Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records and the Sixties

The late Ian MacDonald really nailed it with this book. I try to read any comprehensive analysis of the Beatles recorded catalog that I can - and none even come close to this. Simply put, this book changed the way I listened to the Beatles music. It made me a more attentive, discerning listener. It broadened the scope of my knowledge of '60s music by pointing the way towards other music of the era that I hadn't yet heard. I find it hard to overstate the influence this book has had on me personally - I have read it cover to cover numerous times and still find myself going back to it.

This isn't a history of the Beatles - it is a song-by-song analysis, in the order the songs were recorded, of everything officially released by the group. And make no mistake, it is not an objective collection of facts - there ARE mostly reliable recording dates, release dates, and song credits for every entry, so it can be used as a quick reference. But this is a highly opinionated piece of writing - Mr. MacDonald was not afraid to ruffle feathers by offering critical evaluations of some of the Beatles most popular songs (he is quite harsh, for instance, towards classics like "Across the Universe" and "While My Guitar Gently Weeps").

Mr. MacDonald does a great job of placing this body of work within the context of the time it was released - but he also manages to assess each song purely on its own terms, as well. While quite obviously a true-blue Beatles fan, MacDonald maintained a certain level of objectivity throughout - never getting caught up in fanboy idolization. He's tough on this music - when he feels a song isn't up to the band's established standards, he makes it very clear what he doesn't like. In a way, I think MacDonald managed to have a significant impact on certain aspects of popular opinion towards the Beatles music. That may sound like a bit much, but keep in mind that this book was originally published in 1994 and has become (arguably) the standard for critical analysis of the Beatles music.

Throughout the book, MacDonald challenges many of the long-held notions that had gone more or less unchallenged in many, many Beatles-related wiritings. Some of the stereotypes - i.e. John was the intellectual and innovator, Paul was the lightweight romantic - had practically become accepted as facts by music fans. There isn't so much revisionism for it's own sake in this book, but rather a serious re-examination of those popular opinions/theories that often yields a fresh perspective. That's where the value really can be found in this book - you may not agree with every idea MacDonald puts forth, but it is guaranteed you will be forced to take a fresh look at the Beatles music.

let me start by saying Mark Lewinson wrote a better book. That's my opinion. Much of the material in Revolution has obviously been lifted from Lewinson's work. Now, lay people might think that Revolution might be absolutely brilliant. I think McDonald writes really well and can hold your attention with his incendiary opinions as well as is obvious perfunctory knowledge of music. What I mean is he certainly understands musical terminology and he also knows a bit about recording techniques fromthe 60s. When it comes to that he knows more than I do. I was born in 1955. It's also very clear to me that he is not a fan of The Beatles and he's completely enamored with his opinions and the style in which he writes them. Look, I know a bit about music and songwriting. I did a lot of sessions work with some major well-known Talent back in the 70s and 80s. I played keyboards with many of those same bands and people on tour for many years. I'm mentioning this in my review only so  the people who read this understand that I am not a neophyte. I know and understand music, great songwriting and superlative production. I also know garbage. I've been involved with both throughout the years. I need to mention that anybody who believes that God Only Knows by The Beach Boys is the greatest pop song ever written has a lot to learn. It's a Wonderful song, and it's beautiful. The harmonies are ethereal. Is it the best pop song ever written? That is debatable and I don't know if the author is still with us or not but if he is I could debate him on that subject and I would win. The Beatles wrote some garbage too. Everybody does. Who knows why. Perhaps they thought it would fly and it didn't. Perhaps they were under a deadline which they were in many instances and had to crank something out real quickly. Perhaps and very likely the Beatles were under the influence and put out something that many either didn't understand, or were  playing badly because when you're under the influence of hallucinogenics you certainly lack a lot in the perspective department. When McDonald comes out and says that "Something" wasn't great song because of the lack of a middle eight then he needs to have his head examined. Who says you need to have a middle eight to have a great song? My guess would be that half the Beatles catalog was void of a middle 8 or Bridge as they call it today and who cares. Can you listen to it? Was the melody beautiful? Did it have a message? Did the words mean anything? Did they have to mean anything? "Something" happens to be one of the covered songs of all time. Remember, we're not talking about Sinatra singing Gershwin. We're talking about a form of music that had never been done before. They created their genre. Back to God only knows. Was that a beautiful song? Absolutely! Were the words beautiful and meaningful? YOU BET. Do I love that song? God only knows I do:-). The love of music is subjective. Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. I don't believe it's fair for an author to assess a songwriters work from afar and on top of that talk about a song that was written by a person who he thought didn't like or didn't trust women. You can't beat down a beautiful song that was written by somebody that was in a bad way at the time when it came to dealing with the opposite sex. How do we psychologically analyze John Lennon? Is or was McDonald a licensed mental health counselor? Does a man's frame of mind make his writing any less relevant or poignant? I don't think so. In my mind I believe that McDonald had a real problem with rock music and with The Beatles. There cannot be another explanation for his critiques. And finally to my point. In my mind this book was a hatchet job and nothing more. You can't take a catalog of 200 + songs written by arguably the greatest... ....... .. innovators of all time and dislike 70% of the work. Actually you can but that does not make you right. His work needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Having said all that I rated This book as highly as I did because it was a fun read. It's like I learned years ago. Take what you want and leave the rest. I left most of it, but, notwithstanding I enjoyed reading it because it's an just an opinion and we're all entitled our own opinions. Just because the writer knows what a Leslie is and understands ADT, doesn't mean he's an expert. In talking about the Beatles and expressing his idea that their lyrics and song construction was not as good as it should be because, to paraphrase him they were they were extremely taken with themselves is exactly my thought about McDonald. He writes as though he really believes that he is the absolute definitive expert on The Beatles music .That's BS.

