The Beatles - Revolver POLL

I can't tell when people are joking on ILX anymore.

all the joking's on those lols polls, right?
the rest's all serious, no?

is "tomorrow never knows" still gonna win tho?

you must be jokin', yo.

no one's jokin im straight yolkin' lingbert be tokin'

What a hilarious parody!

My email is in my profile, please subscribe me to your newsletter.

....and "Here, There and Everywhere"

you're an ass

Yeah, I've had too much pizza and it's making me acidic.

This is sophomoric, I'd say.

YOU = ASS

Yep.

i voted "and your bird can sing", even tho "eleanor rigby" is probably the best song on the record (and I think top 5 or 10 beatles). i think I did the same last time

i voted for tomorrow never knows

So so close between "She Said She Said" and "Love You To", but i've got to go with the latter.

But yes this poll is ridic

but i'm mildly intrigued as to what the result will be

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Infinity percent more votes for Yellow Submarine than for Taxman is some bullshit.

.. and this isn't even Geir's poll.

ILXors can't help votin for Revolver!

Low turnout.

No turnout would have been preferable

cmon, sky of blue, sea of green, that has to be more endearing than 2 votes

Donovan wrote that line

but RINGO NAILED IT

'She Said She Said' still does it for me in the same way as it did on my first listen.

Dunno why this gets elevated as the pinnacle of their classic era, I like some songs but personally find it their weakest of that period

mostly cuz the McCartney tunes are uncharacteristically syrupy compared to his other work with 'em

for no one tho

I'm Only Sleeping way too low.

Dunno why this gets elevated as the pinnacle of their classic era, I like some songs but personally find it their weakest of that period

Yeah, some real dudly duds in here tbh.

actually agree with this -- never thought Revolver was a bad record, but never quite understood why it became such a symbol of greatness. The only thing I can think of is that critics got tired of giving Sgt Peppers the default best-Beatles prize, and couldn't bring themselves to shift praise to Magical Mystery Tour -- perhaps going on the logic that Revolver was Sgt Peppers stripped of fat, and feat a still-touring, fighting Beatles? Anyway, to me, Rubber Soul is a better record than both. (And I think today, Abbey Road or the White Album are the go-to albums for new fans)

white album is the best
end poem.

this always felt like a weird choice for 'best beatles album' because it really feels like the one that's easiest to overlook, lots of songs here that no one really talks about much (it always takes me a minute to remember what 'i want to tell you' even sounds like). it's probably consistently my second favorite beatles album, i espec love all the lennon songs.

I think nine of the fourteen songs are perfect, probably the highest hit rate of a Beatles album.

And the ones I'm not so keen on can't exactly be described as duds.

way bigger duds on abbey road and white album honestly.

Fuck no.

inferior songs to revolver:

mean mr. mustard
maxwell's silver hammer
her majesty
honey pie
wild honey pie
piggies
yer blues
rocky racoon

Oh, I think you mean inferior songs on Revolver?

Eleanor Rigby
For No One
I'm Only Sleeping
Love You To
I Want to Tell You
Taxman

ok, just know that the universe thinks you're wrong

those songs are all great except for 'love you to' imo.

tbh, an album consisting of darin's rejects on side 1 and how's life's rejects on side 2 would be a damn good album.

superior 'Take 7' of Here There And Everywhere

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRrZBj7vaSc

i'm only sleeping has always been the height of revolver to me. TNK is spectacular obviously but for the backwards-guitar psychedelic jams i've always preferred IOS.

I'm happy being wrong in a universe Eleanor Rigby. I could probably get by with just Doctor Robert, got to get you into my life, and your bird can sing, and yellow submarine.

And Your Bird Sing also got robbed. hell, almost all of the songs got robbed. tomorrow never knows is a classic but it doesn't tower above the rest of the album like this poll suggests

Yeah, there was so much hype about TNK before I heard it and then its just three minutes long? That song needed to be at least 7 minutes or so, imo.

I thought "Help" was the current "Best Beatles Album" thesedays?

I'd love to see where this album would rank in The Beatles' discography if 'Tomorrow Never Knows' was left off. While I love many of the songs on this album, it seems (at times) that the album's entire reputation hinges on that track alone.

Also, McCartney's songs on this record are much better than his contributions to Pepper.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACRIrMcjBXY

inferior songs to revolver:

mean mr. mustard
maxwell's silver hammer
her majesty
honey pie
wild honey pie
piggies
yer blues
rocky racoon

― Darin, Tuesday, 20 May 2014 18:56 (1 hour ago) Permalink

love a bunch of these. lol are we really counting "Her Majesty" as something though?

dig the whole Abbey Road medley actually, my main beef is with the first side cuz I think Lennon'd basically checked out at that point. Which maybe makes me the reverse of people who hate "Maxwell's Silver Hammer"

'Maxwell's Silver Hammer' gets an undeserved slagging from some, IMHO.

the album version of 'maxwell' is a bit too cutesy for my taste -- all the sound effects et al just make me think of wings at their worst. but yeah it's certainly no worse as a song than 'bungalow bill' or 'rocky raccoon.' i like the anthology version where it's just paul + piano.

this thread hijacked my day and somehow led me to this youtube clip of all the revolver sessions, overdubs, etc:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMzGZCaHOfU

I've heard most of these bootlegs, but this one is incredibly exhaustive. Hearing the isolated TNK loops is really cool.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=jMzGZCaHOfU

All this hate for Rocky Raccoon is inappropriate. That song is clearly in the top 10 Paul songs. That story telling, the amazing harpsichord ditty, and the chorus is simply beautiful. I get it can seem 'gimicky', but it is the best kind of 'gimicky' I've ever found in a song.

Barrel of fun to play as well.

I like silly Beatles

I really, intensely dislike 'Rocky Raccoon'.

i don't ever listen to any other beatles album now, just this. the older ones are too slight (tho i used to like to play rubber soul) and the later ones too indulgent and lousy w/ beatlesisms.

"All this hate for Rocky Raccoon is inappropriate. That song is clearly in the top 10 Paul songs"

real talk, + "silly Beatles" is part of why The White Album's my fave

The lesser songs on that are ones that're just more bland imo

Thinking that Her Majesty is an inferior song seems like such a fundamental misunderstanding of the Beatles.

It's easy to pick as a favorite bc it has the most tracks that haven't been played to death, perhaps.

Also it has she said she said and tmrw never knows which both dovetailed nicely with 80s underground noise vibe. I remember the first notice I had that revolver was "important" to know/have was a Bob Mould interview c 1985 where he named it as his favorite record.

It = revolver

is it weird that I have an issue with the drumming on "She Said She Said" and it kills the song for me

probably but w/e

huh, i think the drumming there is some of ringo's best

listening to those bootlegs, what strikes me most about revolver's songs is the overall cohesiveness - the reoccurring drones, themes of death - and the equal amount of participation between the four.

Yeah, that's one of the first songs I'd play to convince the otherwise unconvinced of Ringo's brilliance.

xp

and the equal amount of participation between the four.

iirc, "Eleanor Rigby" even had lyrical contributions from Ringo!

The drumming on 'She Said She Said' is some of his best ever drumming to my ears. In fact, the Revolver period is quite possibly Ringo's best period for drumming... 'She Said She Said', 'Rain', 'Tomorrow Never Knows'...

it seems like some degree of apathy creeps into most of their subsequent recording (at least from a few members). revolver seems like the last document of the beatles believing in being beatles and collectively reaching for something.

and yes, total agreement on Ringo's drumming from this period

xp yeah, i mean, a lot of his drumming there is ... unprecedented? not sure where that style really came from tbh. it's amazing -- tomorrow never knows, she said, rain -- who else was playing like that in 1965?

"Rain" has a few faintly Moon-like moments, mainly in terms of fill placement, but other than that, yeah, no one was doing that shit then.

