In the studio
The Beatles' previous album, Rubber Soul, had seen them exploring R&B and folk stylings. Revolver took this further, bringing in influences such as Motown, classical Indian music and children's songs, in addition to orchestral instrumentation and elements of musique concrète.
Revolver was accepted well. I don't see too much different between Rubber Soul and Revolver. To me, they could be Volume One and Volume Two.
Anthology
There were four main sonic innovations on Revolver. The first of these was the use of artificial double tracking, or ADT. This was invented by EMI engineer Ken Townsend in April 1966, and involved linking two tape machines to create a doubled vocal track. Due to minute differences in playback, the two recordings would separate slightly, giving the effect of two voices when combined.
ADT was used extensively on Revolver, and quickly became an established pop production technique. John Lennon, in particular, was delighted with the invention, as he always found manually double-tracking his vocals a laborious process, and George Harrison reportedly told Townsend he should have been given a medal for creating it.
John Lennon - never the most technically-minded of musicians - once asked George Martin to explain how ADT worked.
I knew he'd never understand it, so I said 'Now listen, it's very simple. We take the original image and we split it through a double vibrocated sploshing flange with double negative feedback...' He said 'You're pulling my leg. Aren't you?' I replied 'Well, let's flange it again and see'. From that moment on, whenever he wanted ADT he would ask for his voice to be flanged, or call out for 'Ken's flanger.'
The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions, Mark Lewisohn
A by-product of ADT was the ability to speed up and slow down recordings via a dedicated oscillator. The Beatles found that varispeeding a recording changed the texture of sound, which they put to extensive use during the Revolver sessions.
The second key innovation was the use of backwards recording. This had actually been first used in a non-Revolver song, Rain, the b-side of Paperback Writer. The backwards vocals which ended Rain were recorded on 14 April 1966.
Revolver very rapidly became the album where the Beatles would say 'OK, that sounds great, now let's play it backwards or speeded up or slowed down'. They tried everything backwards, just to see what things sounded like.
The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions, Mark Lewisohn
Two songs on Revolver featured backwards recordings: I'm Only Sleeping and Tomorrow Never Knows. While the latter predominantly used tape loops, I'm Only Sleeping saw The Beatles spend six hours creating the two simultaneous backwards lead guitar parts. These were recorded on 5 May 1966.
Of all the songs on Revolver, none was more innovative than the album's closing song, Tomorrow Never Knows. The song was a giant leap forward for The Beatles, with its thunderous drum sound, lyrics adapted from Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert's adaptation of the Tibetan Book of the Dead, use of tape loops and Leslie speakers.
The tape loops were overlaid onto the backing track. Six loops were used on Tomorrow Never Knows: a seagull noise, actually a distorted recording of Paul McCartney laughing; an orchestra playing a B flat chord; notes played on a Mellotron's flute setting; a second Mellotron on its violin setting; and a distorted sitar which is most clearly heard in the instrumental break following the lines "It is being, it is being". A guitar solo by McCartney, reversed and slowed down a tone, was also used in the instrumental break.
The final remarkable innovation in Tomorrow Never Knows was John Lennon's voice. For the first half of the song he manually double-tracked his vocals. For the song's second half, meanwhile, the Abbey Road engineers ran Lennon's voice through a revolving Leslie speaker, more commonly found inside Hammond organs. It can be heard from the line 'Love is all and love is everyone' onwards.
Lennon had an idea of how he wanted the song to sound, but it was down to George Martin and the studio engineers to realise the vision. Chief among the EMI Studios staff was Geoff Emerick, the young engineer who played a crucial role in developing The Beatles' sound between 1966 and 1968.
For Tomorrow Never Knows he said to me he wanted his voice to sound like the Dalai Lama chanting from a hilltop, and I said, 'It's a bit expensive, going to Tibet. Can we make do with it here?' I knew perfectly well that ordinary echo or reverb wouldn't work, because it would just put a very distant voice on. We needed to have something a bit weird and metallic...A Leslie speaker is a rotating speaker, a Hammond console, and the speed at which it rotates can be varied according to a knob on the control. By putting his voice through that and then recoding it again, you got a kind of intermittent vibrato effect, which is what we hear on Tomorrow Never Knows. I don't think anyone had done that before. It was quite a revolutionary track for Revolver.
Anthology
The title
Revolver was named after the motion of a vinyl record as it was played, although there is an obvious double meaning which pleased the group.
It's just a name for an LP, and there's no meaning to it. Why does everyone want a reason every time you move? It means Revolver. It's all the things that Revolver means, because that's what it means to us. Revolver and all the things we could think of to go with it.
The Beatles had some trouble settling on a name; their original title was Abracadabra, though this was later discarded.