In closing I would just like to disclose that I'm a huge fan of The Beatles. I think my review makes it pretty obvious but it doesn't differ from most of the other people who wrote a review here because we all read the book. You don't read a book like this unless you understand music and love the subject that it's written about. I grew up with these guys on TV and radio. They were considerably older than me. They were my childhood idols. I took piano lessons because of the Beatles. So yeah, I'm a fan. A gigantic fan who really enjoyed a hatchet job that was written about my all-time favorite band. Was 'A Day in the Life' the greatest rock song ever written? was Let It Be the greatest song that was ever written? And I'm talking genre of course. In my mind they were the two best rock songs ever written. It's an opinion. Only an opinion. When reading the book I would turn each page and think to myself Well, he is certainly not going to bash Here There and Everywhere. But he did. Well he has to love Yesterday, but he didn't. I thought to myself, Good Day Sunshine.... That's creative pop song writing at its best. Something bad to say about that one too and I could go on and on but you need to read the book and judge it for yourself. There is one last thing. The Mark Lewinson book gives credit where credit is due. That book recognizes George Martin's contribution and acknowledges that the Beatles wouldn't have been the Beatles especially in their formative years without his production and his musical genius. There is nary a mention of him in McDonald's work. I don't understand why. George Martin was really The Unofficial fifth Beatle. I'm finished rambling in the rest is up to you. I say read it. It's interesting

The perfect gift for a self-hating Beatles fan. Certainly there are plenty of the opposite kind - people who don't want to hear that the band ever wrote a bad song, or that John was a jerk sometimes, etc... this book is not for those people. This is for anyone who wants to hear why almost every Beatles song isn't as good as it could have been, and why the Beatles represent everything that's gone wrong in modern civilization.

Three things that might give you a reason to think twice about MacDonald: 1) he cites Grossman as a valid reference, 2) he hates rock, and pretty much every other musical style since the mid-1970s, and 3) he believes that "God Only Knows" is the perfect pop song.

MacDonald establishes an objective basis to judge the worth of any given song. This is normal for critics, but there are two major drawbacks in this case:

1) the analysis largely consists of deploying bits of music theory and music production jargon to bolster his opinion of why the songs he prefers are "stronger" than the songs he dislikes

2) he begins with a thesis (the Beatles symbolize everything that's gone wrong with Western civilization) and then uses analysis of the songs to bring up biographical points that support his thesis. To give him credit, it's not as heavy-handed as, say, a feminist Marxist critique of the Beatles' career, but it does mean that you're always looking at the band through the biases of the author.