Ringo used to complain bitterly -- more than the others -- about having to tour when no one could hear them, and they couldn't hear themselves. He used to say that he had to hack away at the bass and snare to hold them together, and doing anything on the toms would just vanish into the gale of screams. So when he got to the studio, he must've felt let off the leash, finally able to dig into all these ideas he'd been storing up.

maybe a bit of Keith Moon influence? xp

this thread hijacked my day and somehow led me to this youtube clip of all the revolver sessions, overdubs, etc:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMzGZCaHOfU

I've heard most of these bootlegs, but this one is incredibly exhaustive. Hearing the isolated TNK loops is really cool.

― Darin, Tuesday, May 20, 2014 5:29 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Wow, this is fascinating! Thanks for posting! Take 8 of GTGYIML is great; you can hear the drums clearer, and it sounds like there's fuzz guitar doing what the horns would later do.

xp yeah moon is sort of the go-to when it comes to the "play a fill for the whole song" kinda drumming. wasn't sure of the chronology there, if ringo would've been aware of him by the time the revolver sessions rolled around. probably?

Yeah, they were definitely drinking buddies by that point.

Glad you liked the link, Tarfumes. There's a similarly cool, unused fuzz bass track on one of the Love You Too tracks.

I'm on that one now! Man, they should put out a legit mix of this; would be totally heavy.

yeah would be totally into a "complete Revolver sessions" box set a la the pet sounds set.

At this rate, they're more likely to release them as an iTunes-only "bootleg recordings" thing, like those 1963 recordings.

(Fuck, it only took them THREE YEARS to get from "From Me To You" to Revolver?!)

(Fuck, it only took them THREE YEARS to get from "From Me To You" to Revolver?!)

― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Tuesday, May 20, 2014 10:58 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Amazing, isn't it? That's how long Coldplay take between albums, to put that into perspective.

on Revolver being more of a Beatles-together album -- I dunno, Lennon and McCartney seem to be aiming for completely different things there. Compare to Rubber Soul, Pepper (more of a McCartney project but still,) White Album even has a certain general "sound" to it even if the compositions are pretty different

if you listen to the raw tracks of Paperback Writer, Love You Too and TNK, you'll hear more similarities than differences. I hear a hivemind approach to this album that I don't get from Pepper or the others that follow.

it seems like some degree of apathy creeps into most of their subsequent recording (at least from a few members). revolver seems like the last document of the beatles believing in being beatles and collectively reaching for something.

i think they were all pretty into making sgt pepper even though it seems pretty paul-heavy. definitely seems like the all-for-one group mentality disappeared pretty rapidly after that, though. part of why abbey road is the saddest of all their albums -- they're trying to bring that spirit back one last time, and it's sort of there but all the apathy and meanness is there too.

Coldplay's new album is great btw and I don't know what critics are hearing

not to derail thread just someone mentioned 'em lol so I thought I'd sneak it in there. plus I dunno if a thread for 'em exists

I seem to recall Paul complaining that George disappeared in the middle of Pepper to paint his house. Also, Ringo said in the anthology series that he was bored and learned to play chess because of all the overdubs.

part of why abbey road is the saddest of all their albums -- they're trying to bring that spirit back one last time, and it's sort of there but all the apathy and meanness is there too.

i think they actually got that spirit back on the let it be album. i've seen the movie and i've read the books and i realize they kind of totally hated each other at that point, and were more happy working separately than together in a lot of ways, and still i think songs like "two of us," "i've got a feeling" and "one after 909" have this really great group-in-a-garage warmth to them.

yeah, i agree that you can definitely hear it in those performances at least -- they all obv had fun doing the rooftop concert, john is grinning from ear to ear in the footage. the sad thing is they couldn't sustain that camaraderie when they weren't playing.

hmm yeah even though I'd rank Abbey Road up there I'd say there's something a little "professional" about it in a way that isn't there on their other albums

Abbey Road remains my favourite Beatles album.

There is something "professional" about AR, in that IIRC they (and George Martin especially) made a conscious effort to make a "real" album, a la Sgt. Peppers, after the letdown of the Get Back/Let It Be project. However, even at the end, they were trying new things, not least of which were using 16-track recording and Moog synths. Also, AR is arguably the blueprint of all 70s recorded rock. Not until digital production became commonplace in the 80s did albums really start sounding markedly different.

Furthermore, I wouldn't underestimate the difficulty in making a record as good as AR when you are essentially breaking up (perhaps even already over). Pink Floyd made a career out of recording records with each band member coming in one at a time to lay down his parts -- AR was like the blueprint of "corporate" rock, wherein every man was for himself, but somehow in service of the whole.

(tho I guess the white album was the birth of this in Beatles lore)

Abbey Road mainly has that professional quality to it because of the upgrade in studio technology. otm on the blueprint for 70s rock, it really sounds modern in that way.

I think everyone loves Revolver because it's the last album they wrote while touring and barring the drugged out all-night jam sessions of '67, the last album on which they were all regularly playing together. So it's sort of the peak of The Beatles as <b>band</b>. Most of the songs actually would have worked live had they not had to deal with ridiculous screaming drowning everything out. Kinda sucks that their fame robbed them of the chance to play "Rain" or "She Said She Said" live.

Weren't they really playing together as much on Magical Mystery Tour or the White Album as much as they were on this?

I mean, maybe you could say that overdubs were more important on those later records. I still feel like I'm hearing the Beatles as a band on a lot of those tracks, though.

Well they were touring all through the Revolver album sessions in spring '66 and played their last show weeks after it's release in August. So even if they were in the studio just as much, they were also on tour, playing every night, rehearsing, etc.

Nevermind, I guess spring '66 they only played a single show. But still, even if they were in the studio together the same amount, like Ringo said he learned to play chess, it was probably a lot of sitting around waiting for mics to be set up.

good point -- the end of touring really marked the first time in years that they weren't playing together pretty much constantly. you can definitely hear the difference in the post-revolver albums.

It is interesting that they played absolutely nothing from Revolver on their final US tour, even though it coincided to the month with Revolver's release

I mean, maybe you could say that overdubs were more important on those later records. I still feel like I'm hearing the Beatles as a band on a lot of those tracks, though.

I don't really hear the Beatles as a band on MMT at all with the exception of I am the Walrus maybe. There is obviously some group participation on the White Album from a performance standpoint on about 1/3 of the songs, but the thematic/sonic cohesion is gone really. I just don't think they were occupying the same mind space in 1968 at 1966. Sometimes I think the public reaction to that album in '68 was the correct reaction. The white album's transformation into a nightmare mosaic only works from a distance.

I think it's far more than 1/3 of the songs on the White Album. Side One is pretty much the Beatles on everything except "Wild Honey Pie." Paul plays drums on "Back in the USSR" and there's no drums on "Dear Prudence."

I think I know what you mean by Revolver still having sonic cohesion, but I actually don't think it's present anymore on Paul's tracks.

As for MMT, why is "I Am the Walrus" more an example of the Beatles playing as a band than the title track or "Your Mother Should Know?" Paul on bass on Ringo on drums on "Blue Jay Way."

Maybe there's better songs overall on other albums but the guitars sound so good on Revolver. Also yeah Ringo destroys on She Said She Said.

Some of it might be a distinction between guitar and keyboard-based tracks. If you can accept keyboard-based tracks as Beatles-as-rock-band sound, then "Fixing a Hole" fits right in.

Actually, sorry, Paul on drums on "Dear Prudence."

I think I know what you mean by Revolver still having sonic cohesion, but I actually don't think it's present anymore on Paul's tracks.

Paul's doing his own thing with his character driven dioramas (Yellow Submarine, Eleanor Rigby), but he's exploring similar themes of life and death on Revolver (Rigby, GTGYIML, HTAE, For No One), plus melodic/droney stuff (Paperback Rider).

There are drums on "Dear Prudence" and they are AMAZING. Paul played drums on that one.

Oops, already noted.

