1963: The Year the Beatles Found Their Voice—By Colin Fleming

Having spent entirely too much of my life studying all matters Beatles-related, I sometimes like to play a parlor game with other fans. I ask them which year was the band’s best, before offering an answer of my own. Many people stump for 1967, when Sgt. Pepper came out, recasting the pop-culture zeitgeist. Others opt for 1964, the first year of stateside Beatlemania. A dark horse sometimes gets a vote, like 1965, the year the Beatles produced their first mature masterwork in Rubber Soul. But when I provide my answer—1963, all the way—I’m usually met with puzzled looks. It’s no wonder. Fifty years have passed since that magical and formative year for the band, yet most of the music the Beatles recorded throughout it remains commercially unavailable. But 1963 is the band’s annus mirabilis.

In 1963, the Beatles were exploding in England. Their debut LP, Please Please Me, came out in March, followed by their megahit single “She Loves You” in August. Their second album, With the Beatles, and another hit single, “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” followed in the fall. Screaming girls, throngs of fans, bushels of albums being sold—this was when it all started. But the Beatles were also a veritable human jukebox that year. One of their many commitments was to turn up semi-regularly at the BBC, horse around on air, read requests, make fun of each other, make fun of the presenter, and play live versions of whatever people wanted to hear, whether that was their own material or a vast range of covers: Elvis Presley numbers; obscure rhythm-and-blues songs by lost-to-time bands like the Jodimars; Broadway show tunes; Americana; vamps on Buddy Holly, Carl Perkins, Chuck Berry; rearrangements of girl-group cuts; torch songs. If you wanted to hear what made the Beatles the Beatles, here is where you would want to start.

Yet although these sessions (including some from ’62 and ’64, and one from ’65, but mostly from ’63) would fill about 10 CDs, only a double-disc set has been commercially released. Live at the BBC—as Capitol Records titled that package back in 1994—is fine; you can’t go especially wrong with it. But its songs are plucked from their context, and context is the best reason to listen to the Beatles’ BBC shows. This is not music meant to be heard in piecemeal fashion, with a few cuts cherry-picked from one session here, another there. Each of the 40 BBC sessions from ’63 has a specific, homegrown feel, like it’s a mini-album unto itself, and the sequence of sessions as a whole shows the band’s startlingly rapid evolution.

No official archive of the BBC sessions exists, and the original tapes appear to be long gone. But over time—and particularly as the Internet has gained reach and speed—partial, homemade recordings from the original broadcasts have surfaced, and been stitched together into increasingly complete compilations. Earnest seekers can find the most complete version of the sessions, courtesy of a bootleg label called Purple Chick, on the Web; from start to finish, it is an absolute wonder.

If you ever asked yourself whether the Beatles, as people, were as funny as their biographies make them out to be, here is your proof. They ride each other hard, in between playing and reading out mailed-in song requests from former band rivals, kids in the hospital, “Jeff the greengrocer.” One schoolgirl, standing in as the spokesperson for her gaggle, begins her request with “Dear Messrs. Beatles,” prompting a short, knowing laugh from Paul McCartney. It’s a confident laugh, appreciative that the band’s audience was beginning to pick up on the band’s humor—riffing off it, in a way, just as the Beatles were riffing off the music that had come before them and, increasingly, finding ways to transcend it.

At one of the key sessions, on July 16, the band recorded 17 tracks, and we find the quartet adroitly working its way through covers with the same bucolic grace—and hard-won realism—that would later flower into the songwriting on the band’s mid-career masterpieces. From another blue-collar Merseyside act, a cover of “To Know Him Is to Love Him” might sound fey. The number was written by Phil Spector (the title comes from his father’s headstone) and was a hit for his Teddy Bears. John Lennon changes Him to Her, and his vocal unfurls over a lush patch of backing harmonies, his whoa-hoas linking one line to the next. A nakedness is at play here, as the macho Lennon musically denudes himself with each plush declaration of love, the minor key couching his voice in something somber, autumnal. This is utter vulnerability, an invocation of feelings not normally spoken (and altogether absent from the Teddy Bears’ original version), now shared with anyone who happens to listen. Casual listeners might think it’s a long way from the Lennon of this session to the Lennon of Rubber Soul—a high point of his songwriting career—but the sensibility of this performance is the same sensibility we find in “Girl” and “In My Life.” Rubber Soul may have been released in December 1965, but it was taking some kind of form in July 1963.

The same session featured the band’s attempt at Ann-Margret’s “I Just Don’t Understand.” Here, Lennon’s vocal possesses an R&B swing, but the ensemble-playing is in a country-western mode, albeit one that comes off as dark, like an outtake from a John Ford Western. This is the Beatles, as Dylan would say, mixing up the medicine. At their compositional zenith—which is to say, during their mid-career run of Rubber Soul, Revolver, and Sgt. Pepper—the Beatles were master collagists. You listen to “I Just Don’t Understand,” and in Lennon’s vocal you hear the same ragged howl from the abyss that dominates “Tomorrow Never Knows,” from 1966’s Revolver; the countrified electric strut of “What Goes On,” from Rubber Soul; the blanched, plain-sung blues of “She’s Leaving Home,” from Sgt. Pepper.

The quick session from July 2 is a tour de force of range, with the Beatles pulling from the past and again experimenting with different elements from different genres—the band a veritable musical Cuisinart. A take on Elvis Presley’s “That’s All Right” gets us started, with McCartney bucking against the traditions set down by his hero. The song is given a pronounced Liverpudlian inflection, as though the Beatles are claiming it for the north of England, George Harrison’s licks providing tart commentary. A stomp through their own “There’s a Place”—their most mature composition to date—follows, and rock and roll is fleshed out with introspection, the foundation for most of the band’s best work going forward. A lithe rendition of Chuck Berry’s “Carol” is next, before the group gets into what may be the best BBC cut of all. Arthur Alexander sang rhythm and blues harder than anyone in the States. For a group of early 20‑something white kids to think they could lay claim to his best number, “Soldier of Love,” was either hubristic folly or burgeoning self-awareness; for the Beatles, on this date, it was the latter. For the first time, we hear that full, almost violent Beatles swing, a propulsive, churning attack that was reimagined the following year in “A Hard Day’s Night.” By then, the Beatles had upped the tempo, but this has that same rhythmic chassis. Covers of Carl Perkins’s “Lend Me Your Comb” and the Jodimars’ super-obscure R&B number “Clarabella” follow, and you get the sense that there wasn’t anything they couldn’t take on and improve. But improvement was clearly no longer the point. The Beatles were getting on with the creation of something else altogether.

