For this week’s Song Lyric Sunday, Jim asks us to find a song that stands as a great album closer.
You need look no further than this. There’s a school of thought that believes ‘Revolver’ is an even greater album than it’s successor, ‘Sergeant Pepper’ and I must say that I’m minded to agree.
I recall having written elsewhere on this blog that the double A-sided single ‘Penny Lane’/’Strawberry Fields’, released in February 1967, marked a watershed moment in how musical tastes might develop: stay withe the safe, poppy Penny Lane or take a peek through the doors of perception with Strawberry Fields (always my preference).
In retrospect, I guess that choice had been made six months earlier, in August 1966, with the release of Revolver and this matchless exercise in psychedelia.
Turn off your mind, relax and float down stream
It is not dying, it is not dying
Lay down all thoughts, surrender to the void
It is shining, it is shining
Yet you may see the meaning of within
It is being, it is being
Love is all and love is everyone
It is knowing, it is knowing…
… that ignorance and hates may mourn the dead
It is believing, it is believing
But listen to the colour of your dreams
It is not living, it is not living
So play the game “Existence” to the end…
… Of the beginning, of the beginning
Written by John Lennon and …er, Paul McCartney
the only deadhead in the hameau 
I agree: Revolver might be their best album, though Sgt. Pepper had “A Day In The Life,” arguably their best song. From what I’ve heard, “Tomorrow Never Knows” was taken from (or at least inspired by) The Tibetan Book of the Dead. I got my copy of Revolver from a friend of mine, and the first time I played this song the needle got stuck in a groove right where the guitar solo begins. I sat and listened to those five seconds of music for what must have been five minutes until my mother came and asked “is that supposed to repeat like that, or is there something wrong with the record?” I was about eleven, and I didn’t know…
Lots of Beatles today ….. always a good thing! This is an incredible song and a fantastic closer. An excellent choice!
A great song and a good choice for today 😊
Awesome choice! The song was titled simply ‘Mark 1’ when they started recording it, and Lennon wrote the song as a mantra composed of one repeating melody line over driving the bass and drum track. One of the stranger sounds on this song is a seagull which was made by distorting the sound of Paul McCartney laughing to himself. John Lennon wanted to sound like the Dalai Lama chanting from a hilltop.
The timing on this and the time it was written makes it doubly psychedelic. Looks like this week The Beatles Win.