Poll: What's your favourite track on Revolver? Please vote...

Hmmm ! Tough one. I think McCartney was on outstanding form on that album. Here, There and Everywhere has always been one of my favourites. I remember Chris Evans on a Desert Island Discs episode saying that this track was "devastating". I'm no fan of his but I knew exactly what he meant. Good Day Sunshine always makes me happy. For No One & Eleanor Rigby - it still beggars belief that he was only 23 (or younger) when he wrote them. Lennon was busy pushing the boundaries. I'm Only Sleeping, She Said She Said & And your Bird Can Sing were carrying on what began on Rubber Soul.

In the end though, it has to be Tomorrow Never Knows. I wouldn't say it was necessarily my favourite on the album, but I recognise the hugeness of it. Never before, or since, has a closing track said - if you think this is interesting, just wait for what comes next !

Favorite track on Revolver? Can't do it, much less choose between Lennon and McCartney in general.

In fact, a huge part of what makes The Beatles so special for me is the juxtaposition of their songs ... each made the other's work that much stronger in context. The Beatles without either one just wouldn't be The Beatles.

And let me say this about George: he was a fantastic songwriter who had the somewhat "unfortunate" luck to be in a group with two of the greatest songwriters ever ... without Lennon and McCartney's vast shadow, Harrison's stature would be far greater.

Ok so anything like this comes down to personal taste, but ....the correct answer has to be Eleanor Rigby surely!

... Tomorrow Never Knows may be the most influential Beatles track ...it may the most experimental / daring track they produced at that time in pop music ..  

Bottom line is surely this though ...Eleanor Rigby is one of the most beautiful, sad, moving songs ever written in this island's history!

A tricky one. When the LP was released (I was four) I liked Yellow Sub.

I realise that "Tomorrow" is perhaps the most "important" track on the album but I think the two best songs are probably "Eleanor Rigby", which (its considerable musical merits notwithstanding) a beautifully poignant piece of writing and probably Macca's best-ever lyric.

The late great Ian MacDonald, with whom I usually concur on matters Fab, rated "She Said" very highly and I would too - one of the most underrated of all Lennon's songs.

Thanks all for taking the time to post and cast your votes. Some great observations, all of them true, proving that we're all right, I guess.

Originally Posted by fred simon:
I agree 100% with your second paragraph, Fred, but going through the albums I know best, I realised that I can quite easily identify my favourite couple of tracks from each one, and they're almost all John's songs. Paul's are almost invariably the more ingenious, more carefully crafted songs, and often from the heart (Here, There and Everywhere being a prime example). However, I always get the impression that John simply has something he needs to say, and isn't so interested in writing the perfect melody or arrangement, but simply writes a song about it. Given how good they turn out, this makes his all the more special for me.
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That said, I was expecting Eleanor Rigby to come out top reasonably comfortably, perhaps because it's such a unique song for a pop album. Although I was tempted to vote for Tomorrow Never Knows, I went for She Said She Said, because it's just a great performance from all of them, with some curious lyrics. Some background to the song from Ian MacDonald:

"The antithesis of McCartney's impeccable neatness, Lennon's anguished She Said She Said is a song of tormented self-doubt struggling in a lopsided web of harmony and metre. Resembling the jangling mid-tempo style of The Byrds, it draws its inspiration from the day in August 1965 when Lennon took LSD with Roger McGuinn and David Crosby in Los Angeles. He had just watched and been extremely bored by Jane Fonda's new film Cat Ballou when her actor brother Peter turned up and insisted on telling him about a hospital operation during which he'd had a near-death experience."

She said "I know what it's like to be dead.
I know what it is to be sad"
And she's making me feel like I've never been born.

Great stuff, and a killer tune to match.

23 votes in, and a narrow overall lead for McCartney. Come on, who voted for Yellow Submarine?!

Just voted for Eleanor Rigby, Chief, and thought I'd share a short story.

As you may know, I am a passionate fan of all things Michael Stanley and Michael has covered two Beatles songs, "Help" on his Friends and Legends album back in the 70's and "Eleanor Rigby" on the MS album "Eighteen Down".  The story goes that MS and PM crossed paths, possibly at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame or some such, and Paul told Michael regarding Eleanor Rigby " we should have played it that way".  I can only imagine how MS must have felt at that moment as I expect MS idolized PM the way I idolize MS.  And what a nice thing for PM to say.  I can't prove the veracity of the story, but MS has repeated it himself so I would like to think it is true.

Sample here for what it is worth: http://www.amazon.com/gp/produ...297632797&sr=1-1

Have you heard other artists in the last twenty years who make you think they might be working in a style that John Lennon did or would have progressed to ?   I hear that at times and wonder, what if !

Great thread.

Jeff A

I can never choose favourites from artists like The Beatles, Dylan, Neil Young, etc..