To be a good songwriter, you need to be a good listener. And what you really hear in the ’63 BBC sessions is the Beatles listening to themselves, beginning a dialogue and moving toward a future that was less and less inchoate as that year, and the BBC sessions, wore on. It’s almost as if the version of the band that we all got to know owed this earlier iteration a “Dear Messrs. Beatles” note of gratitude.

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Got To Get You Into My Life, plus Tomorrow Never Knows and their incredible recording process advancements revealed.

April 7th, 1966 brought forth the second recording session for what became the “Revolver” album (and thereby being only their second EMI Studios recording session of the year), they began work on Paul’s “Got To Get You Into My Life.” The afternoon/evening session of this day was used to complete the first song for the album, the highly innovative track “Tomorrow Never Knows,” but the later session of the evening began at 8:15 pm (after an hour break from the previous session) in EMI Studio Three.

Although it has been described by John as a “Tamla/Motown” song and by Paul as “one of the first times we used soul trumpets,” the results of the session on this day show the song as anything but soulful. Five takes of the rhythm track were attempted on this day which comprised an acoustic guitar, hi-hat playing from Ringo, and George Martin playing organ which concentrated mostly on a single note “drone.”

With their recent infatuation with Eastern music, which habitually featured a single-note “drone” as a backdrop, it’s no wonder that The Beatles incorporated this same element into the first three songs they introduced this year. They had just completed “Tomorrow Never Knows” which featured George “droning” on a tambura, while the next song introduced in the studio, George’s “Love You To,” also featured this Eastern ingredient.

At any rate, they appeared open to ideas on how to present the song at this stage. As Mark Lewisohn states in “The Beatles Recording Sessions”: “Before take four The Beatles and George Martin discussed alternative ideas,” thus resulting in take five including “a full drum intro, heavily limited” and then overdubbed lead and background vocals. While the differences between the final take of this day and the finished product as we know it are enormous, some of the obvious ones are vocal. Background harmonies from John and George pepper the verses, including their three-part harmony on the lyric “every single day of my life” at the end of each verse.

In the choruses, Paul sings the falsetto lines “somehow, someway” where we’re used to hearing the horns chime in. And, to top it off, there are the “I need your love” harmonies from the threesome that appear to resemble the verses of Sandie Shaw’s 1964 rendition of the Bacharach / David classic “Always Something There To Remind Me.”

This final take of the day, which ends with the singers ad-libbing humorous vocal blunders, brought the session to a close at 1:30 am the following day. This take was temporarily indicated as “best” on the tape box, although they must have known they could very well improve the performance.

Later that day, April 8th, 1966, they re-entered EMI Studios at 2:30 pm for more work on the song. This time using Studio Two, they started from scratch on the song, recording three more takes of the rhythm track. The instrumentation this time included all four Beatles on their usual instruments; Paul on bass and lead vocals, John on electric rhythm guitar, George on lead guitar through a “fuzz box,” and Ringo on drums. An interesting feature recorded on this day was George playing what would be the distinctive horn parts in the verses and choruses with his distorted lead guitar. While both George’s lead and John’s rhythm guitar parts eventually got buried in the mix, we can see that the song was evolving from an acoustic piece to a heavier guitar song at this point. Take eight now deemed “best,” and they ended the session at 9 pm.

April 11th, 1966, was their next session and, while the primary focus of the day was George’s new composition “Love You To,” the first order of business was a guitar overdub for “Got To Get You Into My Life.” This session began at 2:30 pm in EMI Studio Two, this overdub probably taking up no more than the first half-hour. This electric guitar part, which begins at the end of the second chorus and continues through the third chorus that immediately follows it, was recorded with a good degree of tremolo, an effect regularly used by Credence Clearwater Revival a few years later.

Although they knew the song was far from complete, The Beatles were easily distracted from its development by the two songs that would comprise their next single, namely “Paperback Writer” and “Rain,” as well as other strong compositions brought into the sessions at the time. This being the case, the group left off working on “Got To Get You Into My Life” for well over a month. However, knowing it was on the backburner and with ideas undoubtedly flowing for its completion, two mono mixes were made of the song by engineer Peter Vince on April 25th, 1966 in Room 65 at EMI Studios. These mixes were made without the standard reverb and mainly used for cutting acetate discs, no doubt for Paul to hear what they had so far.

By May 18th, 1966, The Beatles had their act together. They entered EMI Studio Two at 2:30 pm with the intention of finally winding up the recording of the song. “We put trumpets on because it sounded like a trumpet number,” Paul stated at the time, adding: “None of the others did, so we haven’t used them on any other tracks, so it's a nice novelty.”

This novelty meant hiring five session musicians, two of which Paul knew personally. During the early months of the year, while The Beatles were on hiatus, Paul and Jane Asher would frequent London nightclubs, such as the Bag O’Nails in Soho, to hear the jazz-soul group Georgie Fame And The Blueflames. Paul evidently decided that the brass sound heard by this group would fit perfectly into “Got To Get You Into My Life” and, therefore, hired two of their horn players for a future session at EMI.

One of these players was Eddie Thornton. “I knew The Beatles – John and Paul particularly – from the studios and also from the London night club scene,” Thornton recalls. “In fact, Paul met Linda Eastman when he was at the Bag O’Nails Club watching us perform. But it was at the Scotch (of St. James) that Paul asked me to do this session with them.”

The baritone saxophonist from the group, Glenn Hughes, was to be another of The Blue Flames to attend this Beatles recording session, but he, unfortunately, fell sick that morning. “Georgie (Fame) called me,” said tenor saxophonist of the group Peter Coe, “so I rushed up to the EMI Studios. Because I play tenor sax, it meant having two tenors instead of a tenor and baritone…The Beatles wanted a definite jazz feel. Paul and George Martin were in charge. There was nothing written down, but Paul sat at the piano and showed us what he wanted, and we played with the rhythm track in our headphones. I remember that we tried it a few times to get the feel right and then John Lennon, who was in the control room, suddenly rushed out, stuck his thumb aloft and shouted ‘Got it!’ George Harrison got a little bit involved too, but Ringo sat playing draughts in the corner.”

Freelance musician Les Condon, who was a trumpeter also hired for the session, gives a similar description of the day’s activities: “It was interesting and unusual. I’ve never done a session quite like it before. The tune was a rhythm and blueish sort of thing. We were only on one number. Apparently, The Beatles felt it needed something extra. As for the song’s arrangement, well, they didn’t have a thing written down! We just listened to what they had done and got an idea of what they wanted. Then we went ahead from there and gradually built up an arrangement. We tried a few things, and Paul and George Martin decided between them what would be used.”

