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Although Martin once pointed to [[Bernard Herrmann]]'s score for ''[[Fahrenheit 451 (1966 film)|Fahrenheit 451]]'' as inspiration for the string arrangement, the film was not released until several months after the recording; Martin later stated he was thinking of Herrmann's score for ''[[Psycho (1960 film)|Psycho]]''.{{Sfn|Ryan|Kehew|2006}} The [[Dynamic range compression|compression]] and lack of [[reverberation]] given to the strings provides a stark, urgent sound that complements Martin's arrangement.
Although Martin once pointed to [[Bernard Herrmann]]'s score for ''[[Fahrenheit 451 (1966 film)|Fahrenheit 451]]'' as inspiration for the string arrangement, the film was not released until several months after the recording; Martin later stated he was thinking of Herrmann's score for ''[[Psycho (1960 film)|Psycho]]''.{{Sfn|Ryan|Kehew|2006}} The [[Dynamic range compression|compression]] and lack of [[reverberation]] given to the strings provides a stark, urgent sound that complements Martin's arrangement.


McCartney originated the song and the name, rejecting his initial choice, "Daisy Hawkins,"{{Sfn|Gilliland|1969|loc=show 39, track 2}} in favour of a name derived from The Beatles' ''[[Help! (film)|Help!]]'' costar [[Eleanor Bron]] and Rigby & Evens, a wine shop McCartney noticed in Bristol. The fact that an actual person named Eleanor Rigby is buried in Liverpool's Woolton Cemetery is a bizarre coincidence. McCartney initially named the clergyman Father McCartney, but changed it out of concern that the character could be misinterpreted as being the writer's father.{{Sfn|Beatles Interview Database|2007}}
McCartney originated the song and the name, rejecting his initial choice, "Daisy Hawkins,"{{Sfn|Gilliland|1969|loc=show 39, track 2}} in favour of a name derived from The Beatles' ''[[Help! (film)|Help!]]'' costar [[Eleanor Bron]] and Rigby & Evens, a wine shop McCartney noticed in Bristol. McCartney initially named the clergyman Father McCartney, but changed it out of concern that the character could be misinterpreted as being the writer's father.{{Sfn|Beatles Interview Database|2007}}


"Eleanor Rigby" is one of the few songs with lyric contributions from all four Beatles. John Lennon laid claim to "40 percent" of the lyrics (which was later disputed), including the line "Wearing a face that she keeps in the jar by the door", though those present at the writing dispute Lennon's claim. Ringo Starr contributed the line "Father McKenzie, writing the words of a sermon that no-one will hear",{{Sfn|BBC News|2004}} and George Harrison provided the "Ah, look at all the lonely people" hook.
"Eleanor Rigby" is one of the few songs with lyric contributions from all four Beatles. John Lennon laid claim to "40 percent" of the lyrics (which was later disputed), including the line "Wearing a face that she keeps in the jar by the door", though those present at the writing dispute Lennon's claim. Ringo Starr contributed the line "Father McKenzie, writing the words of a sermon that no-one will hear",{{Sfn|BBC News|2004}} and George Harrison provided the "Ah, look at all the lonely people" hook.

The fact that an actual person named Eleanor Rigby is buried St.Peter Church Cemetery, in Liverpool's Woolton, yards from where John Lennon and Paul McCartney met for the first time, is a bizarre co-incidence. Also bizarrely, the real Eleanor Rigby lived a lonely life similar to that of the person in the song.<re>http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1088454/REVEALED-The-haunting-life-story-pops-famous-songs--Eleanor-Rigby.html is a bizarre coincidence.</ref>


"Eleanor Rigby" was released as a double A-side (with "[[Yellow Submarine (song)|Yellow Submarine]]") concurrently with the album.
"Eleanor Rigby" was released as a double A-side (with "[[Yellow Submarine (song)|Yellow Submarine]]") concurrently with the album.

Revision as of 12:47, 20 June 2012

This article is about the Beatles album. For other albums of the same name, see Revolver (disambiguation).

