Month: February 2025

Rubber Soul marked the end of an era. Revolver heralded something quite new. The music became mature. Gone were the covers of other songs, gone were the imitations of others.

It was a momentous time for the band. Touring had become boring and was soon to be stopped, so music recorded in the studio did not have to be performable on stage.

It was a new start, the chance to produce some of the very best songs ever before moving on to high art.

Everything about it says ‘revolution’. We love the monochrome album cover, though wish the writing etc had been left off the front. The back cover just shows the lads together having a chat and being cool. No silly notes from Tony Barrow, no hype, the information and that’s it.

Harrison gets three tracks: Taxman, Love You To and I Want To Tell You. Lennon is starting to be experimental.

Included is one of their best singles, a double A side, Eleanor Rigby and Yellow Submarine, Ringo’s turn to sing.

Both John and Paul bring some great songs to the table: Here There and Everywhere, And Your Bird Can Sing, For No-one, Got To Get You Into My Life… There is not a duff track here.

It started a pattern that was fully realised on their next album, of course.

We know there are people out there who hate the fact that we call them the Fab Four even years after they had moved on from that phase of their careers. But we have a reason. The one thing John, Paul, George and Ringo enjoyed more than anything else was playing together. They were true friends, enjoyed each other’s companies and it wasn’t just work.

So, after the failure of Let It Be/Get Back they wanted to go out on a high with a true band album, just like the old days. George Martin and no Yoko

There were issues: John wanted his songs on one side and Paul’s on the other – didn’t happen. Paul got even more bossy and demanding and songs like Maxwell’s Silver Hammer became a chore. There were bits of songs that no-one really wanted to flesh out. And Harrison was writing some of the best songs of his life, though we can’t bear Something.

By side two there is a scramble of ideas trying to find space. So there’s a ‘medley’, starting with You Never Give Me Your Money. The tracks run together… except they don’t. After She Came In Through The Bathroom Window it all stops, then starts again. That’s not a medley.

In the end, sorry The End, there’s a display of band unity: Ringo gets a solo, then the guitar solo is shared by the other three together. We enjoy playing together, it says, we’re a band, this is fun.

The album is named after the road. The recording studios had the name changed many years later, to cash in on the record’s success (which continues).

The last album for The Beatles. Going out on a high.