It is interesting that they played absolutely nothing from Revolver on their final US tour, even though it coincided to the month with Revolver's release

― Josefa, Wednesday, May 21, 2014 12:56 AM (9 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

They did play "Paperback Writer" (I know, not on Revolver, but recorded at the same sessions) on their 1966 tours.

But they knew they'd be playing to audiences that couldn't hear them, and they still couldn't hear themselves; so why waste time whipping the new shit into shape for people who just came to scream at them?

Paperback Writer is another kick-ass Ringo joint

it's not a ringo tune!

oh you're talking about the drum playing, nevermind

yes he kicks ass on it!

when it transitions from the opening chorus to the first verse that is a serious jump up and down like a maniac moment imo

"Sometimes I think the public reaction to that album in '68 was the correct reaction"

It wasn't seen as good then? Interested cuz I'm not real familiar with how each individual Beatles album was seen in its time, or which ones were more popular than the others, other than Pepper taking on iconic status

Rolling Stone loved it (I think they called it the Beatles' best), and it sold a shit-ton.

only tangentially related but ever since I read someone argue that Lennon gave up on writing thorough songs after Revolver and critiqued how he either went for soft repetition or chopped-up loud weirdness on The White Album it's kinda messed with my perception of some of his songs, not to say I don't dig a bunch of 'em there

Not necessarily identical to "the public reaction," but I found the Wikipedia section on its critical reception to be informative:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beatles_(album)#Critical_reception

I remember digging up some critical overview of the Beatles at my high school back in the 80s and being struck by how uniformly negative most of their post-Rubber Soul record reviews were. it was really striking, the mainstream press found all the psychedelic experiments and confessional songwriting etc really indulgent and tiresome. how they longed for the good old days of those classic verse-chorus-verse pop songs...

Lennon obv got much simpler, "stark" or "primal" or "direct" when it was to the good and "lazy" or "boring" or "lame" when it wasn't. I certainly have less interest in hearing his stuff of the mid 70s and later compared to Paul and George's...

one thing that bugs me about Lennon's solo work is that sometime around 1970 or so his stuff becomes much more rhythmically simple and straightforward. His Beatles stuff has a lot of weird dropped beats and mid-song time signature shifts, but this seems to be a stylistic tic that he just completely abandoned at some point. it's strange, as it's a very distinctive feature of some of his best material.

yeah

also only tangentially related I remember picking up "The Lives of John Lennon" on a whim and dude arguing that McCartney held the band together 1967 on while he was off in a drug-induced haze, was the only true genius of the group, etc. etc. I thought OK, interesting viewpoint if possibly a little overstated, but then I skimmed the rest of it and apparently according to this guy Lennon was the 20th century's greatest monster

then I looked it up and saw all the commentary saying it was essentially a hitjob yellow journalism piece on him with sketchy sources lol

haha yeah that book is kinda legendary

one thing that bugs me about Lennon's solo work is that sometime around 1970 or so his stuff becomes much more rhythmically simple and straightforward. His Beatles stuff has a lot of weird dropped beats and mid-song time signature shifts, but this seems to be a stylistic tic that he just completely abandoned at some point. it's strange, as it's a very distinctive feature of some of his best material.

There is some weird stuff in there, a la "#9 Dream", but overall I'd agree -- and not just rhthmically, but harmonically, production-wise, he really seemed to streamline his writing after the Beatles. There is nothing like "Because" or certainly "I Am the Walrus" anywhere in his solo discography. I listened to the RS 1971 interview today on youtube, and he mentions how he'd taken LSD and done a lot of experimenting in music, so he might have personally chalked up all that weirdness to the times. By contrast, though I usually prefer McCartney's Beatles output to his solo material, I'd be hard pressed to identify a purely musical aspect of his solo material that was objectively different after the breakup.

imo had Lennon lived, I'd be surprised if he wouldn't have ended up in the Travelling Wilburys. He was at least as "rootsy" in his appreciation of old rock and roll as any of the other Beatles.

v hobbity cover

yeah there are flashes of it - "All My Life" on Pussycats, "#9 Dream" - but not a lot

xxp

here's nik cohn's original NYT review of the white album, it's kind of astonishingly negative:

http://www.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/arts/nikcohn1968.pdf

Re the simplification of John's writing: I'd agree as well. Over the weekend I was reading the website of the tuba player Howard Johnson because of the revival of one of The Band threads and Hojo was saying that John never really learned piano voicings, he would always just play the simplest shape and then move it around. http://www.hojotuba.com/merch/

that nik cohn review and the howard johnson interview are two A-plus reads. thanks guys!

cohn's objective description of the white album is pretty much dead-on, though i disagree completely with his conclusions. it's a perfectly understandable first impression. his rave for beggars banquet in the same review is great, despite his complete miss of the power of "sympathy for the devil." but i'm trying to work out what songs he's talking about elsewhere: he quotes the lyrics to "dear doctor" in his description of a song called "squalor"; was "squalor" a working title or something? and if so, what's the country song with mouth harps and mandolins that he refers to as "doctor doctor"? is that (the otherwise unmentioned) "factory girl" maybe? i'm confused.

Glad you liked the Hojo interview, fcc, it was one of the more inspiring things I've read recently, maybe ever.

the duds are massive and sprinkled in evenly: "Love You To," "Yellow Submarine," and "Got to Get You Into My Life." not so hot on "doctor robert" either. not a dud though.

Revolver is the go-to safe-cool pick for "best" Beatles LP because it's sort of weird, sgt pepper is too obvious, and white album is too weird. the white album is much more cohesive than revolver. sgt pepper too

here's nik cohn's original NYT review of the white album, it's kind of astonishingly negative

Really negative, until the bit where his list of the few positives begins with Bungalow Bill! Great read though.

"Nobody Told Me" is some mid-era Lennon with a weird time signature

mid-era?

Eh, late-era.

cohn wrote a lukewarm review of abbey road for the times as well

Actually, reading that review (which I agree is interesting in a lot of points, though basically completely disagree on the quality of lots of tracks the writer dislikes), makes me wonder what other bands have issued records (or even just songs) that *knowingly* parodied the band itself. I can think of Police songs that reference other Police songs, for example, but none that parody the Police, per se. Or, what would Radiohead making a Radiohead pastiche -- not unintentionally mind you -- sound like? Further still, do you think U2 even realize their sound could be parodied?

(in truth, I'd bet they do)

smashing pumpkins, nirvana

really, which songs?

"Nobody Told Me" is some mid-era Lennon with a weird time signature

― ▴▲ ▴TH3CR()$BY$H()W▴▲ ▴ (Adam Bruneau), Thursday, May 22, 2014 12:26 PM (31 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It's in straight 4/4 with the occasional 2/4 bar in the pre-chorus.

"i hate myself and want to die" & "tales of a scorched earth"

cohn:

"What's gone wrong basically, the trouble is, simply that rather more than half the songs are profound mediocrities."

it gives me confidence that some people who construct sentences as terribly as i do manage to wind up reviewing beatles albums for the nyt

cohn's review of abbey road is up too -- he loved the medley but hated everything else:

http://www.nytimes.com/library/music/100569lennon-beat.html

small mistake on the Oh! Darling analysis there

two songs by George Harrison, mediocrity incarnate;

Yeah, what ever became of THOSE two pieces of crap?

Sinatra used to introduce "Something" as "the most mediocre love song of the last 50 years."

lol

not gonna lie, sometimes I start Abbey Road on "Maxwell's Silver Hammer." might make me a bad person. I like "Something" well enough though, but def. prefer "Here Comes the Sun"

i love abbey road but it was the first and only beatles stuff i heard for a long time (i had a weird musical upbringing) and it kind of gave me the wrong idea about them for several years

I love both Harrison tunes, and sometimes marvel at the utterly batshit and equally unselfconscious time-signature changes in "Sun."

small mistake on the Oh! Darling analysis there

― nova, Thursday, May 22, 2014 5:56 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Well, of course McCartney sings it and not Lennon, but aside from that error he's actually OTM regarding the vocal. It's a well known fact that McCartney struggled to get that vocal to his satisfaction, and Lennon is quoted as saying he'd have done a better job, and I agree. At this point in time, Lennon could still scream 'em out, but I think McCartney kinda forgot how to do it during the years he wasn't playing live.