Untitled

Revolver is the seventh studio album by the English rock band The Beatles, released on 5 August 1966 on the Parlophone label and produced by George Martin. Many of the tracks on Revolver are marked by an electric guitar-rock sound, in contrast with their previous LP, the folk rock inspired Rubber Soul (1965). In Britain, the fourteen tracks from Revolver were released to radio stations throughout July 1966, "building anticipation for what would clearly be a radical new phase in the group's recording career".[1]

It reached number one on both the British chart and American chart and stayed at the top spot for seven weeks and six weeks, respectively. The album was remastered 9 September 2009 for the first time since its 1987 digital compact disc release. Placed at number 1 in the All-Time Top 1000 Albums and number 3 in the Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time,[2] the album is often regarded as one of the greatest achievements in music history and one of The Beatles' greatest studio achievements.[3][4]

Music

Diversity and innovation in the studio

"Eleanor Rigby"

Main article: Eleanor Rigby

"Eleanor Rigby" combines Paul McCartney's brand of lyrical imagery with a string octet (a conventional string quartet, doubled) arranged by George Martin under McCartney's direction. Both the lyrics and arrangement are a major departure from The Beatles' prior output.

Although Martin once pointed to Bernard Herrmann's score for Fahrenheit 451 as inspiration for the string arrangement, the film was not released until several months after the recording; Martin later stated he was thinking of Herrmann's score for Psycho.[5] The compression and lack of reverberation given to the strings provides a stark, urgent sound that complements Martin's arrangement.

McCartney originated the song and the name, rejecting his initial choice, "Daisy Hawkins,"[6] in favour of a name derived from The Beatles' Help! costar Eleanor Bron and Rigby & Evens, a wine shop McCartney noticed in Bristol. McCartney initially named the clergyman Father McCartney, but changed it out of concern that the character could be misinterpreted as being the writer's father.[7]

"Eleanor Rigby" is one of the few songs with lyric contributions from all four Beatles. John Lennon laid claim to "40 percent" of the lyrics (which was later disputed), including the line "Wearing a face that she keeps in the jar by the door", though those present at the writing dispute Lennon's claim. Ringo Starr contributed the line "Father McKenzie, writing the words of a sermon that no-one will hear",[8] and George Harrison provided the "Ah, look at all the lonely people" hook.

The fact that an actual person named Eleanor Rigby is buried St.Peter Church Cemetery, in Liverpool's Woolton, yards from where John Lennon and Paul McCartney met for the first time, is a bizarre co-incidence. Also bizarrely, the real Eleanor Rigby lived a lonely life similar to that of the person in the song.<re>http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1088454/REVEALED-The-haunting-life-story-pops-famous-songs--Eleanor-Rigby.html is a bizarre coincidence.</ref>

"Eleanor Rigby" was released as a double A-side (with "Yellow Submarine") concurrently with the album.

"Tomorrow Never Knows"

Main article: Tomorrow Never Knows

The Beatles' unfolding innovation in the recording studio reached its apex with the album's final track. Lennon's "Tomorrow Never Knows" was one of the first songs in the emerging genre of psychedelic music,[9] and included such groundbreaking techniques as reverse guitar, processed vocals and looped tape effects. Musically, it is drone-like, with a strongly syncopated, repetitive drum-beat played over a single chord. The lyrics were inspired by Timothy Leary's book, The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on The Tibetan Book of the Dead, although the title itself was inspired by a Ringo Starr malapropism.[10]

Much of the backing track consists of a series of prepared tape loops, stemming from Lennon's and McCartney's interest in and experiments with magnetic tape and musique concrète techniques at that time. According to The Beatles' session chronicler Mark Lewisohn,[11] Lennon and McCartney prepared a series of loops at home, and these then were added to the pre-recorded backing track. This was reportedly done live in a single take, with multiple tape recorders running simultaneously, some of the longer loops extending out of the control room and down the corridor.

Lennon's processed lead vocal was another innovation. Always in search of ways to enhance or alter the sound of his voice, he gave a directive to EMI engineer Geoff Emerick that he wanted to sound like he was the Dalai Lama singing from the top of a high mountain.[12] Emerick solved the problem by routing a signal from the recording console into the studio's Leslie speaker, giving Lennon's vocal its ethereal, filtered quality (Emerick was later reprimanded by the studio's management for doing this).

