“A Beatles Playlist Bolstered Heavily by Cover Versions”

So that Yesterday movie comes out and we’re supposed to believe people don’t like the Beatles anymore, eh? Will you shut up, man? I spend more time listening to the Beatles than I do watching movies. Also, the Beatles are TV’s manager — they’re the only group to have more than one song become a TV sitcom theme song. Um, they’ve got three (“With a Little Help from My Friends”; “Lady Madonna”; “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da”). I’m pretty sure, too, that they still do the “Breakfast with the Beatles” radio show every Sunday morning around here on a local radio station. 

And I mean, Revolver is just a perfect album. It’s a beautiful document of disciplined, climactic pop that even compellingly foreshadows the band’s later, brief psychedelic period (Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band; The Magical Mystery Tour) with the sitar numbers “Love You to” and “Tomorrow Never Knows.” Sometimes I erroneously cite Sgt. Pepper’s as my favorite album by the group, noting the wide stylistic array of songs and the expansive structures and instrumentations of “Within You without You”; “A Day in the Life”; etc., neglecting just that straight phenomenon of how the sound FILLS the room on Revolver. And in no way does their Revolver falter in the department of variety, either, with “Eleanor Rigby” composed solely of strings and vocals and “Yellow Submarine” replete with what I can only describe as “drunken background vocals.” And I’m always drunk by the end of Revolver but it’s a drunkenness with a steadying force that reminds me I’m really the same person I’ve always been and I’m on top of an important plateau. 

..

Leave a Comment