I love both Harrison tunes, and sometimes marvel at the utterly batshit and equally unselfconscious time-signature changes in "Sun."

― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Thursday, May 22, 2014 8:42 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I have a soft spot for many Harrison songs in his Beatle period, but I'd definitely say that 'Here Comes The Sun' and 'Something' are two of his finest without a doubt. I totally agree about the time sig changes in 'Here Comes The Sun'... I get a similar feeling from all the strange and completely natural time sig changes in Lennon's 'Good Morning Good Morning'.

Still haven't heard the UK Revolver, strange to see all those songs on the same list.
This is the US LP version of Revolver, the only one I've heard (and orig.thought it cooler than Pepper's, dunno why, except for being 15)
Side one
No. Title Length
1. "Taxman" 2:36
2. "Eleanor Rigby" 2:11
3. "Love You To" 3:00
4. "Here, There and Everywhere" 2:29
5. "Yellow Submarine" 2:40
6. "She Said She Said" 2:39
Side two
No. Title Length
1. "Good Day Sunshine" 2:08
2. "For No One" 2:03
3. "I Want to Tell You" 2:30
4. "Got to Get You into My Life" 2:31
5. "Tomorrow Never Knows" 3:00

the fact that "I'm Only Sleeping" was omitted = no bueno

The US version makes the album more weighted towards McCartney. All three of the songs that got the chop ('I'm Only Sleeping', 'And Your Bird Can Sing' and 'Doctor Robert') were Lennon's!

Yet, even with those three tracks left off, 'She Said She Said' and 'Tomorrow Never Knows' still tower over pretty much the rest of the album for me.

Well, this US-only cobbler, Yesterday and Today, also 1966, still looks good to me; at least, I remember it a lot better than Revolver (I'd put "Tomorrow Never Knows," "Taxman", "For No One" and "I Am The Walrus" on the burned tail of my personal Pepper's)

Side one

"Drive My Car" – 2:25
"I'm Only Sleeping" – 2:58
"Nowhere Man" – 2:40
"Doctor Robert" – 2:14
"Yesterday" – 2:04
"Act Naturally" (Morrison–Russell) – 2:27

Side two

"And Your Bird Can Sing" – 2:02
"If I Needed Someone" (George Harrison) – 2:19
"We Can Work It Out" – 2:10
"What Goes On" (Lennon–McCartney–Richard Starkey) – 2:44
"Day Tripper" – 2:47

one thing that bugs me about Lennon's solo work is that sometime around 1970 or so his stuff becomes much more rhythmically simple and straightforward. His Beatles stuff has a lot of weird dropped beats and mid-song time signature shifts, but this seems to be a stylistic tic that he just completely abandoned at some point. it's strange, as it's a very distinctive feature of some of his best material.

― Οὖτις, Wednesday, May 21, 2014 10:15 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Hmm. If there's anything that bugs me the most about The Beatles solo work (aside from the slips of quality control that come with having to write more material for an album, because The Beatles with three writers could afford to be selective as to which tracks they recorded), is that the performances of the musicians don't feel as "vibey" (for want of a better word).

I mean, I get this feeling from different albums by all the solo Beatles... McCartney's Driving Rain is a notable example for me: it's professionally performed by a team of hot-shot session players who are undoubtedly good musicians, but I don't get any sort of vibe from the performances and equally, I don't think they're adding much. It's all very "yep, we'll sit down, shut up and just play these songs as Paul wants 'em, and we'll take the cheque and job done". McCartney might have been quite into those songs while he was writing 'em, but if the band don't seem to be excited by 'em, it kinda shows. The musicians on Driving Rain don't seem to be in it for the excitement of playing on a McCartney record, they're essentially there to do a job. And fuck me, does it feel like it.

I get a similar vibe from a couple of Lennon's albums, particularly Mind Games and Walls and Bridges. I like some of the tracks from both on a songwriting level, but the performances just feel like they have some kind of "professional sessioneer autopilot" thing going on.

With The Beatles, regardless of who wrote the song, and even with the animosity and bullshit going down, everyone put their own stamp and contribution on the track, and the recordings still feel very "vibey", even as late as Abbey Road. With some of the solo stuff, the players feel a bit anonymous and "hey, we're just doing a job, man".

Yeah, I was going to answer something like that:

Basically, Lennon's albums had session dudes doing whatever John wanted, as opposed to Paul, Ringo and George doing what they wanted.

And switch for whoever's album it was.

Except the occasional Ringo track that featured some combo of the other three, they got closer to BeatleVibe sometimes.

Mark, I agree about the two you specify, but John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band's stark lyrics, austere beats, concise vocals times electronic shading still sound on point, to put it mildly. Imagine, Double Fantasy and Milk and Honey still have their own soulful lucidity, not hemmed in by sessioneers or Yoko (who sounds better on her own albums). Also like the outtakes etc. on Menlove Avenue and the box set sampler Wonsaponatime (the box itself is worth checking out).

Not that familiar with the others' solo albums, although McC's Run Devil Run still kills, and lots of Ringo's hits sounded fine on the radio.

'Twas me that specified Mind Games and Walls and Bridges.

As for John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, that album works because the spare arrangements allow the listener to focus on the vocal and, most importantly, the lyrics which are obviously key to the album. The relative rawness and slow tempos suit the mood of the compositions. It goes without saying that 'Mother' wouldn't have anywhere near the impact as it does if it were performed at a faster pace, with a smoother production and a string section over it. So for that album, it works. It has the right mood and the right vibe. Goodness knows what Ringo must have thought during sessions for that record, though.

I guess I must add at this stage that I don't really rate Klaus Voormann as a bassist and never have. He does his job, but he ain't a McCartney, that's for sure. He was definitely suitable for John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, though. McCartney's bass playing may have sweetened things up a bit and may have been a little more precise, but that wasn't the point of that particular album.

Have you heard the Yoko version of Plastic Ono Band? Because Ringo and Klaus put together a pretty amazing rhythm section that borders on Krautrock. Which is funny because Klaus is German! And actually the Beatles haircut and whole initial attitude is sort of in debt to the German art school roots that would result in Can, Kraftwerk, etc. The same lineup plays on Ono's Fly as well, on "Don't Worry, Kyoko", but it's more No Wave than Krautrock imo.

For as long as Klaus and the Beatles had been friends I don't think it's that big a stretch to imagine Klaus jamming with John and Ringo (and maybe the other Beatles as well) during the band's lifespan.

Yeah, I've heard both of those albums and I rate both highly, particularly Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band. He's fine on those records too, but on the whole I find his bass playing a bit stodgy.

Never really bothered to rate Voormann as a bassist, but I have no issues with JL/POB as far as the playing, or the production. Furthermore, Lennon's singing on that record is great, and in the last 10 years, I've played "Isolation", "Love" and "Look At Me" as much or more than any of his Beatles tracks. However, if the album has a fault (and imo it does), it's an insularity in Lennon's worldview. In interviews, he comes off as amazingly well balanced, aware, compassionate -- but on record, he can seem bitter, self-absorbed, whiney, often resorting to cheap insults and reliance on his own mythology. Obviously I can't fault him for writing about "what he knows", because more than any other Beatle, he captures his current reality with candor and emotional honesty. But in retrospect, I'm not sure the world needed Lennon to declare the "dream was over". The Beatles certainly were, as were the 60s, but imo the record comes off as entitled to a place on the cultural stage that, Beatles importance notwithstanding, Lennon doesn't completely justify.

Yeah the "Dream Is Over" is super sentimental, but it's also totally in the language of Janov's Primal Therapy. This era of Lennon music is very ephemeral and transcendent, so he isn't specifically talking about The Dream being The Beatles or The 60's or whatever in isolation. Deconstruct the very idea of a dream. We dream all the time, sometimes unwillingly. The lyrics are incredibly naive as a result of the defenses being lowered. By this time his songs are either incredibly cynical Proto-Punk or incredibly naive Proto-Adult Contemporary.