With two other session men, trumpeter Ian Hamer and tenor saxophonist Alan Branscombe, these five musicians added the soulful brass sounds heard on the finished product, but with one more unconventional detail added to the mix. Engineer Geoff Emerick explains: “No one had ever…heard brass the way I recorded it on ‘Got To Get You Into My Life.’…I close-miked the instruments – actually put the mics right down into the bells instead of the standard technique of placing them four feet away – and then applied severe limiting to the sound.”

All five session musicians received their payment of 18 pounds for the day as well as a good degree of future sessions. “That led to a lot of extra work for me,” stated Eddie Thornton. “Through working with The Beatles, I played with Jimi Hendrix, Sandie Shaw, The Small Faces and The Rolling Stones.”

With the brass overdub complete and all four tracks of the tape filled, more space on the tape was deemed necessary due to a decision to re-record the vocals. Therefore, three tape-to-tape reduction mixdowns were made, numbered 9 through 11, which removed Paul’s previously recorded vocals from April 8th. The first mix down (take 9) was considered best so, onto this, Paul filled one track on the new tape with a fresh and invigorating lead vocal. “I loved Paul’s singing on that song, too,” recalled Geoff Emerick in his book “Here, There And Everywhere,” adding: “He really let loose. At one point while Paul was recording the lead vocal, John actually burst out of the control room to shout his encouragement – evidence of the camaraderie and teamwork that was so pervasive during the ‘Revolver’ sessions.” Paul then double-tracked his vocals as an additional overdub.

There are some discrepancies regarding the remaining overdubs recorded for the song, however, documents reveal that John and George also recorded backing vocals on the same overdub as Paul’s lead vocals but, since there is no trace of them on the finished product, this was either mistakenly written down, or these vocals somehow got removed from the mix later. Given Geoff Emerick’s eye-witness account of John being in the control room during Paul’s lead vocal overdub, it seems logical to conclude that John and George never did accompany Paul on this day. Documentation also says that more overdubbed “guitars” occurred on this day, which would have to be on top of the guitar overdub made on April 11th, which enters before and during the final refrain of the song. No mention concerning the tambourine (heard throughout the song) and the organ (heard in the final seconds of the song) overdubs, which logically they also recorded on this day.

At any rate, two mono mixes were made of the song at the conclusion of the session by George Martin, Geoff Emerick and 2nd engineer Phil McDonald, which ended the twelve-hour session at 2:30 am the following day.

One final overdub was deemed necessary to complete “Got To Get You Into My Life,” this being yet another guitar overdub. This recorded bit took place on June 17th, 1966, in EMI Studio Two, no doubt by Paul himself, at approximately 8 pm. After this and a vocal overdub for “Here, There And Everywhere” was complete, the same EMI recording team created four more mono mixes of the song.

Not that this satisfied Paul. “There were only five (brass) players on the session,” relates Geoff Emerick, “and when it came time to mix the song, Paul kept saying, ‘I wish we could make the brass sound bigger.’ George Martin replied, ‘Well, there’s no way we’re bringing them back in for another session – we’ve got to get the album wrapped up, and there’s no more budget for outside players anyway.’ That’s when I came up with the idea of dubbing the horn track onto a fresh piece of two-track tape, then playing it back alongside the multitrack, but just slightly out of sync, which had the effect of doubling the horns.”

In the February 2013 issue of Musicians Friend, Geoff Emerick adds a little more detail to this overdub: “We wanted a bigger sound on that brass section. How can we make it sound bigger? So the thing was we could double-track it, but there were no more tracks left. So we actually recorded it or copied –either copied it or recorded it – onto a stereo piece of tape. When we came to do the mix, it was a question of just fingers crossed and starting up the stereo machine, because there was no synching them together, in reality. Just came with the grease pencil mark. You used to move it and start at a certain point in the music and hopefully it would marry. So we sent this first double track, in fact, more than theory, the brass from a separate tape machine.”

The above-mentioned procedure was done on June 20th, 1966, in the control room of EMI Studio One by the same EMI staff. First, they made a copy of mono mix seven, which became remix eight, and then overdubbed onto that, slightly out of sync, the brass track from the original session tape of May 18th. This mono mix, which clocked in at 2:35 and features predominant bass and tambourine along with some awkward brass playing during the fade-out, was what finally became the released version on all mono pressings of the album.

The stereo mix, not surprisingly, was not made in the same laborious fashion. On June 22nd, 1966, George Martin, Geoff Emerick and 2nd engineer Jerry Boys convened in the control room of EMI Studio Three to record the final mixes needed for the finished album. For “Got To Get You Into My Life,” they simply used “take nine” as overdubbed from June 17th and mixed the rhythm track fully on the left channel (with the barely audible guitar work of George and John from the rhythm track) and the single-tracked brass instruments fully on the right channel. Paul’s double-tracked vocals, the tambourine, the bass guitar, and the closing organ part are all centered in the mix.

The fade out of the stereo mix is what attracts the most attention. For one thing, it is eight seconds shorter, clocking in at 2:27. Second, Paul’s final vocal adlibs during the fade-out, on the line “every single day of my life” is taken from the opposite double-tracked track as used on the mono mix. Thought was undoubtedly given to fading this mix earlier than the mono mix to hide the awkward brass playing at the end of the mono mix, thankfully since this is the version most people are familiar.

Three live recorded performances of the song developed for release by Paul McCartney, the first being on December 29th, 1979 by his band Wings for the release “Concerts For The People Of Kampuchea.” Then, on October 17th, 1989, a live recording was made of Paul and his new band performing the song in Dortmund, Germany, the results appearing on his albums “Tripping The Live Fantastic” and “Tripping The Live Fantastic: Highlights!” Then, sometime between July 17th and 21st, 2009, Paul recorded the song at Citi Field in New York City, and appeared on his album “Good Evening New York City.”

Song Structure and Style.

A familiar and successful technique forms a similarity here in structure to early McCartney compositions such as “All My Loving” with his use of a refrain after two verses. The full format used here, however, amounts to ‘verse/ verse/ refrain/ verse/ refrain (extended)/ refrain’ (or aababb) with a brief introduction and faded conclusion added in. (Note that the brief two-measure guitar solo at the end of the second refrain hardly constitutes being signified as an instrumental section or “solo,” leading me to identify it as only an extended version of the refrain.)

The four-measure introduction begins with a ringing bass note from Paul and quarter-note hi-hat tapping from Ringo in the first two measures with a little indecipherable mumbling from someone in the background, undoubtedly from the rhythm track. On top of this is the full-on arrival of the five-piece brass players performing the signature introductory hook of the song. Their final note extends through the third and fourth measures along with the arrival of Ringo’s hard-hitting tambourine, also played on the quarter notes.