How to write a MacDonald review for any given Beatles song:

1) provide all the pertinent names and dates involved in the recording

2) more or less briefly outline the circumstances surrounding the writing and recording of the song (more if you like the song, or think that it supports your thesis)

3) mention the Beach Boys at least once

4) devote a paragraph to Paul's bass.

5) use the word "bathetic"

6) remind the reader of your music theory credentials with terms such as crotchets, tessitura, melisma, Picardy third, etc

7) remind the reader of your music tech credentials by referencing things like Rickenbacker, direct injection, MIDI, Leslie, etc

8) if it's George Harrison, it must be bad unless it is utterly impossible to deny that it's great. And even then, something can probably be found to downplay it.

"Here Comes the Sun," for example, is portrayed as slight and saccharin (again, by the person who believes "God Only Knows" is the perfect pop song) and "Something" is weak in its "middle eight." Sometimes it's like listening to a racist tell you why Stevie Wonder is overrated. Although an assessment of the individual Beatles' instrumental gifts is always going to be somewhat controversial, MacDonald often goes out of his way to praise Starr's drumming but rarely misses a chance to criticize the lead guitar (unless played by McCartney or Clapton).

All things considered, reading MacDonald's book is a bit like having a beer with a high school music teacher who is eager to tell you all the reasons why the Beatles were overrated and the hippies ruined society. MacDonald is working with a little history, some technical knowledge and some personal issues, and presenting them like intelligent people unfortunately often do - by stating opinions as facts, and turning a handful of specialized knowledge into a pose of expertise.

Who might get some use from this book:

If you obsessively read everything about the Beatles, and don't expect to learn anything new

If you're writing a paper and need source material to cite

If you think the Beatles are overrated (or that the 60s signaled the end of Western Civilization) and you need evidence to support your arguments

This is an indispensable book about Beatles music appreciation. MacDonald was one of the most idiosyncratic critics of music that ever lived. This book must be owned by anyone, especially musicians and songwriters, who wants to truly get to the heart of the music of the Beatles.

The only disappointment for me (and for anyone who's been faithfully buying and reading the updates of this book since its release in the mid-1990s) is that the 3rd edition is NOT REVISED. If you own the second edition, you do not need to buy this book. There is not one difference in the text.

Oddly enough, this edition has slightly better quality paper, for some reason, whereas the previous edition uses sort of newspaper/telephone book quality sheets that tear easily. Two other subtle changes are: a different pic on the front cover, and the omission of one of the members of Oasis' profanely worded endorsement of the book.

Happy reading if you've never been inside the book before, but if you have the 2nd revised edition, you can sit this one out.

I had hoped that this would be an in depth and unbiased review of each recorded Beatles track. Unfortunately, the author seems completely absorbed with proving his own, intellectual musical superiority. When you combine that with the blatant gaffes, the book becomes quickly unworthy of your time.

I finally stopped altogether after having to muddle through his assessments of Timothy Leary's contribution to the LSD movement of the late sixties. He seemed to want to attribute the very existence of LSD to Leary, oblivious to the fact that the drug was created and introduced by the US military. Besides, in a book supposedly devoted to the analysis of each track recorded by the Beatles, what is the relevance of this excursion? It's well known that the group experimented briefly with the drug, and that it influenced some of their music. However, the amount of time that McDonald spends explaining his understanding of the drug took away from the direction the book was supposed to be on, which was the group's music, not Timothy Leary.

