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Meet the Beatles (Again) - Revolver

Posted at 2:02 AM on September 9, 2009 by The Current (3 Comments)
Filed under: Meet the Beatles (Again)

Revolver
Originally Released August 5th, 1966
By David Campbell

Revolver 1966 seems like it was a pretty tough year for The Beatles, though it certainly didn't start out that way. December of 1965 saw the release of their sixth album, Rubber Soul. The album was another great leap forward sonically and stylistically and it was at the top of the charts by January, the same as its predecessor Help! had been only four months earlier. I can almost hear John saying, "Oh look, Paul, we've made another hit reh-cord" with complete indifference. And then things took a turn for the worse.

There was the show at the Budokan in Tokyo, which was protested for using the venue for rock 'n' roll and not martial arts. This kept the band confined to its hotel for the entire trip, though this was probably the case most of the places they went due to their insane popularity and the mobs that flocked to show them love. There was also a near punch-up and a full on shakedown at the airport in Manila after they unknowingly declined the breakfast invitation of first lady Imelda Marcos. And let's not forget about the extremely questionable judgment that gave us the original "Yesterday" ... and Today album cover for about 15 minutes. It featured the worst photo of the boys (after they had clearly spent some time with Dr. Robert) sitting in lab coats, covered in raw meat and doll parts. This, of course, was immediately recalled and repaired by pasting a few thousand new covers right over the old. In addition to that debacle, there was the band's ongoing frustration with touring in places too big for the meager sound systems of the day. This continued to leave the band wondering what the crowd had actually heard as they had heard next to nothing themselves. And last but not least, there was the massive explosion of the American anti-Beatles campaign after John mentioned that the band was "more popular than Jesus now." All told, it was so much more than most people in their mid-20s are meant to handle, even if they had spent the last three years getting used to being the biggest stars on the planet.

With all of the chaos surrounding their professional lives, it is astonishing that The Beatles were able to escape the eye of the storm and focus creatively. Their disappearance into the studio and subsequent emergence with pure gold was their greatest trick and it would soon be the only one all four band members were willing to perform. 1966 marked the beginning of a new era. The band would leave the road and all of its troubles behind and safely exist only in the studio, making music that wasn't necessarily ever meant to be performed live. In 1966, The Beatles would record Revolver.

Help!, Rubber Soul and Revolver represent the adolescence of The Beatles recording career. The transition from a populist, proto-boy band (albeit a really awesome boy band), into the innovative, complex, and challenging mess-of-a-band took place during these three albums. And much like the physical results of human adolescence, sonic adolescence generally turns out one of two ways. It's the birth of breathtaking beauty and an independent voice or of something monstrous and completely awkward. For The Beatles, adolescence was extremely kind and they were gifted with the former. They made two of their finest albums and were deposited neatly on the adult side complete with mustachios; ready to turn the world upside down with another. Lucky bastards.

Revolver. Because it spins around as records tend to. This is a very simple title for an exceptionally complex pop album. Recorded and mixed between April 6 and June 22, the whole process would take somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 hours to complete. Their first album took 10. Why? Though they'd already learned to play their instruments, this time out they were learning how to play the studio. The Beatles were casting aside the traditional format for rock 'n' roll instrumentation of guitars, bass and drums in favor of piano, sitar, tabla, French horn and other brass instruments, and a double string quartet. Scored by producer George Martin, it is the only instrumentation on "Eleanor Rigby" - the first of many show stoppers on Revolver. Martin and principal engineer Geoff Emerick helped The Beatles realize that the sonic possibilities were becoming limitless. And that's exactly how it goes down. George is into the Indian stuff and layering up the leads. Everyone's doing acid. Paul's making tape loops at home and bringing them in for "Tomorrow Never Knows" while putting piles of soaring harmony vocals on anything that moved. Submarines. Singing Birds. John is writing about love and ego and death and the most beautiful nonsense. Backward guitar solos. A love letter to weed. Ringo rises to the occasion and delivers the goods. Everyone's digging everything. Everyone float upstream. Even Klaus Voormann's cover art was linked in perfect synthesis with the rest of it. The whole thing must have been - and still is - just like a dream.

By the end of those three-and-a-half months, the transformation was complete and the band had ceased to be entertainers. The Beatles had become artists. Their new medium was studio rock 'n' roll and they had just recorded a stone-cold psyche-pop classic; arguably the greatest rock record ever made.

Time allows us to reflect back and see some things differently or with perspective that might have been impossible in the thick of it all. Budokan IS clearly for rocking. Imelda Marcos IS a little bit crazy. First pressings of "Yesterday" ... and Today aka the "butcher cover" now fetch upwards of $10,000 and bands continue to release albums with limited edition artwork all the time. And to be totally honest about it all, John, Paul, George and Ringo have actually given J.C. a pretty good run for his money. So I guess I question weather 1966 was so bad after all. What is unquestionable is the artistic merit of their seventh album Revolver. After 43 years, it still sounds amazing.

David Campbell is a host on The Current. David knows what it's like to be dead and what it is to be sad.

Comments (3)

Fantastic.

One of the best pop albums for the guitar... Ever.

Posted by Caroline | September 10, 2009 11:05 AM

If I enter endlessly, will I get disqualified?

Here's another link: http://www.marcdenis.com/ckgm-geoffstirling.html

This image is of Geoff Stirling, an eccentric Newfoundland newspaper magnate. In the 60s he built a building on a cliff in Newfoundland in the hopes that he would get Ram Dass and the Beatles to visit. The place is called the Nose, and when my older daughter visited, her great-uncle Bill Rose told her he renamed it Lucy's cove. Beatles tend to come full circle, no? Again, what other band can do that?

Posted by Michelle B | September 11, 2009 10:18 AM

There was a reason for the 'butcher' cover on Yesterday and Today. That album was an American release that had nothing to do with the natural progression of albums The Beatles were releasing in the UK. Capitol had been deleting songs, jumbling tracks and just generally screwing around with...butchering...every one of their previous releases without any regard for the artistic intent of The Beatles. The butcher cover was their way of sticking it to Capitol for the years of abuse heaped onto their back catalog. It was the least that Capitol deserved.

BTW, a record collection friend scored a copy of Y&T where the new 'safe' cover had been applied to the BACK side of the album, so he had the record with both front covers. Unfortunately, the copy looked like it had been sitting in a dank basement for years. It was in horrible condition.

David, I believe that 'Tomorrow Never Knows' is a John song rather than a Paul song. John was experimenting with tapes a lot more than Paul. Paul was more obsessed with arrangements.

Posted by stpaulbear | September 18, 2009 9:36 AM

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