Revolver did not mean a gun, but something that revolves, like a record. Johnny Dean, editor of Beatles Monthly, was with them on the night of 24 June 1966 in a Munich hotel room when they named the latter. At first they had all four wanted to call it Abracadabra, but someone had already used it. Pendulums and Fat Man and Bobby were other ideas. Ringo suggested having a joke with the Rolling Stones by calling it After Geography since the Stones had just done Aftermath! John proposed Beatles on Safari and Paul came up with Magic Circle. John changed this to Four Sides of the Circle and Four Sides of the Eternal Triangle, which somehow led them to Revolver.
Many Years From Now
Probably their most consistently great album (every song is great.) I actually prefer The White Album & Sgt. Pepper but I can understand why a lot of people think Revolver is their best.
The album is, for the most part, consistently great. However, Yellow Submarine kinda soils its perfection. Revolver is not their most consistently great. I'd give that title to Abbey Road.
Revolver has "Yellow Submarine", Abbey Road has "Octopus's Garden", both are undersea songs sung by Ringo. YS is a fine song with a catchy chorus. It's actually the best sing-along track on Revolver, a song people can sing together. But it also helped pave the way for the sound effects of Sgt. Pepper. It just adds to the album's diversity and gives Ringo a chance to contribute vocally. It's to the Beatles' great credit that they gave Ringo at least one song on all their albums (except A Hard Day's Night and Let It Be).
Let me also add that "Yellow Submarine" was the only Revolver song I was familiar with as a boy growing up in India in the 60s. I didn't know about the album at all. The song was popular in India, at least in Bombay where I lived. Another song considered a throwaway, "Obladi-Oblada", was also very popular - probably no one knew any other White Album track. The fact is that both "Yellow Sub" and "Obladi" are fun songs. Nothing wrong with that.
Revolver is the best, but not far behind in my opinion is Abbey Road, Rubber Soul and the White Album. Sgt. Pepper is great just because of the impact that it had, but Revolver was an absolute great album. If you want to go to school, listen to Revolver.
My favorite album. Revolver shot me gently when i am hearing it...
Is the perfect album for play it in a sunny day, song by song.. Whit a couple of beers and maybe some weed.
I love it... Thanks Beatles!
Who was George Martin talking to in his first quote on the second page? John, George, or someone else?
I should have made that clearer. That was George M talking about John. I'll clarify the section now.
One of my favorites simply for the Harrison song "Taxman". All the songs are amazing but that one takes the gold medal in my opinion! I've read that Harrison had written "The Art of Dying" from his first solo record during this year of their career. He was obviously coming into his own as a composer at this time. The only fault of The Beatles in my opinion was not including more of Harrison's songs on each album.
For this particular album, the Beatles didn't have any more time for more recording even if there were more songs that were ready. They were back on the road again.
They began their tour of Germany and the Far East almost immediately after Revolver was finished.
Phil Collins called Revolver the album that everyone else is still trying to make.
The same Phil Collins who ruined "Tomorrow Never Knows"?
Yeah, the very same who obviously tried to pay them respect.
It's not his fault nobody else ever was and is capable of pulling off something as insanely cool as TKK.
... boggling that someone is citing Phil Collins in an homage to The Beatles. Or do we next get to find out what Cliff Richard has to say on the subject ;o)
I think the point is that it's a remarkably apt quote, no matter who said it. I'm going to go out on a limb and say robert is not necessarily a raving Phil Collins fan. (Who isn't, though, really?)
No, I'm not a raving Phil Collins fan - nontheless you can't deny his success musically - so I think he has standing to make the statement, regardless of whether one likes his music or not.
Plus Phil did have a role in A Hard Days Night - anybody here know that?
If you want to talk about Phil Collins, please head to the forum. Let's keep this page for discussions about Revolver.
His role in A Hard Day's Night was a 14 year old audiance member nothing more.
yes - he needs to try harder!
Personally I wasn't convinced by that cover either.
But - he DID cover TNK and NOT, say "Lucy in the sky" or "Here, there and everywhere" or "Help" or something as obvious. He tried and covered their most progressive song ever.
Respect, Phil, for that!
maybe he should have done Yesterday
Maybe Phil should have just left the Beatles alone, or cover a Ringo track since he was after all a drummer. I can hear him now singing, 'I'm sorry that I doubted you, I was so unfair. You were in a car crash, and you lost your hair.'
The original U.S. version of this does not have enough Lennon songs. The "Butchers" did him wrong.
It´s a great album, very very good, Eleanor Rigby, For No One, here there and everywhere, i´m only sleeping, she said she said, tomorrow never knows, and your bird can sing, good day sunshine, got to get you into my life, all excelent songs, and similar songs, songs that fit with each other, amazing album
Great album. Includes some of the best pure pop ever recorded (Good day Sunshine etc...) to the psychedelic brilliance of Tomorrow Never Knows.