The sixteen-measure first verse ushers in immediately afterward with Ringo’s full drum kit and Paul’s bass playing a pedal-point rhythm to set the groove. Also musically, and almost inaudible except for in the left channel of the stereo mix, is John’s rhythm guitar and George’s electric guitar playing from the rhythm track. Most prominent, however, is Paul’s double-tracked lead vocals along with the brass players filling in the gaps at the end of his phrases as George was wont to do on lead guitar (and actually is doing here if you listen very, very carefully). The brass passages are just used to underscore Paul’s extended high notes, such as “find there” and “mind there.” Uninterrupted during these first eight measures are the relentless tambourine accents, added no doubt to drive the song along percussively due to the somewhat muffled remains of the original drum track.

The second half of the verse switches to a descending brass pattern accompanied by Paul’s bass following suit with a continuation of the vocal melody line sung with intermittent syncopation as the first half of the verse was. The tambourine switches to being hit on the 2- and 4-beat of each measure for the ninth through fourteenth measure as Paul’s melody line becomes much more uniform and mostly on quarter notes (ev-ery sin-gle day…). When the word “life” sings in the fifteenth measure, the brass holds out a single note as all the rest of the instruments take a breather, save for the hi-hat beat in measure fifteen and then the subdued triplet-rolls of Ringo from the rhythm track in the sixteenth measure.

The second verse appears next, which is also sixteen-measures long and identical musically. The six-measure refrain follows, interestingly, only comprises one lyrical melody line, not to mention it comprises the repetition of a single note. The lyric, of course, is the title of the song which is accompanied by there-emergence of the hard-hitting quarter-note tambourine playing along with the rest of the rhythm players. Immediately following the song’s title, the brass comes in to finish the refrain by playing their soulful rendition of the lead guitar passage George played on lead guitar on the rhythm track. The fourth measure comprises a "Beatle break" whereby the brass players take center stage to complete their melodic riff. After a brief snare roll, the fifth and sixth measure bring the band back into vamp on the home key and set the stage for the next verse.

The third verse and refrain that follows are identical structurally and instrumentally, except for the noticeable disappearance of the tambourine just before the overdubbed lead guitar passage comes in, obviously indicating overdubbed guitar work laid onto the track that contained the tambourine. (Audiophile note: Just when the tambourine disappears, a stray guitar flub appears, which was probably a little too difficult to punch out when the mix was made back in 1966.) When the fifth measure of the refrain comes in, only the hi-hat continues while the triple-tracked lead guitar overdub takes the refrain to eight measures this time around. An interesting observation is the striking similarity between the guitar riff played here and the repeated riff of “Paperback Writer” which was recorded two days after the first guitar overdub session.

After the guitar spotlight is over, an additional refrain enters with all of the instrumental elements returning except, of course, the tambourine because the guitar overdub continued. This is followed by what becomes a twelve measure (sixteen measures in the mono mix) faded conclusion to the song. The first two measures feature Paul’s single-tracked rant “I was alone, I took a ride…” while the original rhythm track contains the only instruments heard therein. With the overdubbed guitar passage complete, the tambourine is allowed to return along with, for its first appearance, an insistent organ part (attributed by most to John) featuring quarter notes along with the tambourine on the same track. The horns then reappear to continue a variation and endless repetition of the song’s introduction. A dynamic touch to the brass playing is the addition of a Maynard Ferguson-like screeching high note that ends each melodic phrase in the final measures of the song.

Then, suspiciously, when Paul continues his adlib vocalizing with the words “then suddenly I see you,” the track that contains both the tambourine and organ disappear. They then reappear just before Paul sings, “did I tell you I need you.” Why? Although the reason isn’t explained, this was done manually during the mixing process because the tambourine/organ track comes back in sooner in the stereo mix than it does in the mono mix.

This, of course, is Paul’s baby all the way. His pedal-point bass work punctuates the track throughout, propelling its incessant soulful groove. His vocal work is also without compare, reaching to the limits of his range to get the required feel, not unlike his attempts in “She’s A Woman” two years before. And leave it to Mr. McCartney to add the final touch on lead guitar to make sure his creation is just so.

John’s rhythm guitar work was unfortunately deeply buried in the mix, obviously deemed unnecessary in the arrangement. However, he does make an appearance on the organ at the end of the track as if to make sure his presence is felt somewhere. George’s lead guitar passages are also pushed toward indecipherable, although keen ears can still identify a job well done. Of course, Ringo could always be counted on to display a suitable performance on drums and tambourine.

Only the astute reader would know that this urgent love ballad was singing the praises of weed. Paul weaves his love of pot in and around the subject matter, hinting at the truth sparingly, such as with lines like “I was alone, I took a ride” and “maybe I could see another kind of mind there.” Otherwise, the listener concludes that Paul desperately wants this newly found woman in his life. This is an example of an expertly written piece which tells a convincing story that leaves the intended impression. He didn’t want the world to know that he desired to “get” marijuana into his life. He instead wanted to disguise this message only to reveal it when he saw fit. Who knew?

Therefore, he “suddenly” experiences grass for the first time (in 1964 with the help of Bob Dylan) and decides that he needs it “every single day” of his life. His wanting “just to hold” it, knowing they’d “meet again,” feeling he “was meant to be near” it, after experiencing his first ‘high’ he knew he wanted to “stay there” – all these hidden innuendos are fun to discover after years of thinking of this as just another love song.

Next Song – Tomorrow Never Knows:

As was usually the case in The Beatles recording history, the first song to be tackled for a new album launched a Lennon creation. April 6th, 1966 triggered the first session for what became the “Revolver” album, the session beginning at 8 pm in EMI Studio Three with a Lennon original leading the way.

One noteworthy new element involved on this day was the use of 20-year-old Geoff Emerick as primary engineer. Norman Smith had been The Beatles engineer for the vast majority of their sessions up to this point but, because of his promotion to producer (new band Pink Floyd became one of his first artists), advantage was taken to get some "young blood" in the studio to help satisfy The Beatles’ cravings for innovations in the recording process. Having worked with them on various occasions in the past as 2nd engineer, the group was somewhat familiar with him personally. His new role as primary engineer would test his creativity and ultimately win them over as one who could fulfill their quest for expanding their sonic landscape.

Being such a landmark day in his career, Geoff Emerick remembers the events of this day with exceptional clarity, his book “Here, There And Everywhere” giving amazing detail and is a must-read to get a full picture, highlights of which I’ll include here. “John was deep in discussion with George Martin,” Emerick relates, “clearly the first song we were going to be working on was one of his. He had no title for it at the time, so the tape box was simply labeled 'Mark I.'” He apparently later had misgivings about using the title “The Void” as roadie Neil Aspinall leaked to the world through the group’s monthly fan magazine.

