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 - including a reversal of McCartney's guitar solo on Taxman - 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. Five 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". Part of McCartney's guitar solo for Taxman, 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 it was treated with artificial double tracking, or ADT, which involved duplicating the sound of a vocal track with minute changes in pitch, to give the effect of two voices.
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
Related articles:
- Recording: Tomorrow Never Knows, Got To Get You Into My Life
- Recording: Taxman, Tomorrow Never Knows
- Recording: Tomorrow Never Knows
- Tomorrow Never Knows
- Recording, mixing: Revolution 1
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.
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.
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.
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.