Macca was right- "they will never be able to copy this"
I think that it was important that they were still touring when this was made; part of secret is that they are a band and not a few song writers treating the other band members like session players.
Great album and their best up to that point but I've always found this album a bit overrated amoung Beatles fans who rate it the best Beatles album ever. To me there seems to be a fair amount of "filler" on it. I don't particularly think George's songs are the best. Even Taxman gets a bit monotonous after awhile. The albums that came after Revolver are better in my opinion. Still a great album though.
I prefer Revolver to Sgt. Pepper's. George is my favorite Beatle, and he is extensively involved on Revolver (especially when compared to his seemingly disinterested and limited role on Pepper). However, I have never been a fan of Harrison's Love You To. I wish they had recorded and included Isn't It A Pity (which George later noted was available but rejected by John) as George's third track for Revolver. Love You To could have been held over for Yellow Submarine or some later B-side. George's guitar work on Revolver is fantastic. He also had prominent backing vocals on much of the LP (Eleanor Rigby, Yellow Sub, She Said She Said, And Your Bird Can Sing). Great stuff.
I have to agree - overrated. For me, side 2 drags after the brilliance of side 1. For No One/Doctor Robert/I Want To Tell You are among the most uninspired tracks they ever laid done. Redeemed by Tomorrow Never Knows at the end (although more for the effects than the tune, which is not the strongest... probably better rendered by the Pink Fairies, really).
Well, for me (and not only for me) this is the strongest song collection of ALL Beatles albums.
They never had many fillers at all, in contrast to ALL other Rock groups, but Revolver is strong from start to finish.
The only song that I personally find weak is "I want to tell you", but it still fits in nicely.
All these fantastic guitar sounds - there's no britpop album that doesn't quote the Revolver guitars or John's vocals from She said, she said.
No, there's not a single letdown on this album. Pure brilliance.
Sgt. Peppers had more impact and even more creative and versatile and innovative in the studio and production-wise, but Revolver has the highest and most consistent song quality of all Beatles albums.
The Beatles best album. Period. Many people (critics, publications, etc.) are coming around to this. Pepper, while great, hasn't dated nearly as well as this gem.
I was confused that on the Taxman and Tomorrow Never Knows page you seem to strongly suggest that the guitar in the tape loop of TKK is not the from the exact solo used in Taxman...but on this page for the album you seem to imply or say that it is. Did you mean to edit this or did you post this article first before realizing that you do not believe it is from Taxman?
Yep, the latter. Thanks for pointing it out. I've corrected the article now.
I think this album is quite overrated. Yeah many songs are great but I think all John songs except and your bird can sing are absolutly terrible
GeorgeT - you're just wrong
You can't be serious.
She said, she said and I'm only sleeping are the basic formula practically every brit-pop band tried to follow.
Tomorrow never knows is their most progressive song ever and easily my favourite Beatles song.
Dr. Robert is also great, especially for the guitar sound and the backing vocals, especially in the middle eight.
This album can't be overrated, it's every Beatle at the top of their game.
Strongest song collection on any Beatles album, or ANY album!?
Madness
Interesting comment about the Beatles being without a contract when 'Revolver' was recorded.
EMI milked the Beatles but Brian Epstein was the main culprit...He cost them MILLIONS with bad deals in merchandising and song publishing probably thru ignorance...However, the group maintained a loyalty.
Apparently, Epstein was a repeated blackmail victim because of his sexuality and this led to heavy drug use, gambling and constantly putting himself into compromised positions.
I think "Rain" should have been on this album.
great album. paul was versatile in his songs from here, there and everywhere, eleanor rigby and got to get you into my life. john was into psychedelic like tomorrow never knows and she said she said. george indian music was far superior.
In your description of Eleanor Rigby's recording technique you say that the strings were recorded without reverberation. That perhaps is true, but the notable distinction here is that the musicians were instructed to refrain form playing with vibrato, which is a playing technique the produces a slight rhythmic variation in the pitch of the note by rocking the finger against the string on the fingerboard. Paul had wanted the sound to be as flat as possible to add to the somber tone of the song. I can't quote my source exactly, but it may have come from Wikipedia. And to the comment on the quality of string players in the US in 1966 being inadequate to play for ER, that's laughable. It's not that complex a score and a highly skilled high school (yes, from the US) octet could easily cover it.
Yes, there is no reverb, but there is vibrato and plenty of it in Eleanor Rigby. I cannot believe Sir Paul said that about string players in the US. Of course back then he wasn't Sir Paul. I bet he regrets that comment. Hell, I was in high school then and could have handled the string writing, easily. Plus I was available!
