Went with “Tomorrow Never Knows”, but there were literally 7 other songs I could have picked and would have been fine with. With this album, my favorite basically changes by day of the week. None of the other albums will be as difficult for me.
Hard to say. I remember singing along to “Yellow Submarine” when I was a kid, so that’s something of a sentimental favourite.
I didn’t listen to the whole album until I was in junior high, when “Tomorrow Never Knows” blew me away. I didn’t think any songs had drum like that until decades later!
Now, I think my favourite’s probably “Love You To”. I have a soft spot for George’s stuff and just about any music that incorporates East Indian elements.
Everybody needs to have one really sappy song to love, and Here, There, and Everywhere is mine.
Might be my favorite Beatle song. So far ahead of its time.
This one seems to have the perfect balance between the wild, sometimes insane inventiveness of their later output and melodious tightness of the earlier albums. One of the keys, I think, is that despite the forays into psychedelia, almost all the songs end up being held to the pop-traditional 3 minutes or so. “Like this chorus, or harmony, or jangly guitar riff? Well, we’ll do it twice only, then it’s on to the next number.”
On any given day, I could vote for pretty much anything on the record except maybe Yellow Submarine, but today it’s And Your Bird Can Sing for the wonderful dual-guitar parts, chorus and locomotive beat, and despite Lennon apparently having later disavowed it as nothing but froth. Maybe so, but uncommonly tasty froth, sez I.
“Tomorrow Never Knows” is the clear winner for me. Nothing like that had ever been heard before (or since). It burst all known boundaries of how music could expand consciousness. The way it was put together and its total effect are sheer genius. Copy that on the 801 cover; I also really like the '80s cover of it by Monsoon, which took advantage of the drone nature to integrate it with Indian music. (Monsoon’s work in general sounds to me like the direct continuation of George Harrison’s '60s pioneering of Indo-rock syntheses.)
“And Your Bird Can Sing” is my second favorite for those breathtakingly beautiful guitar lines.
“Love You To” comes in for honorable mention as opened my mind to non-Western music for the first time, which developed into a huge deal for me in following years, speaking of consciousness expansion. During my first hearing of it, I knew deep down that this sound was where my head belonged. Minus side, though, its turbid lyrics don’t add up to much of anything.
Like many others it was hard to choose. I went with For No One because, unlike the other songs, I was not familiar with it until a few year ago. It was a real surprise to me. No other Beatles song of love lost feels like such a kick in the gut.
These polls are fun - they make me sit down and really listen to some music that maybe I’ve taken for granted over the years.
Today it’s a toss-up between Taxman and And Your Bird Can Sing. I think I’ll go with Taxman, just because I’m a fan of bitter, sarcastic music.
Hmmm…but then there’s Got to Get You Into My Life…
Nope. Today it’s Taxman.
It was a toss up between Eleanor Rigby and Tomorrow Never Knows for me, but I had to give it to Rigby for its emotion and classic staying power.
Was Revolver the last of the Beatle albums where the American and British versions had different songs? It’s weird to me, seeing “Doctor Robert,” “And Your Bird Can Sing,” and “I’m Only Sleeping” as Revolver songs. I think they were originally on Yesterday…and Today here in the U.S.
Anyway, I’m voting for “She Said, She Said.” Tough decision, but:
I said, who put all those things in your head?
Things that make me feel like I’m mad.
And you’re making me feel like I’ve never been born.
Great stuff.
Tomorrow Never Knows. A fun song and revolutionary at the same time.
I’m cutting and pasting the track listing here and then using the process of elimination to winnow down the list. Here goes:
After deliberation I’m down to three songs.
Taxman - It rocks, and the lyrics are based on real tax issues that George and The Beatles suddenly found themselves immersed in. I doubt they had financial advisers at the time. Paul’s guitar solos are great.
I’m Only Sleeping - I like the concept here. There were so many years I spent getting out of bed when the kids were small, and so many afternoons where I would have killed for a nap, but couldn’t due to other responsibilities. I can imagine John saying those words to Cynthia after a long recording session, or after a hectic tour: “Please, don’t wake me, no, don’t shake me. Leave me where I am, I’m only sleeping.”
For No One - Quintessential Paul. A wonderfully bitter recognition of the impending end of a relationship “that should have lasted years.” How can’t you sing along?
Today, Taxman wins. This was a really difficult choice.
If there’s a thread meant for board member Eleanor Rigby, this one might be it.
So tough!
As a kid I almost never listened to this album. Loved Abbey Road, loved Sgt. Pepper, had good stretches where I listened to The White Album and Magical Mystery Tour, and liked a few tracks off of Rubber Soul but never really enjoyed Revolver. A year or so ago I decided to put it in the CD player and give it another whirl, and it blew my f’ing mind.
Let me first say that, while Eleanor Rigby may have been a great innovation in orchestration/songwriting, it leaves me cold, and I think there are so many better Beatles songs, right here on this very album!
My vote is for She Said She Said. I love the stuttery snare fills, the lyrics, production, funky time signature bits, and the guitar riffs that echo the vocals.
Close seconds go to Tomorrow Never Knows and For No One. And And Your Bird Can Sing. And Taxman.
For sentimental reasons I’d like to say that one of the things that drew me to my girlfriend is the fact that she named Revolver as her favorite Beatles album. It was a plus that she liked the Beatles, but what impressed me was that she had the taste to name a specific album and pick one of the very best ones - and not just the best-known, even though Revolver isn’t exactly obscure.
You folks surprise me. I expected She Said She Said to run away with it based on past discussions of favorite Beatles songs. It gets my vote because it has all four guys playing the hell out of their instruments. Style-wise, it glides so enticingly between rocking hard & psychedelic that I find it impossible to classify it as anything other than a Beatles song.
The Paul songs are great, but the major collaboration on those is between Paul & George Martin.
She Said She Said is the motherfucking Beatles!
Yes. The Beatles put an end to that nonsense when they had the lyrics to all the songs printed on the cover of Sgt Pepper’s and refused to change the cover for the US version.
Yes and no: all the “real” albums from Pepper on were indeed released intact in the USA (although *Yellow Submarine *and *Let It Be *had packaging differences), but Capitol still had a couple of tricks up its sleeve. They expanded Magical Mystery Tour, originally a double 7" record set, into a full LP, and scraped together enough non-LP tracks for the *Hey Jude album, released in between *Abbey Road *and Let It Be. These two non-canonical albums were popular enough that they eventually did get released in the UK in 1976 and 1979 respectively.
Good point. Some of us are making “maximum collaboration” a criterion for these polls, some of us aren’t.