I'm sure that stuff was on his mind but they were locked into the zeitgeist like few bands ever were, so he could write more or less straight up nonsense (ie. "I Am the Walrus") and it would still come out like Dylan-on-acid.

The self-aware aspects of John & Yoko were also pretty ahead of their time. You could see them doing Kickstarter stuff with youtube concept videos and stuff. For a while in the early 70's that's what they did. Eventually it made the music start to suffer, but it's something John could never have done in the Beatles.

I guess you could say they were Proto-Selfie.

The whole Hair Peace Bed Peace thing what is that but a 2014 viral youtube video?

just stop

the performances of the musicians don't feel as "vibey" (for want of a better word).

I don't care about this myself tbh I was just pointing out an odd shift in Lennon's compositional approach that is not reflected in the work of the others'. Paul's solo material is pretty consistent with his Beatles work in terms of how he wrote lyrics, melodies etc. George too (altho he did abandon the sitar). John's the one whose songwriting seemed to go through some major shifts - not all of them positive imo - and the rhythmic thing I noted is part of that.

another article from back in December 1967:

http://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/bk-aow/column2.php

This one from Robert Christgau provides some nice cultural context.

I'm not a huge fan of Got to Get You Into my Life as it is in the actual record but the demo version that appears on Anthology is amazing. More subtle and I enjoy much better Paul closing the chorus with 'somehow, someway'. Unfortunately, you lose the solo freakout at the end of the Revolver version.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YarB2VkpzYw

It's weird that they cut the 'somehow, someway' completely in the final song. After hearing the demo the chorus sounds incomplete.

I didn't mean solo freakout I meant Paul singing freely, no idea how that's called.

from 2:00 onwards

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxhhFOnXs2M

The ideal version of GTGYIML for me would be a mix between both, getting rid of the horns completely.

I imagine that the "somehow, someway" got junked for a couple of reasons: firstly, it'd get in the way of the horn hook, and secondly, it's unnecessary! Glad those backing vocal ideas got junked, too. I like the "I need your love, I need your love" part, though... wish they'd found a way of getting that in somewhere.

Got to Get You into My Life 0
Good Day Sunshine 0
Taxman 0

0__o

brings the lols

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7P2I3qA7Oag

the guitar sound on this album is just the best. how did they do that?

"she said she said" is so heavy and scary and strange i always forget it's even on the album, always feels like such a kick in the head when it comes on.

Mixolydian Mode plus distortion and backwards?

i always expect that he's gonna say eleanor rigby is wearing her socks, instead of her face

I just noticed that "Taxman" is basically "yeah, I'm greedy"

George loves his dough

don't republicans/libertarians like that song?

Is it true they were liable for a 95% tax bill? "1 for you, 19 for me".

my friend said the other day that yellow submarine should have been kept off revolver. is he right? i don't think so

No he's not right.

Light and shade.

yeah I think the tax level was pretty crazy for them (and other big bands, like the stones and their bankruptcy that made them leave for the south of france).
and the fact that they were quite ignorant (and often not well managed) in tax matters certainly didn't help !

Post war tax rates were in the 90's for the rich in both the US and UK. People forget they were still in the 70's until Reagan came out and knocked them all the way down into the 20's at one point. How else do you think the US built all those damn freeways, nukes and rockets with minimal national debt?!

George loves his dough

The taxman's taken all of it and left him in his stately home.

all you need is love, but i myself am a different story

also classic moptops: "don't ask me what i want it for" on an album that later name-checks the national health

It's almost as if he is human and can hold multiple points of view at once.

it's almost as if i'm human and will mention it

tou che

But still, the "George is greedy" line is BS unless you consider it completely fine and fair to have to pay a 90% tax rate.

If he was actually paying that, which I doubt. Greedy, tight-fisted, if the cap fits...

completely fine and fair to have to pay a 90% tax rate.

given that everybody in that tax bracket was still absolutely filthy rich I kind of do

while George is my favorite Beatle, I can't dig the sentiment of "Taxman" at all. Paul makes the song imo.

In any case, George is whining about the tax rate being 95%!

as octobeard points out a 90s tax rate for people as rich as the beatles seemed perfectly natural before we got all this extra freedom

it's true that kids with guitars didn't have the best heads for paperwork, or for eluding predators, and okay i don't know what george's personal finances were like in 1966. suspect he was doing okay but even if he wasn't i'll be damned if i let that keep me from the pleasure of speaking uncharitably of the beatles

Those are marginal rates anyway, right? I mean somehow poor George managed buying that mansion, etc.

George grew up working class and he earned all those millions so I give him a pass. It's not like he's griping about inheritance taxes or offshore accounts or something, this is money he made through blood sweat and tears.

Blood, Sweat & Tears didn't form until 1967 though, and my understanding is that George cooked the books to make them appear a write-off. Market fluctuations destroyed the value of his holdings in any case, a fact the band mockingly pointed out in their own lyrics once they'd ousted George and regained majority control.

Those are marginal rates anyway, right? I mean somehow poor George managed buying that mansion, etc.

yes and yes. so he wouldn't have to pay 90 percent of everything. just 90 percent of what he made over a certain amount. and i'm guessing he made a lot over that certain amount.

but the important thing is, it's a great song. i disagree with the specific politics of it, but i do not disagree with the presentation, and i especially don't agree with that bass line.

i mean i don't DISagree with that bass line!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o60XmAvwHSY

Love how he goes against the beat for the middle-8 following that 2nd chorus. SO GOOD.

my head is filled with things to saaaaayy

often "I Want to Tell You" is my favorite Beatle George song. I love the offhand discordance.

I've never quite understood the whole "living outside of the UK for a year to avoid paying taxes" thing.

Isn't the NHS reference on the White album?

Remind me what it is?

i was thinking of doctor robert--"my friend works for the national health"--but there might be a ref on the white album, idk. (savoy truffle? nah.)

That's just word play from Lennon.

obviously you have never read the song's unrecorded, surrealistic verses about queuing

everybody otm about the taxman bass obv, paul bass in general is pretty constantly :O

And didn't he play the gtr solo too?

wiki says yes: "I was pleased to have Paul play that bit on 'Taxman'. If you notice, he did like a little Indian bit on it for me."

Taxman's just a lousy song anyway.

on his tour of Japan in 1991 with Eric Clapton, "Taxman" was on the set list. "It's a song that goes regardless if it's the sixties, seventies, eighties or nineties," Harrison declared. "There's always a taxman." Harrison added more lyrics on that tour, such as "If you're overweight, I'll tax your fat."

oh, I think its national trust on Happiness.

Carry on..

often "I Want to Tell You" is my favorite Beatle George song. I love the offhand discordance.

OTM, I get this song stuck in my head all the time.

It's of a piece with "If I Needed Someone" in my head, both great tunes.

I've never quite understood the whole "living outside of the UK for a year to avoid paying taxes" thing.

― pplains, jeudi 30 avril 2015 04:25 (10 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the stones were in quite a mess !
http://thehistoryofrockmusic.com/1971/04/05/the-rolling-stones-become-tax-exiles/

also : "At the time the tax rate in the UK for higher earners was astronomical. Remember the lyric from The Beatles’ “Tax Man” of “One for you, nineteen for me”? Well the truth was not far from this, the rate was 83% for earned income and 98% for un-earned income!"

I do like Taxman on pure musical terms, for all the reasons that people mention, but it is still a bit weird to press play on Revolver, the soundtrack to a generation, the birth of psychedelia, the best album ever, or whatever the press calls it, and the first lyrics are about how much it sucks to pay taxes...

yeah, same here. It's a batman (or spiderman ?) song with a great bass (and guitar solo) but it's kinda meh for beatles standards, not even talking about Revolver in particular.
they should have put Rain instead ! (I know they didn't put the singles on the albums at the time but still...).