He then made the outlandish statement that Tomorrow Never Knows, from the Revolver sessions, was one of the Beatles most socially significant recordings. Nothing could be further from the truth. When Revolver was released, it was a real head scratcher for a lot of their fans, because it was a huge departure from their pop laden previous work. At the time of its release, Tomorrow Never Knows was an interesting track, and over time, as more became known about Lennon's influences at the time, the track is raised in stature....but only in hindsight! Therein lies the greatest failing of this book. Through the benefit of hindsight, the author picks apart many of the early recordings, accusing them of being bland or uninteresting, even suggesting that some borrowed too heavily from other, better songs of the era. He even claims that the song "Wait" from Rubber Soul" was a direct remake of a Four Seasons song.

I'm sorry, but there is not a single recording in the history of the soft, made for radio dribble that was rolled out by the Four Seasons that stands up against even the weakest track recorded by The Beatles.

A far greater study would have been to take these songs, and after providing information about the session, weigh their importance in comparison to the times, and not by looking back so many years later. The Beatles dominated recorded music in their day, and if anyone wants to know how really good their records were compared to other recordings that were being made at the same time, all you have to do is look at the music charts to see the competition for their songs, and in quality, originality, and most importantly, sustainability, there is just nothing that compares.

Lastly, to the author..."I'm Looking Through You" does not begin as a waltz. McCartney s playing triplets in straight four time.

This book was a noble idea, but very poorly executed.

There's a real joy in reading Ian Macdonald's "Revolution in the Head," because even if you disagree with his assessments, you know you're in the presence of an introspective but tough critic. He reads the Beatles against the cultural politics of the 1960s in order to assess the extent to which their music shaped and reflected the changing values of those times. His introductory essay, in fact, is one of the finest and nuanced summaries that I've read on the Sixties Revolution - neither congratulatory nor scornful but rather fair-minded. The individual song assessments presume some familiarity with music terminology (a glossary in the back helps) and non-specialists like me will tend to gloss over descriptions like "...endlessly uncoiling B flat Mixolydian melody around a standard three-cord progression." ("She Said, She Said")

While many people here think that MacDonald is harsh in his assessments of McCartney, on the whole I find his take on both Lennon and McCartney to be fairly accurate. It is true that he takes Lennon's songs more seriously and almost all of his extended analyses - in which he shows how a particular Beatles composition embodied the spirit of its moment - are from Lennon's catalogue: "Tomorrow Never Knows," "Strawberry Fields," and "Revolution 1." yet, he does show a deep appreciation for McCartney's musicianship, his innovative and complex melodic arrangements, and the deep empathy that characterizes his best work. He is hardest, though, on Harrison. His low opinion of Harrison's early songs carries over into a serious under-estimation of his later work, especially "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" and "Here Comes The Sun."

But this is what makes MacDonald's book so good: his knowledgeable yet pugnacious tone invites you to argue with it and rewards multiple readings. It allows even novices to get some sense of the Beatles' technical achievements in popular music and better understand why they had the cultural impact that they did. Best of all: it's a fun read.

There's a real joy in reading Ian Macdonald's "Revolution in the Head," because even if you disagree with his assessments, you know you're in the presence of an introspective but tough critic. He reads the Beatles against the cultural politics of the 1960s in order to assess the extent to which their music shaped and reflected the changing values of those times. His introductory essay, in fact, is one of the finest and nuanced summaries that I've read on the Sixties Revolution - neither congratulatory nor scornful but rather fair-minded. The individual song assessments presume some familiarity with music terminology (a glossary in the back helps) and non-specialists like me will tend to gloss over descriptions like "...endlessly uncoiling B flat Mixolydian melody around a standard three-cord progression." ("She Said, She Said")

While many people here think that MacDonald is harsh in his assessments of McCartney, on the whole I find his take on both Lennon and McCartney to be fairly accurate. It is true that he takes Lennon's songs more seriously and almost all of his extended analyses - in which he shows how a particular Beatles composition embodied the spirit of its moment - are from Lennon's catalogue: "Tomorrow Never Knows," "Strawberry Fields," and "Revolution 1." yet, he does show a deep appreciation for McCartney's musicianship, his innovative and complex melodic arrangements, and the deep empathy that characterizes his best work. He is hardest, though, on Harrison. His low opinion of Harrison's early songs carries over into a serious under-estimation of his later work, especially "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" and "Here Comes The Sun."