Emerick continues: “This one’s completely different than anything we’ve ever done before,’ John was saying to George Martin. ‘It’s only got the one chord, and the whole thing is meant to be like a drone.’…My ears perked up when I heard John’s final direction to George: ‘…and I want my voice to sound like the Dalai Lama chanting from a mountaintop, miles away.”

George Martin remembers: “So, I thought, ‘I wonder what time the next plane is to Tibet.’ But, I thought, that was one way of doing it.” Geoff Emerick continues, “George Martin looked over at me with a nod, and he reassured John. ‘Got it. I’m sure Geoff and I will come up with something.’ Which meant, of course, that he was sure Geoff would come up with something. I looked around the room in a panic. I thought I had a vague idea of what John wanted, but I had no clear sense of how to achieve it.”

“Fortunately, I had a little time to think about it, because John decided to start the recording process by having me make a loop of him playing a simple guitar figure, with Ringo accompanying him on drums…Because John wanted a thunderous sound, the decision was made to play the part at a fast tempo and then slow the tape down on playback: this would serve not only to return the tempo to the desired speed but also to make the guitar and drums – and the reverb they were drenched in – sound otherworldly.” Paul also experimented with playing some piano on the song which got caught on tape, although it was decided not to be appropriate for the song…at least at this point.

“The studio’s Hammond organ was hooked up to a system called a Leslie – a large wooden box that contained an amp and two sets of revolving speakers,” Geoff continues, “one that carried low bass frequencies and the other that carried high treble frequencies…nobody had ever put a vocal through it…’I think I have an idea about what to do for John’s voice,’ I announced to George in the control room as we finished editing the loop. Excitedly, I explained my concept to him. Though his brows furrowed for a moment, he nodded his assent. Then he went out into the studio and told the four Beatles, who were standing around impatiently waiting for the loop to be constructed, to take a tea break while ‘Geoff sorts out something for the vocal.’”

After the required wiring was complete, two microphones stood near the speakers and tests were run. The Beatles were then informed that they were ready to give it a try. “John settled behind the mic and Ringo behind his kit, ready to overdub vocals and drums on top of the recorded loop,” Emerick continues. “Paul and George Harrison headed up to the control room. Once everyone was in place and ready to go, George Martin got on the talkback mic: ‘Stand by…here it comes.’ Then Phil (McDonald) started the loop playing back. Ringo began playing along, hitting the drums with a fury, and John began singing, eyes closed, head back.”

“’Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream…’ Lennon’s voice sounded like it never had before, eerily disconnected, distant yet compelling. The effect seemed to perfectly complement the esoteric lyrics he was chanting. Everyone in the control room…looked stunned. Through the glass, we could see John begin smiling. At the end of the first verse, he gave an exuberant thumbs-up and McCartney, and Harrison began slapping each other on the back. ‘It’s the Dalai Lennon!’ Paul shouted…’That is bloody marvelous,’ (John) kept saying over and over again.”

“John was so impressed by the sound of a Leslie that he hit upon the reverse idea,” Emerick recalls in the book “The Beatles Recording Sessions.” “He suggested we suspend him from a rope in the middle of the studio ceiling, put a mike in the middle of the floor, give him a push and he’d sing as he went around and around. That was one idea that didn’t come off although they were always said to be ‘looking into it’!”

The above description, the guitar/drum tape loop with overdubbed drums and lead vocal, referred to as ‘take one,’ appeared on the 1996 release “Anthology 2,” George Martin’s voice on the talkback mic and all. This historic recording was eagerly anticipated by most fans upon its eventual release, cited in Mark Lewisohn’s “The Beatles Recording Sessions” as “a sensational, apocalyptic version…a heavy metal recording of enormous proportion, with thundering echo and booming, quivering, ocean-bed vibrations.” But, with the overdubbed vocals and drumming getting hopelessly out of sync with the pre-recorded tape loop, a decision was made to start from scratch. They, of course, were anxious to keep the Leslie vocal effect for the finished product.

With the juices flowing, they immediately began to come up with more ideas. “I’d imagined, in my head, that in the background you could hear thousands of monks chanting,” Lennon explained in 1967. “That was impractical, of course, and we did something different. I should have tried to get near my original idea, the monks singing. I realize now that was what I wanted.”

More ideas were flowing at this point. “While they were listening to the first playback,” Emerick continues, “John and George Harrison had been excitedly discussing ideas for guitar parts. Harrison eagerly suggested that a tamboura – one of his new collection of Indian instruments – be added. ‘It’s perfect for this track, John,’ he was explaining in his deadpan monotone. ‘It’s just kind of a droning sound, and I think it will make the whole thing quite Eastern.’ Lennon was nodding his head. You could tell he liked the idea.”

“But my attention was drawn to Paul and Ringo, who were huddled together talking about the drumming…Paul was suggesting that ‘Ring’ (as we usually called him) add a little skip to the basic beat he was playing. The pattern he was tapping out on the mixing console was somewhat reminiscent of the one Ringo had played on their recent hit single ‘Ticket To Ride.’ Ringo said little, but listened intently…he was used to taking direction from the others.”

With the intention of creating a new sound for Beatles recordings, following the earlier admonition from John about the song being “completely different than anything we’ve ever done before,” Geoff Emerick decided to break standard EMI procedures and mic the drums differently. “Without saying a word, I quietly slipped out to the studio and moved both the snare drum mic and the single overhead mic in close. But before I also moved the microphone that was aimed at Ringo’s bass drum, there was something else I wanted to try, because I felt that the bass drum was ringing too much…Sitting atop one of the instrument cases was an old woolen sweater – one which had been specially knitted with eight arms to promote the group’s recent film, which was originally called ‘Eight Arms To Hold You’…I removed the bass drum’s front skin – the one with the famous ‘dropped-T’ Beatles logo on it – and stuffed the sweater inside so that it was flush against the rear beater skin. Then I replaced the front skin and positioned the bass drum mic directly in front of it, angled down slightly but so close that it was almost touching.”

Shortly afterwards, “take two” began. “’Ready, John?’ asked Martin. A nod from Lennon signaled that he was about to begin his count-in, so I instructed (2nd engineer) Phil McDonald to roll tape.  ‘…two, three, four,’ intoned John, and then Ringo entered with a furious cymbal crash, and bass drum hit.  It sounded magnificent! Thirty seconds in, someone in the band made a mistake, though, and they all stopped playing…I quickly announced ‘take three’ on the talkback microphone and the group began playing the song again, perfectly this time around.”