Cool that they start it off with a George song. Hell, Grant Hart never even had that designation.

See also Abbey Road (original cassette)

Cassette listing not canon, but I hear ya.

Love how Paul and the band would play the title below after Dave did a Top 10 OJ list.

http://i.imgur.com/UZ7vUPx.jpg

The thing is it's such a badass recording that all is forgiven... but yeah, wd have been just as killer as a B-side and wow... ''Rain'' as album opener... hard to get used to but could be awesome. Meanwhile the single starts to look a bit wacky, one side mocks hack writersand the other complains about taxes.... ''we're taking barbershop into strange, new places.''

I wonder if some of this album's rep is BECAUSE it has few familiar names for the non-fan. I remember it getting totally brushed over in the Anthology shows, and then when I bought it, my mom struggling to recognize song titles besides YS and GTGYIML. It's like this vault of cool album tracks that becomes greater than the sum of its parts. And the playing and mixing is hot as shit, IMO they never sounded better as a band. They could have done three more albums in the style of Paperback Writer/Taxman and I'd be thrilled, even if it was just, like, re-recordings of their past records or covers of contemporary hits. Instead it's just a couple of cuts on Pepper's as they otherwise ditch the four-piece band format more than ever before. I guess they'd done as much as they could with it, and were in the process of being outflanked on the things beyond their capabilities (that is, Daytripper isn't quite Satisfaction, Ringo is never hoing to be Keith Moon etc.).

I totally agree with the idea that the album as a whole is much more famous than its components (although you forget E. Rigby). But thinking about it, it's the case of Rubber Soul too (besides Michelle and maybe Drive my car).

As for Rain as the opener and Tomorrow as the final... now we're talking !

Yeah "Revolver" is such an awesome record it's easy to see why it's the favorite of many people. There are still lots of experimental/Beatley songs ("Eleanor Rigby", "Love You To", "Yellow Sub", "For No One") but much of it is distorted psych guitar rock that still has the energy of the early years that would be missing in something like "The White Album". If there were a few more "Revolvers" out there it would be insane.

As for why a revolutionary album would start w a song bout taxes, there is some slight historical irony in there, given America's start as an English colony with the protesting of taxes being a big factor in deciding to break off.

Er... I find Rain quite boring, great drumming and bassline aside. Taxman, OTOH, is a prefect album opener. Direct, upbeat, catchy, but still brimming with enough experimentation to hint an what's coming. I share people's distaste with the subject matter.

(xp) What irony?

Rain boring !? It's one of my favourite songs from them and the production, sounds and playing are amazing.
Actually I think it's the most and best song with the Revolver "spirit" (psychedelic, badass guitars, crazy and huge bass, drugged harmonies...). Lennon's voice and delivery is fantastic. The lyrics are bit light... but it's a better message than Taxman's !
Together with Tomorrow they are, by far, the most outthere songs imo (with I'm only sleeping behind).

Irony being the original Tea Party and Stamp Act and "No Taxation Without Representation" unfair taxes being a big factor in the split between the colonies and England. Then in the 60's we had "The British Invasion" named so as a sort of cheeky reference to the Revolutionary War.

I find the melody draggy and Lennon's vox too nasal and sneery on Rain (I know that was increasingly his thing, but it doesn't always work for me). I appreciate its innovations, I just don't particularly dig it.

Also, and I realise this is cock-eyed in all kinds of ways and I may well get shouted at for it, it reminds me of Oasis and I've always hated Oasis.

(xxxp) OK right I hadn't thought about the historical significance of the phrase "British Invasion".

xp
Well it's a very simple song at its core so I can totally understand not being impressed by the songwriting aspect.

Er... I find Rain quite boring, great drumming and bassline aside.

I find the melody draggy and Lennon's vox too nasal and sneery on Rain (I know that was increasingly his thing, but it doesn't always work for me). I appreciate its innovations, I just don't particularly dig it.

Also, and I realise this is cock-eyed in all kinds of ways and I may well get shouted at for it, it reminds me of Oasis and I've always hated Oasis.

Agree with every Chap word here.

If you haven't read Geoff Emerick's book, "Here, There and Everywhere", you should check it out. There's a section where he describes his very first day as an official engineer on Revolver which turned out to be the first Tomorrow Never Knows session. He was only 19 years old and still living with his parents. I can only imagine.

I listened to the audio book a few years ago, it's incredible. My favorite bit is how on one of his first days of work he figures out the best way to record bass guitar is by using giant speakers as microphones.

I always felt "I Want to Tell You" was a mutant psych version of Motown, it has that swing to it.

Er... I find Rain quite boring, great drumming and bassline aside.

I find the melody draggy and Lennon's vox too nasal and sneery on Rain (I know that was increasingly his thing, but it doesn't always work for me). I appreciate its innovations, I just don't particularly dig it.

Also, and I realise this is cock-eyed in all kinds of ways and I may well get shouted at for it, it reminds me of Oasis and I've always hated Oasis.

Agree with every Chap word here.

same. i have been walking around listening to past masters vol 2 a lot recently, and have come to think it's maybe the most overrated beatles song (at least among fans who know about it in the first place). listening to it right now, it's hard to pinpoint why. the bass is amazing, ringo's doing his thing, the production is interesting. maybe it's the vocal? lennon's voice itself sounds good, but the melody is just boring as hell. if you get Rain stuck in your head, you just get this terrible one-note "RAAAAAAAAAAAAIN" moaning thing to deal with. whereas the melodies going on in And Your Bird Can Sing dance circles around the hungover Rain.

I think Rain is groovy and weird and druggy and maybe a huger departure from where they'd come from than "Paperback Writer," and the drum fills rule, but I agree that I've never quite been converted to it being this crucial milestone Beatles song. If anything I'd bring it in to replace "I'm Only Sleeping" and make "She Said She Said" the album opener. But what do I know?

was it written/recorded before tomorrow never knows? i always think of TNK as the link between different eras of the beatles, so if Rain was first then i understand giving it props for that.

recorded after first take of TNK (the "Mark I" version) but maybe not the final one? I'm not sure. Anyway it was released first, so that's something.

If anything I'd bring it in to replace "I'm Only Sleeping"

IOS is fucking fantastic, don't touch it.

for a 50 year old piece of rock n roll, TNK still sounds totally astonishing.

If anything I'd bring it in to replace "I'm Only Sleeping"

IOS is fucking fantastic, don't touch it.

― the joke should be over once the kid is eaten. (chap), Thursday, April 30, 2015 2:39 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

for a 50 year old piece of rock n roll, TNK still sounds totally astonishing.

― tylerw, Thursday, April 30, 2015 2:40 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ios and tnk are the only tunes on this album that never really get stale for me

Well again I can understand not being impressed by the basic songwriting of Rain and yes the melody is minimalist... But TNK is even more simple in that case !

One chord !

when my band covered it for that (great) ILX beatles comp we played it w/ two chords, but yeah...
https://soundcloud.com/ilx-beatles-comp/forces-at-work-tomorrow-never

And as a simple song with great production and performance, they're both better than Taxman !

I'm Only Sleeping is on some Chillwave vibe. Love how those guitars are somehow right inbetween acoustic and electric, it's hard to tell.

I can't believe there isn't a Revolver Sessions box I can buy on iTunes I want to hear every attempt at TNK.

Can't imagine how these guys must've felt trudging around on tour in 1966, knowing they had something epochal in the can, but not being able to play any of it live.

They should have gone on tour w Yoko doing tape loops.

Maybe Cynthia could have provided the tape loops.

Well again I can understand not being impressed by the basic songwriting of Rain and yes the melody is minimalist... But TNK is even more simple in that case !

Yep, though I really like the melody on TNK! It's just a personal taste thing I think. Some people don't like coriander.

Yeah the guitars on Only sleeping are great. There's something so sad and dark in that song. Lennon was on fire at that time... (and then he made Strawberry fields, A day in the life and Walrus !)

