Wednesday, November 12, 2008

15. The Beatles - Revolver

I remember listening to this on my parent’s stereo, one of those huge cabinet deals that looked like a piece of furniture. This had to be the early 70's, I guess. I asked my mother - is this the same Beatles that sang "I Wanna Hold Your Hand"? Yes? Really? Wow.

I borrowed the album and brought it in my room. This was headphones stuff. I guess I was about 11. Maybe 12. Thinking this was a trippy kind of album, though I didn’t really have the word “trippy” in my vocabulary at the time. Psychedelic. That was a big word then. That’s what Revolver was.

I grew into this album. The older I got, the more the songs changed meaning, the more the music felt like something different. But the thing that remained was the songs I skipped. Eleanor Rigby? Pass. Gotta Get You Into My Life? Pass. Good Day Sunshine? Pass. Then there were songs that made me lift the needle and put it back on the beginning of the track again when they were over. I’m Only Sleeping. She Said, She Said. You can see that the heavy McCartney tunes don’t do much for me but the Lennon tunes do. In fact, I have this disdain for McCartney that eats at my soul, but that’s another story for another day.

Favorite song: She Said, She Said
Revolver at wiki

6 comments:

Carin said...

She Said is one of my favorite Beatles songs. I always thought it would be perfect for a punk remake. Perhaps it was? I dunno.

Anonymous said...

I wrote a post about this once.. I LOVE this album!

Solonor Rasreth said...

My band was named Revolver for this album. 'nuff said.

eyeteegee said...

I remember maybe Christmas 1970, when I was 8, Mum got me a cassette player and Dad got me a couple of tapes. One tape was Abbey Road (for me) the other was Johnny Cash - I Walk The Line, I suspect for himself.

Anyway, Abbey Road quickly replaced Rupert Bear's "Spin A Magic Tune" as my favourite album and started my proper record collection, including Revolver and all other Beatles.

Great writing, really enjoying reading your memories of a lot of my albums. Good luck with getting through 30 years worth.

Unknown said...

i totally associate "got to get you into my life" and "good day sunshine" together as stuff i nearly always skip, but "eleanor rigby"? what is wrong with you???

Jon said...

I'm interested to hear the rationale behind this "disdain" for McCartney... You also realize that Revolver was the point in which he began to creatively take over the band. He clearly outshines Lennon here in depth and versatility and continued to do so through Magical Mystery. This is hardly opinion but generally understood to be the case, so while it is perfectly valid to prefer Lennon's mid-Beatles output, there is no doubt that Paul was responsible for their creative, avant-garde direction-- he devised and made the tape loops for Tomorrow Never Knows, played lead guitar on Taxman, and not to mention that his bass-playing on this album is impossible to overstate. A truly amazing album.