The Beatles: Revolver (Part 2) Surrendering to the Void

[@kfiralfiavideo]

The Anthology version reveals that even with this song stripped down completely, it works quite well. Which is astonishing.

[@iainholmes2735]

Enjoying these excellent analysis vids. What a time in music/culture that was. Cheers

[@Songs4K]

in most Beatles songs, Ringo's like the perfect host for the band and the listener, always attentive and engaging. In some, like Tomorrow Never Knows or Magical Mystery Tour, he seems to toy with timing and delay to tease and delight the listener. Always a creative force without imposing on others.

[@davewhite5450]

You are the music professor I wish that I’d had decades ago in school

[@themusicprofessor]

Thank you for that supportive comment!

[@ceticobr]

You, sir, deserve more views and subscribers. Great content. Great editing. Very informative and entertaining as well.

[@themusicprofessor]

Thank you! Subscribers are up a bit more nowadays!

[@PascalNocquet]

Per Geoff Emerick, the drum part was - actually the first ever- drum loop, since Ringo couldn't hold that pattern regularly through the whole song

[@jMerkyJJ]

More video gag please. The Dorian fish eye shot shot me into another level. 😅

[@fromchomleystreet]

As much as I love this song, it really is the avant garde production and arrangement that makes it the revolutionary work that it is. If they’d recorded it the same way they recorded, say, Blackbird a couple years later (single acoustic guitar and single, untreated voice), nobody would be listing “tomorrow never knows” amongst the Beatles greatest songs.

[@themusicprofessor]

No question the production is a key part of the invention! And yet apparently when Lennon sang it with a guitar everyone was amazed - by the song's minimal content. You can hear an early demo-ish version on the recent Super-Delux version of the album on Spotify.

[@thepostapocalyptictrio4762]

I love that “ drugs are bad” South Park. It was hilarious since I’m high now🌲

[@jMerkyJJ]

Drugs are bad

[@leoendo4159]

Great explanation and edit. Like to see the part III.

[@themusicprofessor]

It will come...one day!

[@pearsonlennon]

@@themusicprofessor We''re still waiting for it

[@themusicprofessor]

@@pearsonlennon one day my friend

[@adamnagel1878]

I am a newcomer to your videos. so all embracing informative and entertaining. Saw two of the revolver ones a day or two ago. Definitely has made me want to listen to the whole revolver album for the first time. You talk about McCartney's interest during that period in the music of Luciano Berio. I wonder if Berio who of course was involved in the arranging of some Beatle's songs for his then wife the extraordinary Cathy Berberian songs knew Tomorrow Never Knows when working on the third movement of his Sinfonia? (1968 -9). To my mind it is one of the true masterpieces of Avant Garde experimentalism well worth a video on its own unless you've done one already. Also really enjoyed some of your Mozart videos despite not mentioning him becoming a freemason in the context of the importance of the number three in The Magic Flute

[@themusicprofessor]

Thank you. Very interesting question about Berio and 'Tomorrow Never Knows' - we'd need an interview with Berio to prove it either way, which sadly we can't have. The Beatles were alert to currents at that time that also interested the 'classical' avant garde musicians, so there is certainly a very striking crossover.

[@brianeheads]

Great stuff! Will there be a third video?

[@themusicprofessor]

It would be lovely to do so at some point...

[@jMerkyJJ]

Next time an analysis of Spngebob's solo please.

[@jake105]

Maybe Ringo was like an anchor which kept the ship from drifting off and piling up on the rocks.....or not.

[@themusicprofessor]

Yes. I think he was like that. Fine drummer too. Unostentatious but original imaginative.

[@jake105]

@@themusicprofessor - I had to look that up. If I knew how to pronounce it, I'm sure I would've got your drift!

[@docsavage8640]

Just keep in mind Revolution in the Head makes more than a few incorrect assignments of who played what and who wrote what.

[@Arikatorza12]

Actually it is a tambura rather than a sitar. One of the first tape loops by the Beatles played in reverse.

[@markcox5385]

Cool 👌

[@waimar5457]

Where is the part 3?

[@themusicprofessor]

When we made parts 1 and 2, this channel was very small. We've grown quite fast since, but the emphasis has shifted away from topics connected with A level and GCSE set works. I really would like to do part 3 some time though...

[@pearsonlennon]

@@themusicprofessor 🥴

[@Kieop]

where is Part 3?

[@themusicprofessor]

It will come. We just got a little side-tracked

[@docsavage8640]

It's right before Part 4

[@CamQTR]

Mmmkay.

[@kenseidman409]

Erudite presentation but please consider reducing the amount of video gag content, was just too much on this video in particular! 🙏😊

[@radio.ned1385]

oh lighten up...

[@robinstevenson6690]

Interesting video - - UNTIL THE HYPERBOLIC COMMENTARY ON THE EVILS OF LSD. The truth is that psychedelic drugs such as LSD can have therapeutic value.

[@fromchomleystreet]

That doesn’t make the drawbacks cease to exist. If you’re of the opinion that nobody was ever harmed by LSD usage then you’re very wrong.

[@robinstevenson6690]

@@fromchomleystreet Some have been harmed by overuse of LSD. My point is simply that many have benefitted from therapeutic treatment with psychedelics.

[@9re91]

I'm not sure why you feel like you need to put in occasional comic fillers. It's to remind us not to take this too seriously? I bailed in the end.

[@opussy]

So true what you say as to limited compositional means. I have not heard Revolver since it was new and although I recognise Eleanor Rigby (which instantly puts me back in 1966 - so many McCartney songs instantly bring to mind the impoverished England of the time) unlike that video you do not provide on the piano a sample of Tomorrow Never Knows - which I do not remember. Is that because there is nothing in it that can be played on the piano?

[@themusicprofessor]

Well, I'm sure it would be possible to make quite a complicated piano transcription - but Beatles material is all in copyright and is quite rigorously controlled.

[@docsavage8640]

He plays bit of it throughout the video. There's not much more to the melody than what he played.

[@fredneecher1746]

Impoverished?? What have they been teaching you? We were financially a lot better off back then than today. It was a time when young people could walk out of one job and straight into another. A time when they could even afford to buy a house! Ever more good stuff appeared on the market and real wages were rising. It was a time of great optimism about the future (misplaced as it turned out). Don't let them mislead you just to make the present impoverishment (financial and spiritual) seem good.

[@fromchomleystreet]

@@fredneecher1746 It would be truer to say that these songs evoke the impoverished England of the Beatles’ childhood (the war years and post war years)

[@fromchomleystreet]

There really is nothing more to the compositional, tonal elements of the song than what he demonstrated in the video: a very simple, repetitive melodic fragment sung over two chords. Once you’ve heard the first twenty seconds of the song, you’ve pretty much heard the whole song, musically speaking. The interest comes from the production elements, which you can’t demonstrate on a piano.