“’I think we’ve got it,’ John announced excitedly after the last note dies away. George Martin waved everyone into the control room to hear the playback…’What on earth did you do to my drums?’ Ringo was asking me. ‘They sound fantastic!’ Paul and John began whooping it up, and even the normally dour George Harrison was smiling broadly. ‘That’s the one, boys,’ George Martin agreed, nodding in my direction.”

So ended the recording session for the night, the completed rhythm track consisted of Ringo on drums, George on guitar, Paul on bass and John on vocals. His vocals were sung in the conventional single-tracked manner for the first three lyrical phrases of the song and then through the rotating Leslie speaker for the remainder. All overdubs were left over for the following session on the next day. However, before this session ended at 1:15 am, an assignment of sorts was given to each of the group to prepare for the next days’ recording session.

“Everybody went home and made up a spool, a loop,” explains George Harrison. “’OK, class, now I want you all to go home and come back in the morning with your own loop.’ We were touching on the Stockhausen kind of ‘avant-garde a clue’ music.”

“It was Paul, actually, who experimented with his tape machine at home,” remembers George Martin, “taking the erase-head off and putting on loops, saturating the tape with weird sounds. He explained to the other boys how he had done this and Ringo, and George would do the same and bring me different loops of sounds, and I would listen to them at various speeds, backwards and forwards, and select some.”

“I was into tape loops at the time,” explains Paul. “I had two Brennell machines, and I could create tape loops with them...I used to get a lot of seagulls in my loops; a speeded-up shout, hah ha, goes squawk squawk. And I always get pictures of seasides, of Torquay, the Torbay Inn, fishing boats and puffins, and deep purple mountains. Those were the slowed-down ones.”

“So we made up our little loops and brought them to the studio,” George Harrison continues. “Those ‘seagulls’ were just weird noises. I don’t exactly recall what was on my loop. I think it was a grandfather clock but at a different speed. You could do it with anything:  pick a little piece, and then edit it, connect it up to itself and play it at a different speed.”

Even Ringo got in on the act. “I had my own little set-up to record them. As George says, we were ‘drinking a lot of tea’ in those days, and on all my tapes you can hear, ‘Oh, I hope I’ve switched it on.’ I’d get so deranged from strong tea. I’d sit there for hours making those noises.”

Geoff Emerick explains the process of making these loops in a little more detail: “Paul…had discovered that the erase head could be removed, which allowed new sounds to be added to the existing ones each time the tape passed over the record head. Because of the primitive technology of the time, the tape quickly became saturated with sound and distorted, but it was an effect that appealed to the four of them as they conducted sonic experiments in their respective homes.”

At 2:30 pm the following day, April 7th, 1966, the group entered EMI Studio Three once again armed and ready to add numerous overdubs to the previous days’ rhythm track. “Paul had gone home and sat up all night creating a whole series of short tape loops specifically for the song,” Emerick continues, “which he dutifully presented to me in a little plastic bag when he returned for the next day’s session. We began the second evening’s work by having Phil McDonald carefully thread each loop onto the tape machine, one at a time so that we could audition them. Paul had assembled an extraordinary collection of bizarre sounds, which included his playing distorted guitar and bass, as well as wineglasses ringing and other indecipherable noises. We played them every conceivable way:  proper speed sped up, slowed down, backwards, forwards. Every now and then, one of The Beatles would shout, ‘That’s a good one,’ as we played through the lot. Eventually five of the loops were selected to be added to the basic backing track.”

According to Ian MacDonald’s book “Revolution In The Head,” the five loops, numbered according to their first appearance in the song, can be identified as follows: “(1) a ‘seagull’/’Red Indian’ effect (actually McCartney laughing) made, like most of the other loops, by superimposition and acceleration (0:07); (2) an orchestral chord of B flat major (0:19); (3) a Mellotron played on its flute setting (0:22); (4) another Mellotron oscillating in 6/8 from B flat to C on its string setting (0:38) and (5) a rising scalar phrase on a sitar, recorded with heavy saturation and acceleration (0:56).” Since the fifth of these loops occurred from a sitar, we can rightfully assume that this was the creation of George Harrison, debunking the credit from Geoff Emerick to McCartney of supplying all of the loops used on the song. Or, as some claim, this sitar-like phrase may have been played on the guitar and could possibly have also been recorded and supplied by Paul. However, neither the “wineglasses” loop nor the "grandfather clock" loop was deemed good enough to make the final cut.

Then came the dilemma of inserting these loops into the master recording. “We had six fellows with pencils holding them on, on six machines. Very desirable, the whole effect, I thought,” explained John back in 1966. Paul adds: “We got machines from all the other studios, and with pencils and the aid of glasses got all the loops to run. We might have had twelve recording machines where we normally only needed one to make a record. We were running with those loops all fed through the recording desk.”

“Fortunately, there were plenty of other machines in the Abbey Road complex,” Geoff Emerick relates, “all interconnected via wiring in the walls, and all the other studios just happened to be empty that afternoon. What followed next was a scene that could have come out a science fiction movie – or a Monty Python sketch. Every tape machine in every studio was commandeered, and every available EMI employee was given the task of holding a pencil or drinking glass to give the loops the proper tensioning. In many instances, this meant they had to be standing out in the hallway, looking quite sheepish. Most of those people didn’t have a clue what we were doing; they probably thought we were daft…add in the fact that all of the technical staff were required to wear white lab coats, and the whole thing became totally surreal.”

“Meanwhile, back in the control room, George Martin and I huddled over the console, raising and lowering faders to shouted instructions from John, Paul, George, and Ringo. (‘Let’s have that seagull sound now!’...) With each fader carrying a different loop, the mixing desk acted like a synthesizer, and we played it like a musical instrument, too, carefully overdubbing textures to the prerecorded backing track. Finally we completed the task to the band’s satisfaction, the white-coated technicians were freed from their labors, and Paul’s loops were returned back to the plastic bag, never to be played again.”

Although John didn’t get his chanting monks, he did get something else he wanted on this day. “We were always asking George Martin, ‘Please give us double-tracking without having to track it – save time,’” recalls Lennon. “And then one of the engineers who was working with us came in the next day with this machine. We’d got ADT – and that was beautiful.” Ken Townsend was that maintenance engineer, who later explained: “They often liked to double-track their vocals, but it’s quite a laborious process, and they soon got fed up with it. So after one particularly trying night-time session doing just that, I was driving home, and I suddenly had an idea…”

His idea was “Artificial Double Tracking” (or ADT for short). The book “The Beatles Recording Sessions” explains: “ADT is a process whereby a recording signal is taken from the playback head of a tape machine, is recorded onto a separate machine which has a variable oscillator (enabling the speed to be altered) and then fed back into the first machine to be combined with the original signal…One voice laid perfectly on top of another produces one image. But move the second voice by just a few milliseconds and two separate images emerge.” Almost all of the tracks on “Revolver” utilized ADT, “Tomorrow Never Knows” included. John’s conventionally recorded vocals in the first half of the song, as recorded the previous day, had ADT applied to it, for the first time ever in recording history.