Rain... hmmm, never a standout for me although I think it improves in today's context. It's kind of proto-shoegaze, isn't it?

Thought I'd finally look in to see why Revolver's in the news. Doctor Casino's Blood, Sweat & Tears thing earlier is great. I think I've met my doppelganger.

Rain-love utterly baffles me too, always has.

https://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/6576012/unknown-george-harrison-letter-surfaces-reveals-why-the-beatles-canceled-stax

Did you hear that we nearly recorded in Memphis with Jim Stuart [sic]. We would all like it a lot, but too many people get insane with money ideas at the mention of the word 'Beatles,' and so it fell through!

aw man, how cool would that have been

so much of the Revolver material is decidedly un-American (Eleanor Rigby, Tomorrow Never Knows, For No One etc.), it's funny to think what would have crept into the material or how the record would be different

"Got To Get You Into My Life"?

is very American R&B

altho it scans more as Motown than Stax to me

They might have just done some messing around...or they might have asked to re-recorded "Day Tripper" with Otis Redding!

There's also this, recorded on the Rubber Soul sessions; they conceivably could've come out with an instrumental EP or something along these lines:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ghnj5Tr64Bk

eh that's not exactly stunning material

Is the idea that they would have recorded Revolver there, or some unspecified next project? I probably used to know this, but was the longish gap between Revolver and SPLHCB (with John filming How I Won The War and whatever else) planned out in advance?

I'm very happily imagining some alternate timeline where this deal didn't fall through and they trundled determinedly into Memphis in late 1966 to bang out a potboiling album (mostly covers or vault-clearing bits and pieces, one assumes, since I don't think most of the Pepper material had actually been written) with the M.G.'s, Sam & Dave, Otis Redding. "When I'm Sixty-Four" gets a boost with the first recorded vocals by talented young songwriter Isaac Hayes. "The One After 909" with the heat turned up, "Cry For A Shadow" turned inside out, "That Means A Lot" finding its final form... pretty cool fuckin record I think.

ha it's fun to fantasize but... would they really have gone in that much for collaboration, swapping vocals etc.? seems kinda unlikely. I can see them using some sidemen on stuff - the horns, a Cropper lick here or there

I wonder what that Tune In dude thinks of this?

would they really have gone in that much for collaboration, swapping vocals etc.?

yeah i admit it's maybe a reach, but these guys did adore American R&B, and it might just be that since they didn't have a ton of new originals they were eager to record, and that they probably had a short term stay booked (Rubber Soul and Revolver having both been knocked out in under a month) it might be more of a jam-session kind of deal, them discovering in the course of rehearsal a body of covers that everybody's kind of in the mood to play, and just going with it. Like if there was any moment in their career when some kind of collaboration with a stable of outside musicians (setting aside string sections and so on) was plausible I think this could have been it.

Following the fantasy a chapter forward, you can even imagine the experience shifting their priorities slightly going into the next records, coming out of Pepper going "well that was cool, but it wasn't really as fun as that Stax record, let's play together as a band more," who knows. Fanfic, I know, but ehhh, it's Beatles fandom.

in negative fanfic world, they have so much fun cranking out the record with the stax guys that when they walk in on day 1 of the pepper session and see george martin there adjusting his tie and being all serious, they immediately realize they can no longer be a band and break up immediately

haha

Like if there was any moment in their career when some kind of collaboration with a stable of outside musicians (setting aside string sections and so on) was plausible I think this could have been it.

well really this just happened a couple years later with the White Album, right? Clapton, Yoko etc. And accelerated each one's treatment of the others as session musicians, which further alienated the band from each other.

but yeah at this point they were still very much "together", maybe they were cohesive enough as a unit to work with a whole clique of new people without splintering

xposts hahaha, that's great

also a pretty cool fanfic really. paul mccartney struggles to complete his new solo concept album about an old-timey jug band, has a mental breakdown over his inability to compete with brian wilson alone. the rest of them decamp back to memphis to chase a dream. the sixties were never the same again.

i think they would have dug it honestly. i mean all the gripes about playing live where nobody could hear them, and so there was no point even playing well - getting to really kick back at length with a bunch of fucking tight players would probably have felt super stimulating and invigorating, "shit, yeah, this is what we do this for!" like a better version of how much george harrison enjoyed hanging around with The Band. you're exactly right about the white album - the "treating each other as session musicians" was the problem there but i kind of believe the stax thing would have played out differently. they also were still on mostly happy drugs.

Stax would've made much more sense for Let It Be.

ooh def

not all cold and drafty that's for sure

I'm very happily imagining some alternate timeline where this deal didn't fall through and they trundled determinedly into Memphis in late 1966...

and while they're there, they meet a teenage alex chilton, who convinces a disgruntled george harrison to quit the beatles and form a new band with him and his buddy chris bell.

...but that new band immediately breaks up because they keep fighting and it's just not fun anymore, but THEN one of the guys who was working on making flyers for them decides to change the direction of his life, and that guy ends up being the captain of the Exxon Valdez and he doesn't hit the reef in the Prince William Sound because he's so good at steering, averting environmental disaster

wtf happens at 1:23 in She Said She Said with the drums, how is that fill even possible

Is that where the time signature shifts?

that's what she said

the fill leading into "and she's making me feel like..."

sounds like a single tom hit was reversed but i doubt that was possible

There's no reversed anything and that fill is entirely possible.

nope, it's definitely there. i hadn't noticed it before. i listened to the spotify version (remastered) and then put on the original LP to doublecheck. it's on both versions.

it's reversed and clipped, very subtly, and in two different spots.

Oh yeah, that

It's not reversed. They're ghost notes.

here, i isolated the measure in question, let it repeat a few times, then do the goofy 50% slow down move for the bit in question:

https://clyp.it/njjglgbn

Turrican is right, that isn't reversed.

Turrican is right

Oh don't encourage him ffs.

principles before personalities

Delighted to know that I wind you up so much, Thomas.

also, if you reverse the clip in question, the part that sounds reversed in the original sounds like a normal note (a ghost note, actually) placed into the middle of a sea of reversal.

oh well. i mean there's nothing online about reversing a small bit of a ringo fill on "she said she said" anywhere online, and all of these recordings have been relentlessly examined, so i'm sure it didn't happen.

but agree with flappy b that it does sound like that, and if i knew how to make a sound like that on a drumset i'd be doing it left and right, probably as part of a Mysteries of Aural Illusion act in a carnival.

If you listen closely to the drum track throughout the song, you'll hear that Ringo is ghosting on the snare (and occasionally the hi-hat) throughout the song... this, combined with Emerick's close-miking on the drums is what's achieving the effect you hear. I'm 120% sure there's nothing reversed on there.

it does sound like that for sure, no argument there, as an anecdotal evidence kind of guy my support for the claim is I've had this happen to me several times since we got a drummer. we're not the Beatles so nobody every bears down and listens hard enough to notice this stuff but on several occasions I've gone WHAAAAAT THE FUCK IS THAT YOU GENIUS to the engineer or mixer and he's like "ha, no, thanks, that's just your drummer, he's really good, I know sounds backwards but it's just how the part fits into the track." on one of these occasions I was really like "are these people fucking with me?" but they weren't, this just happens.

yeah, i think it's an accidental studio effect - i don't hear it on the snare drum in the rest of the song, but there are a couple parts near the end (just before and after the final "she saaaaaaid" coda) where the cymbals almost sound reversed, and i do recognize that as something that happens when you beat the shit out of a cymbal that's way too close to an iphone, i mean microphone.

some of ringo's very best drumming on this song

an iphone, i mean microphone.

idgi

x-post:

I think Ringo himself has gone on record as saying 'Rain' is his finest drumming, but for me it's between 'She Said She Said' and 'Tomorrow Never Knows', really!

iphone/microphone

at the time i thought there was something interesting about how nowadays most people just use an iphone to record a practice sesh vs setting up a real microphone, but in the cold light of 22 minutes later, not so much!

turrican those two, along with ticket to ride, might make up my top 3 for ringo. he was really on a roll in 65/66

Recently noticed how crucial he is to ''Wait'' working at all as a song. Not flashy or anything, just really smart choices to inject interest into a below-average Lennon/McCartney product.

