Chapter 18: The Beatles
Coming on the heels of Rubber Soul, which had already signaled the band’s shift toward more sophisticated songwriting and experimentation, Revolver, released in August 1966, expanded these ambitions into new sonic, lyrical, and conceptual territory. It was both a product of and a catalyst for the rapidly changing musical and cultural landscape of the mid-1960s, reflecting the era’s growing interest in Eastern philosophy, studio innovation, drug-influenced consciousness, and social commentary.
The album’s visual presentation underscored this transformation. The cover, designed by German artist Klaus Voormann, offered a stark contrast to conventional album artwork of the time. Rendered in black and white, the design featured hand-drawn, collage-like portraits of the band members, interwoven with cut-out photographs of their faces. The surreal, almost psychedelic quality of the cover art anticipated the visual experimentation that would characterize the counterculture and the band's future projects. Just as the music inside broke boundaries, the cover art declared that Revolver was not just another pop record: it was something entirely new.
Musically, Revolver encompasses a wide range of influences and innovations. George Harrison’s “Love You To” introduced listeners to Indian classical music more directly than any previous Beatles track, featuring sitar, tabla, and drones in a raga-inspired composition that showcased his growing dedication to Indian spiritual and musical traditions. McCartney’s “Got to Get You Into My Life” bursts with exuberant energy, channeling the rhythmic vitality of American soul and Motown. The song features punchy brass instrumentation of trumpets and saxophones arranged in a bright, syncopated style reminiscent of hits from labels like Motown and Stax. Paul McCartney’s “Here, There and Everywhere” contrasted this with its gentle, acoustic pop sensibility, blending close vocal harmonies and subtle chord shifts reminiscent of the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds, another landmark 1966 release.
Perhaps the album’s most striking break from pop convention comes in Paul McCartney’s “Eleanor Rigby.” Eschewing the band’s usual instrumentation entirely, the song features no guitars, bass, or drums. Instead, George Martin arranged a double string quartet consisting of four violins, two violas, and two cellos. This instrumentation lends the track a chamber music sensibility more akin to classical concert music than rock. The lyrics follow two isolated characters, Eleanor Rigby and Father McKenzie, whose lives intersect only in death, portraying themes of loneliness and forgotten lives with poetic clarity. The name “Eleanor Rigby” was inscribed in a gravestone McCartney saw in the churchyard of St. Peter’s Church in Liverpool—the same place where he first met John Lennon and where they would often rehearse, surrounded by similar memorials to unremembered lives. The song’s vivid storytelling and experimental orchestration mark a significant evolution in the Beatles’ songwriting, signaling their turn toward more literary and artistically ambitious forms.
By the time Revolver was recorded, drug use had become an important influence on the Beatles’ creative process. Their experimentation began early, with stimulants like Preludin (German diet pill that acted as an upper) during their days in Hamburg. In 1964, Bob Dylan introduced them to marijuana, a discovery that many credit with broadening their musical and lyrical scope, especially evident on Rubber Soul. However, it was the psychedelic drug LSD that had the largest and most lasting impact on their artistic direction during the mid-1960s, opening new avenues for sonic exploration and creative expression.
The band’s introduction to LSD was unexpected and controversial. In the spring of 1965, John Lennon and his wife Cynthia, along with George Harrison and his wife Pattie Boyd, attended a dinner at the home of their dentist, John Riley. After dinner, Riley invited them to stay for coffee and insisted they finish their drinks. Only afterward did he reveal that he had slipped LSD-laced sugar cubes into their coffee. Lennon was initially angry at the deception, though he later described the experience as both terrifying and fascinating. He recalled vivid sensations, describing George’s house as seeming to float like a submarine, and said the experience left him “stoned” for months. According to Bury, John and George had previously indicated openness to trying LSD, but only if they were aware beforehand. Ringo and Paul would both take LSD within the year. This shift in consciousness influenced not only the Beatles’ lyrical themes but also the innovative soundscapes they created in the studio.
The song that most vividly captures the Beatles’ immersion in psychedelic music is “Tomorrow Never Knows,” the closing track on Revolver. John Lennon drew lyrical inspiration directly from The Psychedelic Experience, a 1964 guidebook co-written by psychedelic gurus and former Harvard professors Timothy Leary, Ralph Metzner, and Richard Alpert, which itself adapted concepts from the Tibetan Book of the Dead for LSD users. Lines from the text, such as “Turn off your mind, relax, float downstream,” found their way nearly verbatim into the lyrics, urging listeners to surrender their ego and embrace an altered state of consciousness.