But this is what makes MacDonald's book so good: his knowledgeable yet pugnacious tone invites you to argue with it and rewards multiple readings. It allows even novices to get some sense of the Beatles' technical achievements in popular music and better understand why they had the cultural impact that they did. Best of all: it's a fun read.

Very wordy and WAY overly analytical. You would think MacDonald is a direct descendant of Freud himself. The detail regarding actual recordings is fun to read. Yet despite all the detail and the overly long psychoanalysis, the author left out a key song for some bizarre reason: Sexy Sadie. Sexy Sadie is completely ignored here without explanation. For a guy with an obsession for detail including all kinds of unreleased tracts, obscure recordings and an ego to rant about every song in their catalog, I'm at a loss for this glaring omission. I found it odd too, that MacDonald found so much fault with the bulk of the Beatles' catalog. He denigrates it with brio and over-analyses everything to the point that it becomes a tediously predictable exercise in psycho-bashing most of the their music. I wouldn't recommend this book to anybody.

MacDonald's Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records and the Sixties could have been a fantastic book. However, I found the negativeness of the writer inhibiting my enjoyment of the book. His praise is limited, but his sharp tongued jabs are copious. As others have reviewed here, he seems to hate George Harrison, denigerating his contributions, either his actual songs or his playing on other's songs. I find that to be reprehensible. He calls "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" plodding amongst other vile remarks. I found it rather humorous that another reviewer said that MacDonald seems to have it in for Lennon - he is certainly more critical of Lennon's early works, but from 1966 onward MacDonald generally stays on Lennon's side with one glaring exception: Across the Universe, which I consider one of his best songs. There are parts that are informative, others that are inciteful, but generally this book is too negative for the subject matter. Two stars. Get other books before you get this one.

“Turn off your mind and float downstream…” are the words beginning the Beatles song Tomorrow Never Knows, on the album Revolver. The following is a review of 6 fairly recent books centered on these 7 words and the music that accompanies them. They are, listed from wide to narrow focus:

How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence by Michael Pollan, Penguin Press, 2018

The Gospel According to the Beatles by Steve Turner, Westminster John Knox Press, 2006

Revolution in the Head: The Beatles Records and the Sixties, 3rd ed. by Ian MacDonald, Chicago Review Press, 2007

Tomorrow Never Knows: Rock and Psychedelics in the 1960s by Nick Bromell, University of Chicago Press, 2000

Rock: The Primary Text: Developing a Musicology of Rock, 2nd ed. by Allan F. Moore, Ashgate Publishing Company, 2001

The Beatles: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band by Allan F. Moore, Cambridge University Press, 1997
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I will provide a brief bio of your reviewer so you can see where I’m coming from (and maybe where I’m going to):
I first heard Tomorrow Never Knows at age 12 in 1974, when my uncle had given me Rubber Soul and Revolver to add to my burgeoning private record collection. When the Beatles hit America, I was 2 years old, had young hip parents who always had pop radio on, and even then had absconded with my grandmother’s 5 transistor (proudly displayed) “pocket” radio. It became mine, and even television didn’t supplant the importance of the music I was listening to on the radio.

When my uncle gave me Revolver, I had already possessed the White Album (my dad bought it in 1968 when I was 6, and strangely enough, bought John and Yoko’s Two Virgins LP, as an investment I suppose), Abbey Road, and the 1962-1966, 1967-1970 compilations. But, I had never heard anything like Tomorrow Never Knows, and was endlessly fascinated by the music and then the lyrics which were imploring me to listen to the colors of my dreams. Huh?

Four years later, 1978, age 16, I began a decade long spiritual quest beginning with a query into Christianity I was familiar with through cultural osmosis, compared to the ideas expressed in Tomorrow Never Knows.

