Forty five
years ago (August 5, 1966) today, the Beatles released the album Revolver. It was their sixth studio
album, eagerly awaited by millions of fans, and topped, inevitably, the album
charts in both the UK and
the USA
There is a
convention in rock history to regard the musical history of the Beatles as
falling into two periods; the first from 1962 to 1966, from their first album, Please Please Me to Revolver; and the second from Sgt.
Pepper to the break-up of the group in 1970. This division has much to do
with the release of the two compilation double albums in 1973; 1962-1966 (The “Red” Album) and 1967-1970 (The "Blue" Album). For my
generation, those who were children in the sixties and only really registered
the Fab Four in their last years, or after their break-up, these were
frequently among the first albums we bought – a chance to get the best of the
greatest rock group ever and to spend long teenage afternoons listening to the
songs again and again, mourning over the group’s breakup, apportioning blame
for the same (with Yoko usually occupying the role of prime villainess) and
speculating about the chances of a reunion.
The
convention is strengthened by the accepted wisdom which acclaims Sgt Pepper as the greatest Beatles
album, with everything before leading up to it and everything following as part
of the long disintegration period leading to the ultimate break-up of the
group. And there is certainly some validity in this view. Sgt Pepper is a magnificent album and encapsulates the Zeitgeist of the Summer of Love better
than anything else which happened in 1967. 1966 saw the Beatles do their last
live tour and their guiding mentor and manager, Brian Epstein (the “fifth
Beatle”), died in August 1967. Looking back, John Lennon saw this event as the
beginning of the end of the group, "I knew that we were in trouble then.
... I thought, we've fuckin' had it now."
But in
August 1966, when Revolver was
released, this was all still in the future and – despite all the growing
pressure the group was under, particularly through touring – they were at their
creative best. Lennon and McCartney were expanding in their musical maturity
and sophistication, still working easily together, each taking the other’s
ideas and mutually adding touches of refinement and genius, interacting
instinctively with their producer, George Martin. The rivalry, which was always
part of their relationship, had not yet reached the stage where it had started
to poison things between them. Harrison was
growing into his self-confidence as a musician and composer in his own right
and Ringo was … well, Ringo was happy.
With all
this in mind, I would like to suggest a different model for viewing the work
and history of the Beatles between 1962 and 1970 (leaving aside the earlier Quarrymen and Hamburg period), divided
into three periods; the Boy Group period, from Love Me Do to the film and album Help!, their harmonic peak of creativity and genius, where
everything came together, Rubber Soul,
Revolver and Sgt Pepper, and the long period of increasing rancour and break-up
from 1968 to 1970[*].
Against
this background, then, Revolver becomes
part of a triptych of albums. Following this artistic image, I would see Sgt Pepper as the central part of the
picture with Rubber Soul (characterised
by folk-rock influences) and Revolver (a
stronger emphasis on electric-rock) forming the two framing elements.
However you
want to see Revolver in the overall
context of the musical history of the Beatles, you cannot deny that it is a
wonderful album which stands the test of forty five years very well. From the
opening sarcastic Taxman to the
psychedelic final Tomorrow Never Knows
it is a creative tour de force, which
becomes even more evident when compared with an album like A Hard Day’s Night, released only two years earlier. This is not to
knock AHDN, which is a fine pop album
with many very good songs – nevertheless, the albums are musically light-years
apart and the contrast shows just how much the group has grown in this period.
The Beatles
were controversial in the latter half of the sixties because of their drug use –
Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds often
being given as an example of a description of an LSD trip. While I have never
really accepted the rather disingenuous denials of various members of the group
regarding this, publicly they have been much more open about the effects of
drugs on the creation of the songs on Revolver.
Doctor Robert is about a fantasy
doctor who cures his patients with drugs, McCartney has described Got To Get You Into My Life as “actually an ode to pot”, and confirms that Tomorrow Never Knows is about LSD trip. Shortly
before his death, Lennon told how She Said She Said originated
“That was written after an acid trip in L.A.
I would
like to say that I remember the release of Revolver
as a significant event but I was only six years old and Bonanza, F Troop and, above all, Batman,
were much more important to me at the time. But Revolver even had something for kids too and, certainly not later
than 1967, if my memory serves me correctly, I remember singing Yellow Submarine with my friends. I
certainly didn’t know it was from the album Revolver,
I may not even have known it was by the Beatles, but one thing I did know … it was a cool song!
[*] In terms of albums, I would see the first clear signs
of a lack of coherence as a group in The
White Album. For Beatles purist fans, Magical
Mystery Tour then becomes a possible subject of controversy as to which
period it should be categorised under. Personally, I’ve always been inclined to
see MMT as a sort of seamless
continuation of Sgt Pepper – a coda,
if you will, still following and utilising the wave of creativity which that
album generated.
Pictures retrieved from:
45 years? Jesus does time fly... Okay I was just three when it was released so I have no memory of the occasion at all!
ReplyDeleteMy favourite musician Robyn Hitchcock does several benefits a year for Medecins sans frontieres at a pub in Clerkenwell.
The next one is at the end of the month. He always covers a classic album at these concerts' This time its Revolver.
I love the finger snaps about two minutes into this song. :-)
ReplyDeleteStrange, isn't it, how our lives and memories link us to trivial external things such as songs or groups and how different we experience them. I'm a total 80s-geek, see. Give me Kim Wilde, Cindy Lauper, Duran Duran, and I'll go berserk anytime with glee. But to me, the Beatles will forever be connected to the image of pious Catholic Austrian youngsters sitting round a campfire with the priest, one playing the guitar, and all together singing "Let It Be". I do recognize that they had some sort of musical genius; yet it has always been lost on me. Whereas there's hardly no genial trait in songs like Samantha Fox's "Touch Me" or FR David's "Words", yet they speak to me. A question of different generations?
ReplyDeleteYou're right the Beatles seem so iconic of an entire era. So much so that for most of my teenage years I thought that John Lennon was shot shortly after the band broke-up. It just seemed to fit with my impression of the 60s and the Beatles as being synonyms for the same thing.
ReplyDeleteWe've gone a long way backwards since Revolver. London, burning tonight, is just not the same place. The riots seem to be spreading. Music lost its soul - maybe we have too.
ReplyDeleteI should remember. I know nothing. I'm French Canadian. It was not my type of music. I was deep in the Classics at that period. The Canadian Glenn Gould, but also the Canadian Leonard Cohen, all my life. My husband (now ex), a British-Irish Navy guy from Liverpool, had been exposed to New Orleans Jazz, and listened to nothing else. The Beatles were from another planet for us. No snobism there. I appreciated the drummer because of the rhythm, but words, melody and popularity eluded me. Call it ignorance, indifference, out of tune...Whatever! So many people feel the same way about J.S.Bach. Don't they?
ReplyDeleteInteresting Essay, very informative. As always!