More overdubs were added as well. Ringo overdubbed a tambourine throughout a good portion of the song, John double-tracked his vocals despite the applied ADT (probably just force of habit), and an organ, which is attributed by many sources to being played by Lennon. George Harrison explains the purpose of the organ overdub: “Indian music doesn’t modulate, it just stays. You pick what key you’re in, and it stays in that key. I think ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ was the first one that stayed there, the whole song was on one chord. But there is a chord superimposed on top that does change:  if it was in C, it changes down to B flat. That was like an overdub, but the basic sound all hangs on the one drone.”

The overdubbed organ plays this B flat chord in the fifth and sixth measures of most of the verses (for instance, during the lyrics “It is not dyinnnng…”) and then it plays a C chord during the seventh and (sometimes) eighth measures to return to the droning home key of the song. This is added to the dissonant wail of the “orchestral chord” loop that also appears during the sixth and seventh measure of most verses. The coupling of these two elements simultaneously produces the desired effect, something similar also being added to George’s song “Love You To” a few days later. At 7:15 pm, after nearly five hours of making history, the group took an hour break before beginning work on a new McCartney composition entitled “Got To Get You Into My Life.” “Mark I,” as “Tomorrow Never Knows” was still referred to, still had finishing touches required to it at a later date.

This later date, after work on seven more songs transpired, was April 22nd, 1966. They entered EMI Studio Two at 2:30 pm and began the session adding overdubs to George’s second composition for “Revolver,” namely “Taxman,” and then resumed work on “Mark I” at around 7:30 pm. It appears that the primary overdub on this day concerned George Harrison.

“George Harrison showed up with the tamboura he had so eagerly talked of during the first night’s session,” recalls Geoff Emerick. “Actually, he’d been talking about it almost nonstop since then, so everyone was really curious to see the thing. He staggered into the studio under its weight – it’s a huge instrument, and the case was the size of a small coffin – and brought it out with a grand gesture, displaying it proudly as we gathered around.”

“’What do you think to that, then”’ he asked everyone in sight. Not willing to trust his precious cargo to either of the two roadies, he had actually stuffed the tamboura case in the backseat of one of his Porsches, which he parked right in front of the main entrance so he could carry the instrument by hand up the steps…Having seen how well Paul’s loops had worked, George wanted to contribute one of his own, so I recorded him playing a single note on the huge instrument – again using a close-micing technique – and turned it into a loop. It ended up becoming the sound that opens the track.”

John also apparently re-recorded his Leslie-speaker vocal part that ends the song on this day, but another interesting overdub also was recorded. The five loops were to act as the “solo” of the song but, after more listening; a decision was made to spruce it up a little more. The first four measures of the solo section premiered the tamboura loop, but afterwards they spliced in something they recorded the previous day. According to “Revolution In The Head,” “The second half of the instrumental break consists of parts of McCartney’s guitar solo for ‘Taxman’ slowed down a tone, cut up, and run backwards…The tell-tale octave leap on D of the ‘Taxman’ solo can be heard on ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ (reversed and transposed down to C) at 1:15.”

There was one final touch added to complete the song. “Another sonic component,” Geoff explains, “the little bit of tack piano at the end was a fluke. It actually came from a trial we did on the first take, when the group were just putting ideas down, but Paul heard it during one of the playbacks and suggested that we fly it into the fadeout, and it worked perfectly.” With this complete by 11:30 pm, the song was deemed acceptable to all and destined for mixing soon.

According to the liner notes of the remastered 2009 compact disc release of “Revolver,” the master four-track tape contains the following components: “Drums, bass, and guitar were sent to track one; the sounds of tape loops were on two; a double-track vocal, tambourine, organ and backwards guitar were on three; and four had the lead vocal and a sitar (actually, tamboura).”

The mono mix released to the world took place just five days later on April 27th, 1966 in the control room of EMI Studio Three by George Martin, Geoff Emerick, and Phil McDonald. Still using the title “Mark I,” nine mono mixes of the song followed on this day, mix eight corresponded the released version. Generally, the effect loops, which are all on track two of the master tape, are faded up and down without much transition while the backward guitar solo sounds highly processed.

On May 16th, 1966, tape copying of finished “Revolver” tracks was done to assemble a master reel. This was done in the control room of EMI Studio Two by the same EMI team using mono mix eight as performed on April 27th.

On June 6th, 1966, another crack was made at a mono mix for “Tomorrow Never Knows,” as the song was finally titled. The same EMI team assembled in the control room of EMI Studio Three for this procedure which also produced more usable mono mixes of other tracks for the album. Three more attempts at a mono mix for the song surfaced (ten through twelve), mix eleven being deemed best. Interestingly, even though this new mono mix was cut-out for the master tape of the album, a phone call was made on the day that the album went to the cutting room (July 14th) from George Martin to engineer Geoff Emerick. He decided that “mix eight,” made on April 27th, was better after all and should be used on the mono album.

However, the phone call must have come a little too late because the very first pressing of the British album contained “mix eleven,” which is markedly different and therefore quite rare today. Noticeable differences include the vocals being somewhat more prominent in the mix, the backward guitar solo not having the “processed” sound and missing the final guitar phrase, and the piano fade-out being noticeably longer. This rare first pressing has the matrix code “XEX 606-1” pressed in the run-out groove of side two of the album, whereas later pressings have “606-2” or “606-3.”

The stereo mix of the song emerged on the final day of work on the “Revolver” album, namely June 22nd, 1966. Martin, Emerick and 2nd engineer Jerry Boys put together the final mixes for the album, one of the six stereo mixes made on this day being the released stereo version. The loop effects are faded in more gradually throughout the mix while a curious feedback sound appears when John’s Leslie vocals come in with the words “that love is all.”

The original rhythm track of drums, guitar, bass, and vocals, along with the tamboura loop, are centered in the mix, while the effect loops are heard primarily in the left channel except for the first four measures of the instrumental section of the song when the loops are centered. (Note that the #4 loop, the oscillating Mellotron, is centered in the mix for a split second before hurriedly panned back to the left channel.) Track three of the master tape, which contains the tambourine, organ, double-tracked vocal, backwards guitar solo, and piano ending, is exclusively on the right channel.