People from today should not be allowed to comment on or in any way rate the Beatles,.. There is a cut off in time where certain people are banned from even thinking about the Beatles. You 'have' to be born in or before the 1960's to know about the Beatles ,...or the early 70's at the absolute Latest my friend ! Otherwise you would know that 'Beatles For Sale" is one of their BEST ! 'Baby's in Black', "I'm a Loser", "Every little thing" , I don't want to spoil the party, etc,.. it's almost as good as Rubber Soul ,.. 'Real" knowledgeable Beatle Fans know this ,.. and we also know from 1977 when we were 12 that Revolver is WACK ! Atleast compared to their better shit !
The Good :
Eleanor Rigby
Taxman
Yellow Submarine
I want to tell you
She Said She Said
And Your bird can sing
Tomorrow never knows
the bad;
Doctor Robert
GTGYIML
I'm Only sleeping
Love you to
the horrible;
Here, there, and everywhere
For no one
Good Day sunshine
What a pretentious, closed minded thing for someone to say. I was born in 1993, and I ADORE the Beatles. I think everyone should love them, regardless of their age.
Revolver is a fantastic, innovative, ground breaking album and should be treated as such. It's not my favorite by any means, but it is certainly more mature than Beatles for sale. In nearly every way.
If people born in the 1970s or later weren't allowed to comment on The Beatles, this site would not exist. Anyway, if you were born in 1965 ("1977 when we were 12") I'm not sure why you're even commenting on Beatles For Sale. It's before your time.
Then again, if you think For No One and Here, There And Everywhere are horrible, there's probably no hope for you.
One of the more idiotic postings I've seen. "Only people who are my approximate age and arbitrarily rank their albums similarly to myself are 'real' Beatle fans!" Maybe people born before the early 70s shouldn't be allowed to use the internet?
Two remarks:
1. Substitute "yellow Submarine" with "RAIN" and you have the best album EVER. The drumming in Rain is simply amazing.
2. G.e's remarks are incomprehensible. I can understand that some people don't like a song or a voice or part of the lyrics, but saying that "For No One" is horrible and "Got to Get you Into my Life" is bad, is really to ridiculous for words.
G.e's four 'bad' songs are actually some of my favorites on revolver
The fantasy for me has been to cull Rubber Soul, Revolver & Sgt Pepper of the two least impressive tracks and replace them respectively with the double A-side singles released around the same time (or four months before in the case of Pepper with 'Strawberry Fields' / 'Penny Lane' - which to George Martin's everlasting regret he took out of the Pepper line up to assuage Epstein's need for a single at the time - to keep them in the public's mind).
With regards to Revolver, I have always rationalised that 'Rain' would come in for ''Yellow Submarine' and 'Paperback Writer' would replace 'I Want to Tell You' (though not necesarily in the same positions on the record). By doing so, I think you would have the most perfect collection of pop music distilled into a single album (just hair's breath in front of Sgt Pepper with 'Strawberry Fields' replacing 'She's Leaving Home' and 'Penny Lane' replacing 'When I'm 64').
That aside, Revolver is the best sunny afternoon of your life converted into music (that is the brilliance of it for me, just put it on and it takes you there everytime).
It also contains my two favourite Beatles songs of all time 'She Said, She Said' & 'And Your Bird Can Sing' (John was on an incredible roll at the time no doubt due to wanting to keep one step ahead of both Paul and Dylan - Brian Wilson didn't figure in John's universe from what I understand).
Then to complete things, Klaus Voormann picks up the vibe and illustrates it via the cover and the back contains the coolest photographic representation of the fab four ever. Perfection and to think it is 46 years old!
You must be joking regarding Pepper? Surely? 'She's Leaving Home' and 'When I'm 64' dropped? And 'Good Morning, Good Morning' survives? Don't be daft.
To Rod: I (sort of) agree, 'Rain' and 'Paperback Writer' on Revolver would have been fantastic, but replacing 'Yellow Submarine' and 'I Want To Tell You'? Never. 'Love You To' could go, and maybe 'Dr Robert' at a push. As for Pepper, 'Strawberry Fields' and 'Penny Lane' would certainly have made this pop perfection regarding the collection of songs, but not by replacing 'She's Leaving Home' and 'When I'm 64' - both superb tracks (you've obviously got a Macca problem). No, 'Good Morning, Good Morning' would have to go, I'm afraid. Not crap, but not good either. The Move or The Kinks could have done better on that particular track, methinks.
Take out "Yellow Submarine", sustitute "Rain" for it and one of the greatest albums ever recorded is finished (in my humble opinion of course).