The Beatles | The 5 Songs To Summarize The Album “Revolver”

The Beatles | The 5 Songs To Summarize The Album “Revolver” | Society Of Rock Videos

via The Beatles/YouTube

One Of The Most Innovative Albums In The ’60s

Before they retired as live performers, The Beatles dropped what could only be described as a musical masterpiece – “Revolver.” It’s the Fab Four at the height of their creative powers – John Lennon and Paul McCartney both established themselves as two of the greatest singer-songwriters in the ’60s, George Harrison started stepping out of the Lennon-McCartney partnership by having three of his compositions on the LP, and Ringo Starr laid out several unforgettable beats.

There’s not one bad song on this album – every number is top-notch and showcased the band’s brilliance. Here are five of its best tracks:

5. “Here, There, and Everywhere”

McCartney admitted it’s one of his personal favorites. He drew inspiration from the Brian Wilson-penned “God Only Knows” after he attended the private listening party for The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds LP with Lennon. It didn’t take him long to lay down the foundation of the song. McCartney said: “I sat out by the pool on one of the sun chairs with my guitar and started strumming in E. And soon [I] had a few chords, and I think by the time he’d woken up, I had pretty much written the song, so we took it indoors and finished it up.”

4. “She Said, She Said”

Lennon had a little help from Harrison in writing this. It was mainly inspired by comments from actor Peter Fonda during an acid trip in 1965. The last track recorded for the LP, Harrison recalled: “I was at his house one day – this is the mid-Sixties – and he was struggling with some tunes. He had loads of bits, maybe three songs, that were unfinished, and I made suggestions and helped him to work them together so that they became one finished song, ‘She Said She Said’. The middle part of that record is a different song.”

3. “Tomorrow Never Knows”

As trippy as it can get, “Tomorrow Never Knows” concluded “Revolver” even if it was actually the first track they recorded. Unsurprisingly, Lennon was inspired by his personal experience with LSD and the 1964 book by Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert and Ralph Metzner titled The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead. The Beatles broke new sonic grounds with this and it became an influential psychedelic recording.

2. “Taxman”

One of the three songs written by Harrison, it’s the LP’s opening track. Speaking about what prompted him to write it, he said: “‘Taxman’ was when I first realized that even though we had started earning money, we were actually giving most of it away in taxes. It was and still is typical.”

1. “Eleanor Rigby”

The Beatles never shied away from experimenting and “Eleanor Rigby” is the proof. McCartney recalled: “I was sitting at the piano when I thought of it. The first few bars just came to me, and I got this name in my head … “Daisy Hawkins picks up the rice in the church”. I don’t know why. I couldn’t think of much more so I put it away for a day. Then the name “Father McCartney” came to me, and all the lonely people. But I thought that people would think it was supposed to be about my Dad sitting knitting his socks. Dad’s a happy lad. So I went through the telephone book and I got the name “McKenzie”.

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