For ten years I searched for someone I could trust to give me a psychedelic. My first of four magic mushroom trips started on my 26th birthday. I was intellectually primed for an experience having read books from the Electric Koolaid Acid Test to the Tao of Physics and The Cosmic Code. Digesting what I had just experienced, it was my great fortune to discover on PBS special featuring Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers in “The Power of Myth,” and through him, the psychology of Carl Jung. (Freud had turned me off in college and I hadn’t yet given Jung a chance, silly me.) The rest, as they say, is history.
I’ve been most focused over the years on what now can be called psychedelia. (I had aspired to be like the professor of applied narcotics in the hilarious Rutles movie All You Need Is Cash. “Listen, lookit, very simply…”) In particular, I’m most interested in the years of 1966-1968.
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From the outset, one cannot understand, naturally, psychedelia without knowing something about psychedelics in general. A new book, as of this writing, is Michael Pollan’s How to Change Your Mind.

I have long been in the habit of reading the bibliography and index of books, and sometimes notes and references, before even opening up to read the first page. I find it’s a good habit, and Pollan’s bibliography doesn’t disappoint. It alone is worth the price of admission.

He divides the history of psychedelics into two periods: the first ending with the prohibition and disfavor of psychedelics (and hippies in general) in the backlash during the 70s. The second period is the resurgence of psychedelic research, almost all underground initially, that started a few years later.

I am intimately familiar with the texts of the first period, and almost completely ignorant of the second, despite having joined MAPS in the early 80s. (I remember in the early 70s finding a urine soaked box of sugar cubes in our apartment parking lot with the adults present saying it was a dreaded drug. Scary. I had no idea then, but know know, that LSD laced sugar cubes are not yellow, usually.)

Pollan comes to psychedelics from a traditional journalistic/scientific worldview: “My default perspective is that of a philosophical materialist who believes that matter is the fundamental substance of the world and the physical laws should be able to explain everything that happens.” (pg.12)

A mystic or proselytizer (think Timothy Leary) he is not, and it is his generally skeptical approach which should help elucidate the subject for those with an “objective” worldview on the subject of psychedelics. For example, by someone considering only scientifically measurable phenomenon worthy for study or exploration.

A most excellent introduction to psychedelia as a whole.

John Lennon, 1968: “If this scene is (around) in 2012 . . . the masses will be where I am today and I should be as groovy as Jesus by then.” (pg. 1) When I read this quote on the first chapter of The Gospel According to the Beatles, I thought to myself, oh this should be good.

Having already scanned the sources at the back of the book, I knew that the author, music journalist Steve Turner, had many interviews he personally had about religion with the major characters involved, including John Lennon in 1969 and a whole host of people who were there.

Add in a deft analysis from a Christian author, as he defines himself, and you get an insight into the Beatles particular brand of spirituality as it developed through the years. He writes: “In what follows I won’t be endorsing everything they said. I will simply be arguing that they had things to say and that these things were taken seriously at the time by a large proportion of young people, many of whom are still affected by those views.” (pg. 11) Indeed.

And yet, Turner only mentions Tomorrow Never Knows specifically and in passing only 3 times. For me, this leaves much to be desired. Read on:

Next comes Revolution in the Head by Ian MacDonald. One of those most cited books in the Beatles canon, and for good reason. (The first edition came out in 1994.) A book that analyses each song, and also has a very good introduction (an essay really) which begins with a quote by Aaron Copland: “If you want to know about the Sixties, play the music of the Beatles.” (pg.1)

In his essay, MacDonald, a British music critic, places the Beatles’ spirituality (expressed via their songs) in a broader sociological context. He writes in 1997, “the destabilizing social and psychological evolution witnessed since the Sixties stems chiefly from the success of affluence and technology in realizing the desires of ordinary people. The countercultural elements usually blamed for this were in fact resisting an endemic process of disintegration with its roots in scientific materialism.” (pg. 36) And, “The Sixties seem like a golden age to us because, relative to now, they were.”
On the plus side, for my purposes, MacDonald devotes 8 pages to the Tomorrow Never Knows track. In it, he discusses the recording process (in much less detail than Mark Lewisohn’s book) and also a bit of musicology (but less than Allan F. Moore, see below). His best observation is, “... yet it is easy, thirty years later, to underestimate its original cultural impact.” (pg. 191) Indeed yes.

