“The Beatles” Essay
Kippen – Beatles MUS321
7. 1966: Revolver
1966
Began with a break
Each set up home studio
Revolver: April to June
Paperback Writer/Rain (rel. Jun 10, 66)
Tours of Germany, Japan, Philippines (late June-July); USA-Canada (August)
Late 66: work on Strawberry Fields & Penny Lane (rel. Feb 17, 67)
Advent of the Music Video?
“Rain” was more sophisticated, impressionistic, artistic, less bound by the performance of the song
“Rain”
· The result of drug experiences?
· Weather = metaphor for ups & downs of life?
Verse 1:
If the rain comes, they run and hide their heads.
They might as well be dead.
If the rain comes, if the rain comes.
Verse 2:
When the sun shines, they slip into the shade (when the sun shines down)
and sip their lemonade. (when the sun shines down)
When the sun shines, when the sun shines. (sun shine)
Bridge:
Rain I don't mind.
Shine, the weather's fine.
Verse 3:
I can show you that when it starts to rain (when the rain comes down)
everything's the same (when the rain comes down)
I can show you, I can show you (show you)
Bridge:
Verse 4:
Can you hear me that when it rains and shines (when it rains and shines)
it's just a state of mind
Can you hear me, can you hear me? (hear me)
Outro:
Sharethesmnowthsmeaness [rain comes they run and hide their heads] (rain)
Rain (rain)
· Backwards vocals: signals alternative reality?
· Ringo’s greatest drumming? Varied, unexpected patterns, great energy
· Paul: a new level of bass playing
Controversy & musicianship
Farewell tour of Hamburg
Tour of Japan: controversy over venue: Budokan
Deterioration of band’s musicianship on stage
Inability to bring off successfully some of the newer numbers
“Paperback Writer”
“Rain” not even possible on stage
Manila
Controversy in America
Bigger than Jesus
Comment by Lennon (Evening Standard, Mar 4)
“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 and roll or Christianity. Jesus was alright, but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It’s them that ruin it for me.”
Quoted in NY Times Magazine (Jul 3)
Datebook (teen magazine): September issue released July 29
An end to touring
Revolver
A continuation of experimentation apparent in Rubber Soul
A: Taxman (Harrison)
Eleanor Rigby
I'm Only Sleeping
Love You To (Harrison)
Here, There And Everywhere
Yellow Submarine
She Said She Said
B: Good Day Sunshine
And Your Bird Can Sing
For No One
Doctor Robert
I Want To Tell You (Harrison)
Got To Get You Into My Life
Tomorrow Never Knows
Texts were integral, of value; part of the art of the album
Alternative messages needed to be read
“Cuteness had gone” (Dylan)
Lennon’s songs
“Tomorrow Never Knows”
Text based on The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on The Tibetan Book of the Dead by Timothy Leary, Ralph Metzner and Richard Alpert (1964)
Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream
It is not dying, it is not dying
Lay down all thought, surrender to the void
It is shining, it is shining
That you may see the meaning of within
It is being, it is being
That love is all, and love is everywhere
It is knowing, it is knowing
That ignorance and hate may mourn the dead
It is believing, it is believing
But listen to the colour of your dream
It is not living, it is not living
Or play the game existence to the end
Of the beginning, of the beginning
· Recording techniques
· Minimalist: harmonically static (in C with a move to B♭ over C — the ♭VII / I again!)
· Tanpura drone (Indian quality); bass reinforces drone throughout
“I’m Only Sleeping”
“She Said She Said”
“Doctor Robert”
“And Your Bird Can Sing”
“…another of my throwaways ... fancy paper around an empty box”
McCartney’s songs
Very different
“Eleanor Rigby”
· Narrative song
· Double string quartet, scored by George Martin
· Only two chords: Em and C
Ah look at all the lonely people
Eleanor Rigby picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been
Lives in a dream
Waits at the window, wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door
Who is it for?
All the lonely people / Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people / Where do they all belong?
Father McKenzie writing the words of a sermon that no one will hear
No one comes near
Look at him working, darning his socks in the night when there's nobody there
What does he care?
Eleanor Rigby died in the church and was buried along with her name
Nobody came
Father McKenzie wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave
No one was saved
“Here, There and Everywhere”
· Ballad about idyllic love
· Harmonic subtlety
· Quasi-free intro with a sudden key change from Bm to B♭
“For No One”
· French horn (Alan Civil) solos; clavichord
· Ends on a dominant suspension
“Good Day Sunshine”
· Complex rhythmically: intro/chorus use bars of different lengths
“Got To Get You Into My Life”
· Texture: great innovation is the use of trumpets and saxophones, closely placed mics, and a great score by GM
“Yellow Submarine”
· An opportunity to create sound effects
· Released as a single with “Eleanor Rigby” on Aug 5
Harrison’s songs
“Love You To” – Indian experimentation
“I Want To Tell You”
· Guitar riff
· Piano dissonances
· The musical arranger?
“Taxman”
· Strong opening to the album
· Cynical satire on the British tax system
· Direct attack on the two major UK political figures of 1960s, Harold Wilson & Ted Heath
Their separate ways?
Fall 1966
Lennon – Spain, How I Won The War
McCartney – worked with George Martin on a filmscore for The Family Way
Harrison – India, sitar
Starr – Spain to visit Lennon
Met up again in London at Abbey Road studios on November 24
“Strawberry Fields Forever” & “Penny Lane”
John
Folk, rock influences
Static melodies
Cryptic, nonsense lyrics
Paul
Ragtime, Jazz, Classical influences
Contoured, hyperactive melodies
Story narratives
“Strawberry Fields Forever”
Autobiographical?
Use of the mellotron (early type of synthesizer)
George Martin: orchestral version
The miraculous merge (at 1:00)
Strawberry Field / Penny Lane did not reach #1 on UK charts
“Penny Lane”
The lyric is a walk down memory lane