Musically, “Tomorrow Never Knows” broke radically from the conventions of pop music, aiming to musically evoke the feeling of an LSD trip. Lennon initially told producer George Martin that he wanted the track to sound like “thousands of Tibetan monks chanting from a mountain top.” While that exact request wasn’t feasible, the band’s young engineer Geoff Emerick crafted an eerily swirling vocal effect by feeding Lennon’s voice through a Leslie speaker cabinet—a rotating speaker typically used with Hammond organs—which gave the recording a ghostly, disembodied quality.
The track centers on a static C major drone, anchored by Ringo Starr’s steady, tom-heavy drum pattern, which gives the piece a hypnotic rhythm. George Harrison, drawing from his study of Indian classical music, added a tamboura, a long-necked drone instrument that enriched the harmonic texture and enhanced the meditative atmosphere.
One of the song’s most innovative features was its use of tape loops, short recorded sound fragments played on multiple tape machines at different speeds and directions. These loops included reversed guitar lines, orchestral swells, bird calls, distorted laughter, and fragmented vocals, all layered into a dense sonic collage. Backward guitar effects were created by recording solos conventionally, then reversing the tape to produce surreal, bubbling phrases that seemed to bend time.
“Tomorrow Never Knows” stands as a landmark in the emergence of psychedelic rock. While American groups like the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, and the Doors often relied on extended improvisation to channel altered states, the Beatles took a more structured approach. Their studio techniques allowed them to craft a precise sonic simulation of psychedelic experience, blending technology, composition, and intention into a controlled and striking musical vision.
Another track that hints at this psychedelic duality is “Yellow Submarine.” While it presents as a whimsical, childlike story complete with sound effects like bubbling water and marching bands, some listeners interpreted it as a thinly veiled reference to drug culture. “Yellow subs” were slang for a type of barbiturate, and the surreal, dreamlike imagery invited multiple interpretations. This use of double entendre became increasingly common in 1960s rock, allowing artists to embed drug references in seemingly innocent lyrics. Though the Beatles had not previously courted controversy over drug themes, songs like “Yellow Submarine” marked a shift toward more open engagement with psychedelic imagery. While the Beatles’ association with drugs was controversial, it opened up new creative possibilities and mirrored the broader counterculture’s embrace of altered states of consciousness as tools for both personal exploration and artistic innovation.
However, these songs also stirred controversy. In 1966, the Beatles faced one of the most turbulent years of their career. The most explosive moment occurred when Datebook, an American teen magazine, reprinted a quote from John Lennon taken from an earlier British interview. Lennon said, “Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn’t argue with that; I’m right and I will be proved right. We’re more popular than Jesus now: I don’t know which will go first—rock ‘n’ roll or Christianity.” While the comment had generated little reaction in the U.K., it caused widespread outrage in the United States, particularly in the South. More than 30 American radio stations banned Beatles songs, fans staged public album burnings, and the band received threats of violence. Manager Brian Epstein attempted to explain that Lennon’s remarks were a reflection on the declining influence of organized religion in modern life rather than a boast. However, his efforts failed to quell the anger. Ultimately, Lennon was pressured into delivering a public apology during a tense and embarrassing press conference in Chicago.
This was just one of several controversies that erupted in 1966. Earlier that summer, Capitol Records released Yesterday and Today, a U.S.-only album featuring a shocking photo of the Beatles dressed in butcher smocks surrounded by raw meat and dismembered baby dolls. Known as the “Butcher Cover,” the image was intended as a satirical critique of Capitol’s repeated meddling with the American versions of their albums, especially the altered track listings and sound modifications on Rubber Soul and Revolver. However, the photo sparked public outrage and was quickly withdrawn. This violent and unsettling imagery complicated the band’s marketing in the U.S. Around the same time, the Beatles’ vocal criticism of the Vietnam War and religion, along with the backlash over John Lennon’s “more popular than Jesus” remark, triggered a strong negative reaction, especially in the southern states. These events contributed to a significant shift in the Beatles’ public image, transforming them from lovable mop-tops into controversial cultural figures.
At the same time, the Beatles were growing disillusioned with live performance. Advances in their studio recordings—complex arrangements, orchestration, and tape effects—were nearly impossible to recreate on stage. Add to that the constant noise from screaming fans, death threats from the Jesus controversy, and exhaustion from years of relentless touring, and the band’s enthusiasm for the road faded. Their final concert took place on August 29, 1966, at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park. Unbeknownst to the public at the time, this would be the Beatles’ last live performance as a group. The decision to stop touring marked a watershed moment in rock history. It freed the Beatles to work exclusively in the studio, allowing them to fully embrace the creative possibilities of recording technology. From this point on, the Beatles would no longer chase audiences—they would reshape the art of the album and change the very definition of what a rock band could be.