Records Revisited: The Beatles – Revolver (1966)

As a fan, one has heard and read it all before about this legendary album: Revolver as a symbol of the Beatles’ final ascent to highly serious studio artists, innovative recording trickery and drugs and existential philosophy and still more drugs and avant-gardism and… oh, I’m boring myself. The album’s status – enormous! – is very well documented. But what makes Revolver so good?

In short: here, the Beatles find their own greatness entirely self-evident.

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»Let me tell you how it will be« are the album’s first words. That statement then leads into a semi-sarcastic comment on high marginal tax rates – the first socially critical statement on a Beatles record. The line, however, can also be read more broadly, in the sense of: let me tell you what is about to happen! The best band in the world are making another masterpiece! Their most important so far! Revolver lives from this arrogance, that is, from the musicians’ obvious knowledge that they are writing rock history.

If the unmistakable psychedelic pop on Revolver had to be summed up in one word, it would be: crisp. One, two, three, four, one, two, BAM! Even the opener »Taxman« convinces sonically with a forceful, yes, crack – in Paul McCartney’s bite-resistant bass runs, which massage the eardrum in a stimulating way, just as much as in the piercing guitar solo, also played by McCartney. The protest banger, however, was written and sung by the supposedly »quiet« Beatle, George Harrison, who gets more room on Revolver than ever before.

When the muted horn and McCartney’s soft vocals overlap at 1:28, one cannot imagine anything more beautiful.

What follows is »Eleanor Rigby«, one of the most magnificent recordings in the entire Beatles catalogue. The song is a prime example of the bittersweet pop-ballad songwriting that Paul McCartney perfected on Revolver. This touching innocence, this deeply melancholic questioning by an otherwise so life-affirming sunny boy: »All the lonely people, where do they all come from?« McCartney leaves his cheerful comfort zone in order to understand the sadness of people made differently. Hardly any other song in rock history has such a perfectly constructed vocal melody; producer George Martin’s string arrangement is without equal.

Turn off your mind

Of course, there are also buoyant McCartney crowd-pleasers on Revolver, such as »Good Day Sunshine« or, above all, the ultra-cool marijuana hymn »Got To Get You Into My Life«, inspired by soul labels such as Motown and Stax. I especially love the moment when Paul, at 2:05, sings the words »I was alone, I took a ride, I didn’t know what I would find there« for the last time – with a slightly altered vocal melody – and the woodwind and brass then sound even fatter than before. Yet it is above all through harmonically complex, yet extremely accessible pop ballads that McCartney here finally becomes the strongest Beatle: alongside »Eleanor Rigby«, there are above all the unfathomable chord changes in »Here, There And Everywhere«, which Paul himself counts among his finest creations, and my personal favourite song on the album, »For No One«. When the muted horn and McCartney’s soft vocals overlap at 1:28, one cannot imagine anything more beautiful.

Oops, I have got quite far without mentioning John Lennon. He seems to assume a comparatively more restrained role. His first song on the record, the mysterious folk-rock piece »I’m Only Sleeping«, therefore bears a fitting title. With »She Said She Said«, he is responsible for the record’s best lyrics (»She’s making me feel like I’ve never been born«), and with »And Your Bird Can Sing« for the album’s most enjoyable rock number. And then there is one of the most immense productions of all time, the mind-expanding closer »Tomorrow Never Knows«. Even today, it sounds like the future of pop music, like life and death and all the moments in between. Harrison’s sitar floats through the background, Ringo Starr delivers a hypnotising drum beat, psychedelic effects make us drool. John Lennon seems to be singing over to us from the top of a mountain: »Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream.« I cannot imagine anyone not wanting to join in. »It is not dying.« This