Last week I became fascinated by Please Please Me, and nearly fifty years after it's release, really really appreciate just how good that song was.

Seems I just broke the tie - you go Eleanor. 

You tell me that you've got everything you want.................................


with She Said a close second, taxman a close third,


Fred is right, impossible to choose

SJB

Seconded!

One of the real human and memorable songs, like the unforgettable "Homeward bound" or a few more from that sort of time from various artists. The Beatles were not the only act on the block, and certainly by now the winnowing process has left the less memorable efforts out in the cold for general music lover - as opposed to afficianados.

ATB from George

Neither here nor there I know, but as an illustration of how different people are and what an odd thing 'liking' is: Revolver is probably my favourite Beatles album, but I've never really liked Eleanor Rigby. I do understand what's good about it so don't beat me up.

I Want to Tell You  is a great song in that spot, not the most popular like ER but I've always enjoyed the happy message.  It was one great album and time period.  I too can't pull out any one member over the others.  George was very bold and had his own identity and sound, often in a minor key.

One of the more difficult questions ever posed on the this Naim forum.    Revolver is such a great album!
My first vote cast went to She Said, but then I had to go back, and revote for Eleanor Rigby . . . . finally (envelope please) I decided on Tomorrow Never Knows.  I hope I can live with this decision, but it's not been easy for me. . . sigh.

I think one of the great thingsTomorrow has going for it, is the fact it possess one of the all-time great, slickest rock N' roll drum beats ever invented/recorded.  Ringo, IMHO gets full song writing credit for helping to shape this great song.

Max

You said it. It was a wonderful period to be coming of age musically, when the charts contained the latest efforts from the Beatles, the Stones, the Beach Boys, S&G, Bob Dylan, the Kinks, the Hollies, the Searchers, Jerry and the Pacemakers, and a whole load of wonderful bands and artists.
What a fertile period it was for popular music.

No, that's a step too far! 

Had a re-listen to the album last night. I still go with Tomorrow Never Knows but the two things that stand out on the track are not necessarily Lennon. The drum track has been mentioned already but the tape loops were McCartney's. He brought in tape loops he had been experimenting with at home, disconnecting the erase heads on the tape machine to produce the saturated loops. Geoff Emerick's book is a good read, covering the studio sessions of both Revolver and Pepper.

I think the only idea that wasn't accommodated on the track was Lennon's idea of being swung round the studio on a suspended chair while recording the vocal track. This of course being impractical evolved into Lennon's vocal going through a revolving Leslie speaker.

And as for the OP, it says everything about Tomorrow Never Knows and Eleanor Rigby that they (sort of) leave so many other wonderful, wonderful tracks dithering about in single figures.

Just voted for For No One, but I have to admit that Revolver is about fifth or sixth on my list of favourite Beatles albums (Abbey Road, Rubber Soul, White Album, A Hard Day's Night, Sgt Pepper) and despite voting for a Macca song on this album, in general I'm a Lennon man.

For No One is about as perfect a song as they come, one of my all-time faves, really gorgeous writing, and I love the unresolved ending which leaves you hanging.

I loved Emerick's book, Here, There, and Everywhere ... a great read. The session you referenced was actually Emerick's very first session as chief engineer, and the first thing Lennon asked was to make his vocal sound "like the Dalai Lama chanting from a hilltop," which Emerick achieved by sending the vocal track through a rotating Leslie speaker, at that time usually only done with organ, of course, and occasionally guitar. Lennon loved the sound so much he went on to suggest that he himself rotate suspended from a rope, and actually sent a gofer out to fetch an adequate length of rope. Emerick and others successfully tried to distract John long enough that he would forget this dangerous idea.

I also love Giles Martin's use of the Tomorrow Never Knows drum track in the Within You Without You mash-up on LOVE ... brilliant!

Slightly off topic but I'm pretty sure the weird vocal effects on Tommy James and The Shondell's "Crimson And Clover" were also the result of Tommy's voice being channeled  through a Leslie Speaker - I guess if you are going to rip off somebody else's idea it might as well be off the best!

Just want for Taxman, so to hell with the John/Paul thing...

TKN may be more influential and ground-breaking, ER may have much greater lyrical depth (and George Martin's suggestion of the string quartet was in its way just as out-there as backwards tape loops for a Popular Beat Combo), but Taxman is simply an exceptional pop/rock song with a hook so good the Jam could use it ~ four decades later for Start! and it still sounded fresh.

So if you want to discuss importance then ER or TKN, if you want to listen to a great 60s band in cracking musical form (and as I write this, I do) then Taxman.

Pete.

I seem to recall McCartney saying, on Desert Island Discs or something similar that Here There and Everywhere was one of his personal favourites.  That is what I would vote for.  I think it is most perfectly crafted.  The change from major to minor in the middle section is so cleverly done.

Don