REVOLVER

Lennon had named Rubber Soul "the pot album" for the band's substance of choice during 1965. Sometime late in that year, John, Cynthia, George, and Pattie drove into London for a social evening with their dentist and his girlfriend. At his house, without their consent, the four of them were "dosed" by this guy and officially sent on their first LSD trip. For the shy and straight-laced Cynthia, the evening was the most horrible thing she'd ever experienced, having to drive around to clubs with loud, crazy people while freaking out on A-bomb. John and George also had some scary hallucinations but unlike Cyn would be left wanting more rather than running from it. And so the period of writing and recording Revolver would become The Beatles LSD experimentation phase, leading Lennon to christen the results "the acid album."

Following the release of the killer Rubber Soul album, the boys played some dates in the UK before taking a break. Returning to Abbey Road Studios in the spring of 1966 they recorded all of the tracks for Revolver and their next single (Paperback Writer/Rain) between April and June. They would spend about three times more recording time on Revolver than on Rubber Soul as their interest in studio trickery, fueled by ever increasing psychedelics, became more doable with the increased time their status allowed. George Martin noted that their pre-8track trick of track "bouncing" increased now to almost every song on Revolver, whereas it was used only once on Rubber Soul. The result was another great album that many people consider their finest though I personally feel the songs were better on Rubber Soul. Yeah Revolver has more tricks up it sleeves, but Rubber Soul was the nicer shirt.

Side one of Revolver was really the great stuff. Harrison's "Taxman" is a scorching opener with a wickedly scranked-up guitar sound and biting lyrics, along with a more aggressive solo. Then came the McCartney masterpiece "Eleanor Rigby" which was a story about a lonely woman whose gravestone John and Paul used to see in their childhood, yes, she did exist. While Lennon dominated Rubber Soul it is McCartney who had the most impressive songs on Revolver. Besides "Rigby" there was the love letter to girlfriend Jane Asher "Here, There and Everywhere" with its gorgeous, velvety vocals. And there is the somber, dramatic "For no one" with its delightful horn part which sort of foretold stuff like "Penny Lane." Paul's triumphs continued with "Good day sunshine" and "Got to get you into my life." John's material was fairly average by his own high standards, which are still better than most of course. The best was "She said she said" featuring a line fed to him by Peter Fonda, the infamous "I know what it's like to be dead." But in my view most of his stuff here is pretty average sans the bells and whistles. "Dr. Robert" sounds more like something from Meet the Beatles than Revolver, pretty stock compared to the exotic "Love you to" with sitar and tabla.

Revolver is a must for Beatles fans and anyone really, but roles were switching a bit and Paul was stepping out front for most of the Beatles second act. It is my opinion that the combination of more drugs, less unity, and nonsense like the Indian spiritual retreat would lead the boys to albums that still had some great material, but would have their share of stuff that may have been "mind blowing" at the time, but may not hold up as well today.

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