Christopher Urbiel

8 November 2006

Possible Research Topics based on Lennon & McCartney, “Tomorrow Never Knows” from The Beatles, Revolver
(1966)

1. What does this piece say about the ability of technically manipulated material (i.e. backwards tape
loops) as mediated by modern recording techniques, to create a new musical medium that is both
independent from and coexistent with human vocals and traditional musical instruments?
The approach to this question would be one of establishing a grouping of recordings from slightly before
the Beatles (i.e. those of Les Paul) up to the Beatles and their contemporaries; the stipulation would be that
the recording would have to include similar devices to “Tomorrow Never Knows.” How are those devices
used in the recordings – as accompaniment, as obbligato, as “vocal” or “instrumental” in character? How
are they both similar to and different from the sounds produced by human beings singing and playing in
real time? The technical makeup of the individual sounds would have to considered, and one might explore
how these developments led up to the promotion and popularization of the synthesizer. A possible future
project would be to ask the same questions of synthesized sounds. Did the Beatles help pave the way for
the replacement of actual instruments with their synthesized equivalents?

2. The quotation in the song’s lyrics, “Turn off your mind, / Relax, and float downstream,” is from
Timothy Leary’s book The Psychedelic Experience. How do this track and the entire Revolver album
reflect the Beatles’ transition from the Fab Four in matching suits to the flamboyant and drug-
influenced band that produced the likes of “I am the Walrus?”
In this approach, “Tomorrow Never Knows” is seen as a high point of the Revolver album, and some
comparisons and contrasts – both among tracks within the album and between this album and say, A Hard
Day’s Night and Sgt. Pepper, would be entirely appropriate for setting up the musical transition. The
biographical transition of each of the Beatles and their individual experience with psychedelia (notably,
LSD) would be viewed as the backdrop for these musical changes. In addition, since the song’s lyrics come
not only from Leary but also from the Tibetan Book of the Dead, an examination of how the Beatles’ drug
use was concurrent with their experiences of Eastern mysticism (and why) would bolster the argument.
Each one of these facets could be a research project in itself.

3. Given that John Lennon and Paul McCartney are credited for the song, and that their individual
songwriting styles seemed to be crystallizing at the time of the Revolver album, what does
“Tomorrow Never Knows” say about their musical partnership and its gradual bifurcation?
It is interesting to note that Paul (whose comparatively mellow and almost classical track “For No One”
appears on the same album) suggested the bizarre sound effects in “Tomorrow Never Knows,” rather than
John, who is usually known (in retrospect) for his avant-garde tendencies. This approach would trace the
development of the Lennon-McCartney partnership and use this song as a “point of arrival” where that
partnership is quite opposite of that which produced earlier songs. “Tomorrow Never Knows” could then
be shown to be the first step in the process of Lennon-McCartney individualization, and how that
individualization affected the two other Beatles – to the point where they could all record “their” songs
without help from the others.
Bibliography

The Beatles: Complete Scores. Milwaukee: Hal Leonard, 1993.

Covach, John. “From ‘Craft’ to ‘Art’: Formal Structure in the Music of the Beatles,” in Reading the Beatles:
Cultural Studies, Literary Criticism, and the Fab Four, edited by Kenneth Womack and Todd Davis, 37-53.
Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006.

Marshall, Ian. “‘I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together’: Bakhtin and the Beatles,” in Reading
the Beatles: Cultural Studies, Literary Criticism, and the Fab Four, edited by Kenneth Womack and Todd Davis, 9-
35. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006.

Neises, Charles, ed. The Beatles Reader. Ann Arbor: Pierian Press, 1984.

Russell, J.P. The Beatles on Record. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1982.