Revolver 41, Part 1

In this article we take a look at The Beatles' Revolver, which turned 40 last year. I started this last year, but then it got too long, and I got too tired, so I shelved it. I'm finishing it now finally, and bringing it out in four part. This one deals with the album's genesis, and talks about Paul McCartney's songs. Revolver...Now that's a name to conjure with. Before Sgt Pepper's, with this 1966 album, the Beatles had already made a bid for immortality. Even if they didn't put out another musical note after that, Revolver, coupled with Rubber Soul, would have preserved their myth. Probably the first batch of pop songs to deserve the epithet 'album', Revolver carried on the exploration of sonic frontiers that had started with Rubber Soul. By '66, the Beatles were happier recording in a studio than performing live. Following a torrid year of stadium shows, death threats, hectic politics and the ever-present wall of screams every time they went on stage had dimmed whatever desire they had of playing live. As George Harrison said countless times in latter interviews, there seemed to be a riot happenning in every city that they toured- be it the US, Japan or the Phillipines. Later that year John Lennon's "bigger than Jesus" quote was to lay bare the fine line between mass adulation and hatred. The record burnings in the predminantly white southern Christian evangelical states in the US channelled all the racial tensions on that one quote. It was a dangerous time to be playing in the States, with Civil Rights workers being killed every day and racial bigotry reaching new levels. The Beatles' outspoken critiques of racial segregation at their concerts on one hand and the Vietnam War on the other only added to the fragile situation. They played that entire tour in fear of a sniper in the massed audiences.The Klu Klux Klan threatened to stop their concerts using whatever means possible. This, after facing protests in Japan and the wrath of Imelda Marcos's dictatorial regime in the Phillipines, they were relieved when the last date of the US tour at Candlestick Park in San Francisco rolled around. As they revealed in Anthology, they even took pictures, knowing that this was it. Their personal lives were changing as well. The individuals were emerging from the 'four headed monster' that they were in the public conciousness. John Lennon spent more and more time in his Weybridge Mansion, tripping on acid and devouring everything from Allen Ginsberg to the I Ching and the Tibetan Book Of The Dead to Oscar Wilde. Paul McCartney was immersing himself in the London avant garde music scene, playing with tape loops and listening to John Cage and The Beach Boys. George Harrison married, and in between his honeymoon and being a Beatle, became more and more obsessed with Indian music and spirituality. Ringo Starr rested on his laurels, being a family man and raising his son. All of them were, of course, young stars about town, going from clubs like the Speakeasy to the Bag'O'Nails and partying with the who's who of London princes like Mick Jagger, Brian Jones, Eric Burdon, Keith Moon and Eric Clapton. Back in the Abbey Road studios before the final round of tours, under the watchful eyes of producer George Martin, they tried to distil everything happening around them into a coherent artistic docuent. The Beach Boys had recently released Pet Sounds. McCartney, for one, was keen to top that. Revolver showcases the full flowering of Macca's songwriting talents at the time. The cello-violin vibe of 'Eleanor Rigby' was a first. It did not sound like a rock song, more like Baroque meeting Pinter. The lyrics plumbed emotional depths unheard of within the contemporary two-minute pop format. 'I Want To Hold Your Hand' seemed like a generation away. Here was a song about a homeless woman and an ennui-ridden priest: "All the lonely people Where do they all belong?" His other songs were gems too. Even Lennon acknowledged the fact that his songwriting partner was writing the better songs. Formal experimentation is probably the best way to describe McCartney's songwriting at the time. There's the wistful paen to his girlfriend Jane Asher 'Here There and Everywhere'. A simple song with a very retro 1920's kind of arrangeent, it highlights McCartney's formidable melodic gifts. Its touching without being trite, one of the best love ongs he ever wrote. Then there's 'Good Day Sunshine' the quintessential Sixties sunshine pop song, with McCartney singing over swinging, swelling piano chords, "I need to laugh, when the sun is out I've got something I can laugh about" Macca revels in the tune and swamps the sound with reverb to ive it a decidedly bloated, foggy haze. As Ian McDonald talks of in his "Revolution in the Head", 'Good Day Sunshine' was probably the first of a number of songs in pop that year celebrating the summer of 1966, which had been a bright hot sunny one. (Hear The Kinks' 'Sunny Afternoonh'; The Stones' 'Paint It Black'; The Lovin' Spoonful's 'Daydream' among others.) Meanwhile McCartney had still not given in to Lennon and Harrison's enthusiasm for for LSD and his drug of choice was still marijuana. His homage to grass- 'Got To Get You Into My Life' is another highlight on the album. He sings joyously and raucously about his new-found love, " Ooh, when suddenly I see you Ooh I was meant to be near you Say we'll be together everyday Got to get you into my life" Macca always approached drugs expecting profundity. When he smoked his first joint-rolled by Bob Dylan- he decided that he had found the answer to life, the universe and everything- "there are seven levels", he wrote on a scrap of paper. This song is a homage to a love that has lasted him these 40 years. It was also his homage to his other great love- Motown. Like the other three, McCartney was smitten by Americn R&B acts like Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, The Marvelletes, Marth and the Vandellas, Marvin Gaye etc. The loud bouncy bass emulating the sound Motown sessions man James Jamerson was getting out of his instrument, the horns and the high soul vocals are pure Motown. Even Ringo's little backbeat was as crip as 'Dancing In The Street'. And then there's 'For No One', probably one of his most affecting compositions. A poignant love song about absence and loss, McCartney uses his limited knowledge of the piano and turns out a confident descending C progression (being a bass player primarily, McCartney's melodic idea seems plausible) and a beautiful solo by London Philaharmonic trumpetist Alan Civil.