A key production technique used for the first time on this album was automatic double tracking (ADT), invented by EMI engineer Ken Townsend on 6 April 1966. This technique used two linked tape recorders to automatically create a doubled vocal track. The standard method was to double the vocal by singing the same piece twice onto a multitrack tape, a task Lennon particularly disliked. The Beatles were reportedly delighted with the invention, and used it extensively on Revolver. ADT quickly became a standard pop production technique, and led to related developments, including the artificial chorus effect.

Contributions and inspirations

Lennon's other contributions included "I'm Only Sleeping", "And Your Bird Can Sing", "She Said She Said" and "Doctor Robert".

On "I'm Only Sleeping", Harrison played the notes for the lead guitar (and for the second guitar in the solo) in reverse order, then reversed the tape and mixed it in. The backwards guitar sound has been said to "suspend the laws of time and motion to simulate the half-coherence of the state between wakefulness and sleep".[13] The backwards guitar is mixed slightly differently on the American version, which is not included on the American Revolver but on The Beatles Yesterday and Today.

According to Lennon, some of the lyrics of "She Said She Said" were taken almost verbatim from a conversation he had with actor Peter Fonda in August 1965, while he (Lennon), Harrison and Starr were under the influence of LSD at their rented house in Benedict Canyon (in Beverly Hills, California). During a conversation, Fonda said "I know what it's like to be dead," because as a boy he had almost died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.[14]

McCartney's "Got to Get You into My Life" was influenced by the Motown Sound[15] and used brass instrumentation extensively. Although cast in the form of a love song, McCartney described the song as an "ode to pot".[16] It was released as a single in the US in 1976, ten years after Revolver, to promote the compilation album Rock 'n' Roll Music on which it appeared. (The vocal in the fade out at the end of the song is different on the mono version than on the stereo version. The last text line "What are you doing to my life?" can only be heard on the mono version).[citation needed] McCartney mentioned in the 1989 radio series McCartney on McCartney that "Here, There and Everywhere" was inspired by the Beach Boys.[17]

McCartney also contributed "Good Day Sunshine", "Yellow Submarine" and "For No One", a melancholy song featuring him playing clavichord and a horn solo played by Alan Civil. He also played lead guitar on two tracks, one being a guitar solo on "Taxman" and the other being a dual guitar part with George Harrison on "And Your Bird Can Sing".[18] The song "And Your Bird Can Sing" is supposedly primarily by John Lennon, however Paul McCartney claims to have helped on the lyric, estimating the song as "80-20" to Lennon. [19]

Revolver was also a breakthrough album for Harrison as a songwriter, and he contributed three songs on the album, including the opening track, "Taxman".[20] The song was a protest against the high marginal rates of income tax paid by high earners like the Beatles, which were sometimes as much as 95 percent of their income (hence the lyric, "There's one for you, nineteen for me"). The "Mr Wilson" and "Mr Heath" referred to in the lyrics are Harold Wilson and Edward Heath, who were, respectively, the British Labour Prime Minister and Conservative Leader of the Opposition at the time. In the Anthology 2 version, the "Mr Wilson" and "Mr Heath" backing vocals were replaced with "Anybody got a little money".

Harrison also wrote "I Want to Tell You", about his difficulty expressing himself in words. "Love You To" marked a significant expansion of his burgeoning interest in Indian music and the sitar,[21] which started with "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)" on Rubber Soul. It was the intro to "Love You To" that was playing in the background when Harrison's character first appears in Yellow Submarine, the animated Beatles film released in 1968.

Ringo Starr's only lead vocal on Revolver is the childlike "Yellow Submarine". McCartney said that he wrote "Yellow Submarine" as a children's song for Starr to sing. With the help of their EMI production team, The Beatles overdubbed stock sound effects they found in the Abbey Road Studios tape library.

Heralding the psychedelic era

According to music critic Richie Unterberger of Allmusic:

In many respects, Revolver is one of the very first psychedelic LPs – not only in its numerous shifts in mood and production texture, but in its innovative manipulation of amplification and electronics to produce new sounds on guitars and other instruments. Specific, widely-heralded examples include the backwards riffs of "I'm Only Sleeping", the sound effects of "Yellow Submarine", the sitar of "Love You To", the blurry guitars of "She Said, She Said", and above all the seagull chanting, buzzing drones, megaphone vocals, free-association philosophizing, and varispeed tape effects of "Tomorrow Never Knows".[22][dead link]

In 1972, Lennon offered some context for the influence of drugs on The Beatles' creativity:

It's like saying, "Did Dylan Thomas write Under Milk Wood on beer?" What does that have to do with it? The beer is to prevent the rest of the world from crowding in on you. The drugs are to prevent the rest of the world from crowding in on you. They don't make you write any better. I never wrote any better stuff because I was on acid or not on acid.

