). They eventually came up with the Leslie speaker idea instead.
- The song's unique sound also comes from the drum track being electronically (and manually) compressed, the cymbals being run backwards and the use of looped tape effects. McCartney came up with the looped tape effect by taking off the eraser head on his tape recorder and then running a continuous loop of tape through it while he recorded something, so that it would constantly overdub itself - making a highly condensed and saturated effect. He brought the idea to the session and showed it to Martin, and the band quickly got to work recording a variety of sounds for use in the song... the seagull-like effect is actually McCartney laughing and shouting, one other effect is an orchestral chord ringing out, and the others were taken from mellotrons (a kind of electronic piano that used tape) and an Indian-sounding scale played on a guitar. The looped-tape effect would later also be used on Revolution No. 9 and on the unreleased track Carnival of Light (recorded in the Sergeant Peppers sessions).
- Lennon plays the tambourine and hammond organ on this track. McCartney did the backwards guitar bits. Harrison played the sitar and probably the Tambur as well (a persian string instrument used for the drone-effect). Ringo also plays a tambourine in addition to the drums. George Martin played the honky-tonk styled piano.
- Runs for almost three minutes and took three takes to record.