Ringo's my favorite player of the four by such a wide margin you can't even see the other three in the rearview.

My #1 is She Said She Said or For No One, depending on the day

I love "Wait" purely for that line..

"and I've been good, as good as I can be"

i.e. not very 'good' at all

Wasn't 'Wait' a Help! reject that ended up on Rubber Soul because they needed one more song?

^yes. one of Rubber Soul's many duds

btw thank you everyone for going in on this thread revive. question answered :)

Got to Get You into My Life 0
Good Day Sunshine 0
Taxman 0

scenes.

^yes. one of Rubber Soul's many duds

― flappy bird, Sunday, 30 October 2016 23:23 (yesterday) Permalink

lol burned rubber

Rubber Soul, why is it so burned and hated?

Oh, I bet it was a big hit back in 1965.

I think Ringo himself has gone on record as saying 'Rain' is his finest drumming, but for me it's between 'She Said She Said' and 'Tomorrow Never Knows', really!

for me it's always going to be the backing tracks to "Strawberry Fields Forever", especially that end bit with the multi percussion. it's at the one of one of the outtakes on Anthology 2 CD 2.

OK after 45 years listening to this album I have just realised that only two songs make it to three minutes - and then only just. I would have thought Tomorrow Never Knows was, like, nine minutes. Every song a world.

Otm

yup. i dug this and Rubber Soul out the other day and I was amazed that I managed to listen to them both in the space it took to cook, eat and wash-up my breakfast.

Eight of the fourteen under 2:30 and three more between 2:30 and 2:40.

The Overlanders in 1966: 'It's just mediocre [...] I'd be embarrassed to say that I had written some of the numbers on this LP."

"Revolver: it sucks" (Record Mirror, 3 Sept 1966) pic.twitter.com/D86CK0QlYK

— Bowiesongs (@bowiesongs) July 25, 2022

lol more like The Underlisteners

From wikipedia: Although they released twelve singles on the Pye record label between 1963 and 1966, the Overlanders' only British hit was a cover version of the Beatles' "Michelle."

I guess they would've preferred more "Michelle"-type songs.

"We haven't been in the charts of late"

The Popular Overlanders thread is quite lovely IIRC - a lot of them turn-up and it turns into an ongoing reunion where they trade reminisces of others and a different era.

after two decades of being way too cool for the Beatles I have started listening to Revolver and it's really fucking great!!!

(re Overlanders' complaint)Yeah, and the L.A. jazz saxophonist Bud Shank also had a lounge-y hit w "Michelle"(not one of the better Beatles ballads, for sure: I enjoyed Albert Finney's sarcastically intoning the tres Frawnch lyrics in Shoot The Moon), after which he too dissed the Bs, though he may have taken it back when he very eventually swore off the cocktails.
"Tomorrow Never Knows" totally deserves to toppermost this poll, though I'm surprised that "Taxman" gets 0: wry and poised,not stingy with the rockin', to say the least: on my imaginary Beatles playlist, it follows"TNK" in perfect counterweight: two heavy views of dues, equally real.
The original US Revolver appealed as something on the cusp and motorbike handlebars, wearing shades and a tie, on the way to and from high school: pop values, but slipping something else in there--especially dug the darker side of "She Said She Said," like notes passed in class, and high spirits x striving of "Good Day Sunshine" and "Got To Get You Into My Life," w final revelation-->intrigue of "Tomorrow..." Although this was US, so had to wait for "I'm Only Sleeping", "Doctor Robert" and "And Your Bird Can Sing" to appear on cobblefest Yesterday and Today with tracks left off American Help! and Rubber Soul, but resluts were cool, even groovy,in a raw collage-y way:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yesterday_and_Today Though this says that the CD version, which didn't come out 'til 2014, uses some UK mixes and so on, and might not hit me the same way, but that's okay. More of a loss from this era's experience were "Rain" and "Paperback Writer," highlights of Revolver sessions, but I had them on a single single, and eventually on cobbled Hey Jude, and def on aforementioned imaginary friend playlist.

I suppose they might have been left off both versions of the LP because some of their devices, the droniness and so on, were considered to make other tracks less distinctive, also I've read that back then the inclusion of hit singles on UK LPs was considered a waste of space or some shit. Early pop-rock LPs that were mainly a few hit singles and a lot of filler may have led to this idea of "reform," so pop-rock LPs could be as legit as jazz and classical albums.

Oh wow, how did I miss the Overlanders comments gold on Popular back in the day?? An absolute treasure.

this one, from a band member who left just a few months before those Revolver comments hit the stands, is quite interesting in this light: Take it from me as one of the original trio comprising Laurie Mason Peter Bartholomew and myself Paul Arnold Friswell and the first to leave in summer 1966, we had no delusions of grandeur and we didn`t think we were the greatest thing since sliced bread as many do today.

from the same: Michelle was our tenth single getting to No 1 Jan 1966.I don`t really give a monkeys what people think of it, its history, Getting to No 1 was my Mount Everest and I climbed it alongside some great people. right on.

another member reports: When we returned to England (I think, New Years day 1966.) all the music papers were giving the release of Michelle, rave reviews and none of us imagined that how our lives would change in the course of the next few weeks. Fantastic times: touring, radio, TV and meeting an unbelievable galaxy of stars. It was very disappointing not to have a follow up hit and it all started to come unglued from the middle of 1966.

also I've read that back then the inclusion of hit singles on UK LPs was considered a waste of space or some shit

except for their soundtrack albums, the beatles in particular were pretty strict about keeping their singles separate from their albums for most of their career. (which is why the "past masters" cds exist!)

Jeez come on guys

Got to Get You into My Life 0
I Want to Tell You 0
Good Day Sunshine 0
Taxman 0

except for their soundtrack albums, the beatles in particular were pretty strict about keeping their singles separate from their albums for most of their career. (which is why the "past masters" cds exist!)

Ha, contextually funny because they made their first exception to that rule with the Yellow Submarine/Eleanor Rigby double A-side. Why? to supposedly thwart any hit covers of Eleanor Rigby (a decision which likely doubles as a sly dig at the Overlanders' Michelle).

I think that exclusivity was mostly for the "lead" singles - I'm not sure what to call them because even though they're not on the forthcoming LP, they kind of promoted them as a preview of how they'd sound. Either that or the singles couldn't be on an LP before the single was released (only at the same time or after).

Or I should say, I always thought that exclusivity etc

another road where maybe
i could see another kind
of mind there

Was about to moan about the number of songs that got zero votes, only to see I’ve done it twice already.

Third time is the charm

Three times!

Got to Get You into My Life 0
Good Day Sunshine 0
Taxman 0

0__o

― piscesx, Sunday, January 4, 2015

---

Got to Get You into My Life 0
Good Day Sunshine 0
Taxman 0

scenes.

― piscesx, Monday, October 31, 2016

---

Jeez come on guys

Got to Get You into My Life 0
I Want to Tell You 0
Good Day Sunshine 0
Taxman 0

― piscesx, Monday, July 25, 2022

haha oh man.

Good Day Sunshine is Paul at his most unbearable. I agree that the other three got robbed though

agreed, perhaps my least favorite Beatles song

does anybody else really really love the “got to get you into my life” demo on anthology?

I don't mind "Good Day Sunshine." I'm not a fan of "Taxman." George Harrison grumbling about having to pay taxes drags it down. The Jam did use the bassline and guitar riff to good effect, though.

quite like Good Day Sunshine, even more so in the "Bad Night Moonlight" version by Peter Serafinowicz where he puts it into a minor key and changes all the lyrics "I need screams / and when the moon is out / I've got something you can scream about"

Got To Get You Into My Life is straight up magnificent