— John Lennon, The Beatles Anthology

According to music critic Jim DeRogatis:

Revolver, Pet Sounds and The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, relics of the first era of psychedelic rock and shining testaments to what can be accomplished in the recording studio when folks are fuelled on the potent drug of rampant imagination.

— J. DeRogatis, Milk it!: collected musings on the alternative music explosion of the 90s[23]

Cover art and title

The cover illustration was created by German-born bassist and artist Klaus Voormann, one of the Beatles' oldest friends from their days at the Star Club in Hamburg. Voormann's illustration, part line drawing and part collage, included photographs by Robert Whitaker, who also took the back cover photographs and many other images of the group between 1964 and 1966, such as the infamous "butcher cover" for Yesterday and Today. Voormann's own photo as well as his name (Klaus O. W. Voormann) is worked into Harrison's hair on the right-hand side of the cover. In the Revolver cover appearing in his artwork for Anthology 3, he replaced this image with a more recent photo. Harrison's Revolver image was seen again on his single release of "When We Was Fab" along with an updated version of the same image.

The title "Revolver", like "Rubber Soul" before it, is a pun, referring both to a kind of handgun as well as the "revolving" motion of the record as it is played on a turntable. The Beatles had a difficult time coming up with this title. According to Barry Miles in his book Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now, the title that the four had originally wanted was Abracadabra, until they discovered that another band had already used it. After that, opinion split: Lennon wanted to call it Four Sides of the Eternal Triangle and Starr jokingly suggested After Geography, playing on The Rolling Stones' recently released Aftermath LP. Other suggestions included Magic Circles, Beatles on Safari, Pendulum, and, finally, Revolver, whose wordplay was the one that all four agreed upon. The title was chosen while the band were on tour in Japan in June–July 1966. Due to security measures, they spent much of their time in their Tokyo Hilton hotel room; the name Revolver was selected as all four collaborated on a large psychedelic painting.[24]

Reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic[25]
BBC(favourable)[26]
Blender[27]
Pitchfork Media(10/10)[28]
The Daily Telegraph[29]
Rolling Stone[30]
Sputnikmusic[31]

... The Beatles had initiated a second pop revolution – one which while galvanising their existing rivals and inspiring many new ones, left all of them far behind.

— Ian MacDonald, Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records and the Sixties[1]

In 1997, it was named the third greatest album of all time in a Music of the Millennium poll conducted in the United Kingdom by HMV Group, Channel 4, The Guardian and Classic FM.

In 2000, Q magazine placed it at number 1 in its list of the 100 Greatest British Albums Ever. The same magazine's readers placed it at number 4 of greatest albums of all time in 2006.

In 2001, the TV network VH1 named it the number 1 greatest album of all time,[32] a position it also achieved in the Virgin All Time Top 1,000 Albums.[33]

In 2002, the readers of Rolling Stone ranked the album the greatest of all time.

In 2006, the album was chosen by Time magazine as one of the 100 best albums of all time.[34]

In 2006, Guitar World readers chose it as the 10th best guitar album of all time.[35]

In 2007, a PopMatters review described the album's content – "the individual members of the greatest band in the history of pop music peaking at the exact same time".[36]

In 2010, Revolver was named as the best pop album of all time by the official newspaper of the Holy See, L'Osservatore Romano.[37]

In 2012, Revolver was voted 3rd on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time".[2] It placed behind only the Beatles' own Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds.