But MacDonald has an exceedingly dim view of psychedelic drug use, calling it “Russian roulette played with one’s mind” (pg.186) To each their own opinion, I say. In support of his argument, he cites several times that his source of the effects of LSD on Lennon’s life is Albert Grossman’s biography of John. (I decline to comment here.)
Such opinions are why I started this review with Michael Pollan’s book. The truth of the matter is much more nuanced than MacDonald or Grossman’s account.

It’s true that there were so-called “acid-casualties” like Syd Barrett and Peter Green, they being two famous examples. Both, however, suffered from schizophrenia, which can be triggered by psychedelic use. Says David Gilmour (from Wikipedia): “In my opinion, (Syd’s) nervous breakdown would have happened anyway. It was a deep-rooted thing. But I'll say the psychedelic experience might well have acted as a catalyst. Still, I just don't think he could deal with the vision of success and all the things that went with it."

Clearly, we will have to go somewhere else to get perhaps a more balanced view:

In the introduction to his wonderfully titled (in my opinion, anyway) book Tomorrow Never Knows, a professor of history, English, and American Literature, Nick Bromell, states: “This book isn’t conventional history or cultural studies or popular culture analysis or musicology or memoir, but a hybrid of all of these.” (pg. 6) Now we’re talking! A short but packed book, I wish I could have read it long ago. Impossible to describe in fewer words than the text itself, so I shan’t even try.

After noting (and agreeing) that many critics regard Tomorrow Never Knows as the most important rock song of the decade, Bromell takes that as just the starting point in his discussion. I myself have had over the years a rotating list of favorite Beatle songs (Strawberry Fields, A Day in the Life, I am the Walrus, Dear Prudence) but Tomorrow Never Knows was the most influential in my life.

Bromwell writes: “Yet we must also remember that to the millions of young persons who, innocent of Leary and LSD, eagerly unwrapped the new Beatles album and sat back to see where it would take them, Tomorrow Never Knows was an enigma they would understand only gradually, through many listening and over many months.” Or years, in my case. “They heard it first and foremost as a place to dwell, not as an answer or a deliverance.” (pg. 93)

Need I say more? A most excellent read and a wonderful book to create more avenues for exploration. (For example, he references Heidegger in his explanation of the song’s significance. I did not know that. Off to Wikipedia I go…)

As mentioned in his introduction, Bromell includes the discipline of musicology in his analysis. For those who are very interested in this topic, I recommend two books by musicologist Allan F. Moore.

Rock: The Primary Text is a great introduction to a serious analysis of rock music. Although there were exceptions (like Twilight of the Gods by Wilfred Mellers), there was precious little analysis of rock music in academia for a long time. Presumably, many scholars didn’t think there was much to this simple rhythmic (at least at the beginning) music of the unwashed masses, made up of people like me. Such attitudes are hopefully not as strong these days.

Moore stresses the sounds of rock music. He writes in his introduction, “We can, however, evolve an understanding of what ‘rock’ is, in musical terms, by treating it as structured by multiple-evolving but coherent set of rules and practices.” (pg. 7) If this sounds at all interesting, this book is for you.

Moore also wrote The Beatles: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, which begins, quite rightly, with Strawberry Fields/Penny Lane (the finest single ever made, so says I) and then onto Sgt. Pepper proper. A bit denser than than the book above, but much shorter, I personally understood only some of it. (I did take music theory in college, but the class didn’t speak to me. The academy didn’t seem to care about the music I was interested in.)
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“Trust your divinity, trust your brain, trust your companions. Whenever in doubt, turn off your mind, relax, float downstream.” - The Psychedelic Experience (pg. 6) by Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert, and Ralph Metzner, University Books, 1964

In one of those rare moments of synchronicity (aka meaningful coincidences), as I was writing this review I learned that Ralph Metzner had recently died, and, further, that I unknowingly was a neighbor of his for the past 20 years, in a small hamlet called Sonoma, California, in wine country. Small world, huh?

Best Wishes for his family.

- March 2019