Song Structure and Style.

Being the most unconventionally structured song in The Beatles catalog to date, it consists of only verses (if John even considered them as verses at all). Since he intended to mimic the Indian music they were coming to admire in early 1966, the format used on this track completely diverted their attention away from any pop structure with normal bridges, refrains or choruses. Even the ultra-Eastern songs “Love You To” and “Within You Without You” included refrains. However, “Tomorrow Never Knows” did include an instrumental section, so the structure ends up as ‘verse/ verse/ verse/ instrumental/ verse/ verse/ verse/ verse’ (or aaabaaaa). And of course, a droning introduction and conclusion round out the proceedings.

The song begins with a faded in (see “Eight Days A Week”) tamboura loop, which then provides a backdrop throughout the recording. A four-measure introduction then follows, the downbeat introducing the drums, bass and almost indecipherable guitar of the rhythm track holding the C chord while an overdubbed tambourine taps out accents. Measures three and four of this introduction debuts the first home-made loop, Paul’s “seagull” loop.

The first eight-measure verse then begins with John’s ADT treated double-tracked lead vocals sung in a labored pattern that loosely ties into the beat of the song. Measures five and six feature the second home-made loop, this being the “orchestral” B flat major loop that gives the effect of a change of chords to the song. An overdubbed organ is also heard playing B flat major at this point, it then switching to C in the eighth measure. The seventh and eighth measure introduces the “mellotron flute” loop.

Verse two begins immediately afterward which displays three loops, measures three and four bring the “seagull” loop, measures five and six – the “orchestral” loop and organ overdub, and measures seven and eight introduce the “mellotron strings” loop. Verse three then comes in with measures three and four displaying an overlap of the “mellotron flute” and “mellotron strings” loop. Then measures five and six bring back the “orchestral” loop while the seventh and eighth measure displays the “mellotron strings” loop by itself. On John’s final repeat of the word “being” in the seventh measure, his double-tracking vocal disappears as does the tambourine and organ overdub.

Then comes the sixteen-measure instrumental section which displays the fifth of the home-made loops for the first time, this being the “sitar” loop which is panned to the center of the stereo mix and played at a much louder volume than the other loops – understandably since this is the beginning of the “solo” section of the song. This loop comprises measures one through four of this section, then giving way to the “mellotron strings” loop for measures five and six.

For the final ten measures of the instrumental section, Paul’s backward lead guitar passages are sprinkled in as highlights amidst the continual interjections of the previous loops. The “seagull” loop returns in measures seven and eight, the “orchestral loop” in measures nine and ten, the “mellotron flute” loop in measures eleven and twelve, the “orchestral loop” in measures thirteen and fourteen, the “mellotron flute” loop in measure fifteen, and finally a quick reprise of the “sitar” loop in measure sixteen.

The eight-measure fourth verse then appears with John’s voice coming through the Leslie speaker cabinet for the first time and persist for the remainder of the song. The feedback sound is heard in the first measure, which, coincidentally (perhaps), marks the exact middle of this three-minute song. The “sitar” loop appears once again and fades in and out throughout measures three through eight, replacing the “orchestral” loop that we normally would hear in the fifth and sixth measures.

Next comes verse five, which features the “mellotron strings” loop in measures three and four. The “orchestral” loop returns to its proper place in measures five and six this time around, as does the tambourine and organ overdub track. Measures seven and eight brings back the “mellotron strings” loop to round out the verse.

Verse six features the “seagull” loop once again, which is heard on top of John’s vocals in measures one and two and continues in increased volume in measures three and four. Measures five and six have the “orchestral” loop with the organ overdub while measures seven and eight feature the “mellotron flute” loop.

Verse seven reprises the “sitar” loop at various volumes throughout all eight measures while the “orchestral” loop also occurs in measures five and six as usual. This time around, though, John’s words “of the beginning” is repeated five more times (totaling seven) which comprise the eleven-measure conclusion of the song. The “orchestral loop” and overdubbed organ is heard on every odd-numbered repeat of the word “beginning” to simulate a switch back and forth from B flat major to C until the conclusion of the song. Also heard in conclusion are the “mellotron strings” loop (measures one through four) and the “seagull” loop (measures five through eleven). At the very end of measure eight, we hear Paul begin his “tack piano” vamping which continues as the rhythm track concludes and the “seagull” loop extends. The sound collage fades with the piano switching back and forth between C and B flat major while the “sitar” loop returns one final time.

And then John, Paul and George harmonize the words “yeah, yeah, yeah.” Or, maybe not.

“I was proud of my drumming on ‘Tomorrow Never Knows,’” states Ringo, “but I was quite proud of my drumming all the way through really.” Proud he should be, exhibiting perfectly the suggestions from Paul for this track. George’s rhythm guitar work may not be distinguishable on the finished piece, but his tamboura drone throughout the song gives a distinctive Harrison touch to the proceedings.

John’s initial vision for the song may have been quite different than what eventually appeared on the “Revolver” album (alas, no chanting monks), but he was quite pleased with the results at the time in interviews and, like most Beatles fans would attest, he perfectly captured the LSD-cum-enlightenment imagery he was looking for. Great other-worldly vocals – that’s what makes “Tomorrow Never Knows” a remarkable milestone in recorded music.

John’s vision, however, saw true fruition with the help of his partner-in-crime. Paul’s homespun take loops and droning bass playing, not to mention his piano doodling at the end, helped bring their 60’s experience to the light of day. The Beatles were still a true cooperative team at this point in their career without a doubt.

As for an interpretation of the lyrics, George Harrison said: “The lyrics are the essence of Transcendentalism…Basically it is saying what meditation is all about. The goal of meditation is to go beyond (that is, transcend) waking, sleeping and dreaming…From birth to death, all we ever do is think; we have one thought, we have another thought, another thought, another thought. Even when you are asleep, you are having dreams, so there is never a time from birth to death when the mind isn’t always active with thoughts. But you can turn off your mind, and go to the part which Maharishi described as ‘Where was your last thought before you thought it?’”

“The whole point is that we are the song. The self is coming from a state of pure awareness, from the state of being. All the rest that comes about in the outward manifestation of the physical world (including all the fluctuations which end up as thoughts and actions) is just clutter. The true nature of each soul is pure consciousness. So the song is really about transcending and about the quality of the transcendent. I am not too sure if John actually fully understood what he was saying. He knew he was onto something when he saw those words and turned them into a song. But to have experienced what the lyrics in that song are actually about? I don’t know if he fully understood it.”

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