How the Beatles Made their Most Acclaimed Album, Revolver, Released 60 Years Ago This Month

Among Bea­t­les con­nois­seurs, it’s fair game to claim any­thing from Rub­ber Soul to Abbey Road as one’s favorite album. But even with­in that span of the cat­a­log, a hier­ar­chy of acclaim exists, and that hier­ar­chy has been rearranged over the decades. The ecsta­t­ic recep­tion of Sgt. Pepper’s Lone­ly Hearts Club Band last­ed at least a decade. By the turn of the nine­teen-eight­ies, its imme­di­ate pre­de­ces­sor Revolver had joined it at the top spot of crit­i­cal regard; twen­ty years after that, Abbey Road had dis­placed Sgt. Pep­per. Now, a full 60 years after it first came out, Revolver is the sin­gle Bea­t­les album held in the high­est esteem — which, nat­u­ral­ly, makes it a seri­ous con­tender for the great­est album ever record­ed.

In his new video above, music YouTu­ber David Hart­ley explains what makes Revolver so beloved by recount­ing the his­to­ry of its pro­duc­tion. As in his pre­vi­ous Bea­t­les videos, he draws on the library of stu­dio out­takes that make audi­ble the evo­lu­tion of each song, as well as on con­tem­po­rary inter­views with the Bea­t­les and their col­lab­o­ra­tors.

Among his most illu­mi­nat­ing sources is engi­neer Geoff Emer­ick­’s mem­oir Here, There, and Every­where — titled, inci­den­tal­ly after one of the songs on this very album, the chal­lenge of whose record­ing he took on at just twen­ty years old. In the event, his youth proved an asset, grant­i­ng him as it did the will­ing­ness not just to exe­cute the Bea­t­les’ “far-out” son­ic ideas, but also to vio­late EMI Stu­dios’ poli­cies against exper­i­men­tal use of its hard­ware in the process.

Indeed, if it was pos­si­ble in 1966, it seems to have been tried in the mak­ing of Revolver. As Hart­ley reveals, “I’m Only Sleep­ing” once fea­tured a vibra­phone, “Yel­low Sub­ma­rine” once began with a spo­ken-word intro, and “And Your Bird Can Sing” once kept get­ting inter­rupt­ed by uncon­trol­lable and quite pos­si­bly sub­stance-induced laugh­ter. Nei­ther these nor any of the album’s oth­er now-famil­iar, much-scru­ti­nized songs took straight paths to their final forms. Into a run­time of only 35 min­utes, the Bea­t­les man­aged to put every­thing from “a chil­dren’s sin­ga­long song” to “a song com­plain­ing about all the mon­ey they were pay­ing in tax­es” to “a song about lone­li­ness” to “a song about lazi­ness” — while also trans­mit­ting the “great feel­ing of joy” for which their oeu­vre is known. Revolver’s place in the canon of albums is secure, but will it still be con­sid­ered the band’s best work on its 70th anniver­sary? Tomor­row, as they say, nev­er knows.

Relat­ed con­tent:

How the Bea­t­les Wrote Their Songs: From Ear­ly Demos to Final Record­ings

Tomor­row Nev­er Knows: How The Bea­t­les Invent­ed the Future With Stu­dio Mag­ic, Tape Loops & LSD

Is “Rain” the Per­fect Bea­t­les Song?: A New Video Explores the Rad­i­cal Inno­va­tions of the 1966 B‑Side

The World’s Great­est Song That Sim­ply Shouldn’t Exist: The Mak­ing of The Bea­t­les’ “A Day in the Life”

The Bea­t­les’ 8 Pio­neer­ing Inno­va­tions: A Video Essay Explor­ing How the Fab Four Changed Pop Music

The Kinks’ Ray Davies Reviews the Bea­t­les’ 1966 Album Revolver; Calls It “A Load of Rub­bish”

Based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. He’s the author of the newslet­ter Books on Cities as well as the books 한국 요약 금지 (No Sum­ma­riz­ing Korea) and Kore­an Newtro. Fol­low him on the social net­work for­mer­ly known as Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.