Revolver -The Beatles

• Tempo, metre and rhythm

  Moderate tempo of the vocal part, syncopation, triplet crotchets, triplet quavers in the guitar solo loop, dotted rhythms and scotch snap
• Sonority

  • Unique sound quality resulting from complex studio engineering
  • Treatment of Lennon's vocal part with automatic double-tracking
  • Verses distorted by being run through a revolving Leslie speaker
  • Use of tape loops
• The song "Tomorrow Never Knows" was assembled by Lennon and based on The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead by Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert, and Ralph Metzner
• Use of tape loops in the song

  • 'Seagull' effect (speeded-up tape of McCartney)
  • Orchestral chord of Bb major
  • Electric guitar phrase, reversed and played at double speed
  • Sitar-like sound, reversed and played at double speed
• Structure and tonality

  • The key is C with prominent flattened 7th
  • Song structure: Faded-in introduction, Three verses of eight bars each, Instrumental (16 bars), Four verses, Coda focused on repetitions of the final bars of the verse, Outro (fade)
• Only one take was made for the song assembly

  As the assembly of this material was inevitably aleatoric
• The song was to do with meditation which went beyond waking, sleeping, and dreaming in the quest for pure consciousness, freed from the clutter of the physical world
• Harmony


  • Presence of two chords, Bb moving to C
• Aleatoric music


  Music in which chance plays a role, often through rhythmic freedom allowed the performers
• Melody


  Melody phrased 4 + 2 + 2 bars, opening bars outline the tonic broken chord with elemental effect, phrases move from 5th degree up to flattened 7th and then tonic, flattened 3rds heard in the tape loops
• Bars 17-25


  • Verse 4
• Bars 13-16

  • Bridge 1
• Bars 1-3


  • Introduction
• Handclaps are also heard in the song
• The song's sense of frustration is evident in the markedly dissonant harmony
• The song 'I Want to Tell You' by George Harrison concerns the avalanche of thoughts that are so hard to write down or say or transmit
• Bars 4-12


  • Verse 2
• Bars 13-16

  • Bridge 2
• Jazz quavers are present in the guitar riff which also features triplet crotchets chord figuration
• A particular feature of the song is the three-part vocal harmonisation with Lennon and McCartney supporting Harrison
• Bars 4-11


  • Verse 1
• Bars 17-24


  • Verse 3
• Bars 25-30


  • Coda
• The texture is melody-dominated homophony throughout
• The number involved George Harrison's double-tracked vocals and lead guitar, while McCartney provided bass guitar and piano
• 'Here, There and Everywhere' is in modified strophic form, with three verses, preceded by an introduction and followed by a chorus
• Other features in 'Here, There and Everywhere' include an appoggiatura at bar 5, dissonant E in bar 7 resolved by upward movement of the harmony, a brief false relation in bar 9, and a harmonic sequence in bars 9-10
• The range of the melody in 'Here, There and Everywhere' is relatively wide, spanning a 9th
• In 'Here, There and Everywhere', despite the apparent simplicity of the sound, the multiple roles played by McCartney (vocal, bass, and acoustic guitars) and the three-part backing vocals would have required the blending of several takes
• The voice in 'Here, There and Everywhere' is supported by backing vocals, and a chromatic fill can be heard in bar 15
• The melody in 'Here, There and Everywhere' moves freely between monotone passages, conjunct movement, and leaps
• The lead vocal in 'Here, There and Everywhere' is sung by McCartney, using automatic double-tracking, and supported by lead guitar, bass guitar, acoustic guitar, drums, and vocals
• The harmonic rhythm in 'Here, There and Everywhere' is slow, in marked contrast to the song's brisk pace
• The tonality of 'Here, There and Everywhere' is E minor
• In 'Here, There and Everywhere', the key of G minor is clearly defined by the iv - V' progression in bars 14 and 16, with a plagal cadence at the close
• In 'Here, There and Everywhere', the tempo is moderate at 84 crotchets a minute, with a quadruple time signature and the introduction performed rubato before a steady pulse is established
• The song 'Here, There and Everywhere' has a texture of melody-dominated homophony, with guitar alternating between block chords and broken-chord figuration, and three-part supporting vocals in the verses
• Each verse in 'Here, There and Everywhere' consists of three lines, with a sometimes loose rhyme scheme for lines 2 and 3
• The song 'Here, There and Everywhere' is built on two chords, E minor and C major, except for an A minor chord at bar 61
• According to McCartney, the love song 'Here, There and Everywhere' was inspired by the Beach Boys' song 'God only knows'