Revolver currently holds the number 2 spot on Rate Your Music's top 1000 albums chart.[38]

Track listing

All tracks are written by Lennon–McCartney, except where noted

Side one
No.TitleLead vocalsLength
1."Taxman" (George Harrison)Harrison2:39
2."Eleanor Rigby"McCartney2:08
3."I'm Only Sleeping"Lennon3:02
4."Love You To" (Harrison)Harrison3:01
5."Here, There and Everywhere"McCartney2:26
6."Yellow Submarine"Starr2:40
7."She Said She Said"Lennon2:37
Side two
No.TitleLead vocalsLength
1."Good Day Sunshine"McCartney2:10
2."And Your Bird Can Sing"Lennon2:02
3."For No One"McCartney2:01
4."Doctor Robert"Lennon2:15
5."I Want to Tell You" (Harrison)Harrison2:30
6."Got to Get You into My Life"McCartney2:31
7."Tomorrow Never Knows"Lennon2:57

Chart positions

Chart Year Peak position
UK Albums Chart[39] 1966 1
Billboard 200 Pop Albums
Australian Albums Chart

North American Capitol release

The original North American LP release of Revolver, the band's tenth on Capitol Records and twelfth US album, marked the last time Capitol would release an altered UK Beatles album for the North American market. As three of its tracks—"I'm Only Sleeping", "And Your Bird Can Sing" and "Doctor Robert"—had been used for the earlier Yesterday and Today Capitol compilation, they were simply removed in the North American version, yielding an 11 track album instead of the UK version's 14 and shortening the time to 28:20.

The album's 30 April 1987 release on CD standardised the track listing to the original UK version. Having been available only as an import in the US in the past, the 14 track UK version of the album was also issued domestically in the US on LP and cassette on 21 July 1987. The CD was remastered in 2009.

Personnel

According to Mark Lewisohn:[11]

The Beatles
Additional musicians and production staff

Notes

  1. ^ a b MacDonald 2008, p. 192.
  2. ^ a b "500 Greatest Albums of All Time: The Beatles, 'Revolver'". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 12 June 2012.
  3. ^ Acclaimed Music 2007a.
  4. ^ Acclaimed Music 2007b.
  5. ^ Ryan & Kehew 2006.
  6. ^ Gilliland 1969, show 39, track 2.
  7. ^ Beatles Interview Database 2007.
  8. ^ BBC News 2004.
  9. ^ Gilliland 1969, show 39, tracks 4–5.
  10. ^ Beatles Interview Database 1964.
  11. ^ a b Lewisohn 2004, pp. 70–85.
  12. ^ MacDonald 2008, p. 191.
  13. ^ Gould 2008, p. 353.
  14. ^ Norman 2008, pp. 427, 433.
  15. ^ BBC News 2002.
  16. ^ Miles 1997, p. 190.
  17. ^ Unterberger.
  18. ^ Everett 1999, p. 46.
  19. ^ MacDonald 2003, p. 199.
  20. ^ Gilliland 1969, show 39, track 1.
  21. ^ Gilliland 1969, show 39, track 3.
  22. ^ Unterberger 2009.
  23. ^ J. DeRogatis, Milk it!: collected musings on the alternative music explosion of the 90s, ISBN 0-306-81271-1
  24. ^ Irvin.
  25. ^ https://www.allmusic.com/album/r1518
  26. ^ BBC - Music - Review of The Beatles - Revolver
  27. ^ [1][dead link]
  28. ^ 2009
  29. ^ McCormick, Neil (7 September 2009). "The Beatles - Revolver, review". The Daily Telegraph. London.
  30. ^ Rolling Stone | News
  31. ^ The Beatles - Revolver (album review) | Sputnikmusic
  32. ^ VH1 2007.
  33. ^ CNN 2007.
  34. ^ Tyrangiel & Light 2006.
  35. ^ "100 Greatest Guitar Albums". Guitar World. 2006. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help) A copy can be found at "Guitar World's 100 Greatest Guitar Albums Of All Time - Rate Your Music". rateyourmusic.com. Retrieved 12 October 2011.
  36. ^ Medsker 2007.
  37. ^ "From the Pope to Pop: Vatican's Top 10 List" by The New York Times
  38. ^ "Custom chart". Rate Your Music. Retrieved 12 June 2012.
  39. ^ "Chart Stats - The Beatles - Revolver". chartstats.com. Retrieved 3 June 2011.

References

Preceded by
Yesterday and Today by The Beatles
 Billboard 200 number-one album
10 September – 21 October 1966 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Australian Kent Music Report number-one album
1–21 October 1966 		Succeeded by
Going Places by Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass
Preceded by
The Sound of Music by Original Soundtrack
 UK Albums Chart number-one album
13 August – 1 October 1966 		Succeeded by
The Sound of Music by Original Soundtrack

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