Entertainment For Lively Minds
Which is your favourite song on Revolver?
Posted by Albert Edward on 10 July 2009 - 1:47pm.
Register your vote for your favourite song on Revolver here. I'll give it a week then collate the votes for a definitive result. Various pub conversations have convinced me it'll be a close-run thing!
As an interesting side bet you could also add which you *think* will be the winner, whether or not it's the same as your choice.
The candidates:
Taxman
Eleanor Rigby
I'm Only Sleeping
Love You To
Here, There and Everywhere
Yellow Submarine
She Said, She Said
Good Day Sunshine
And Your Bird Can Sing
For No One
Doctor Robert
I Want To Tell You
Got To Get You Into My Life
Tomorrow Never Knows
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I know the answer to this one ...
It's She Said She Said.
Obv.
yep me too
she said she said
Not in my house
My favourite: I'm only sleeping
Prediction: For no-one
Eleanor Rigby
Difficult though, cos there isn't a bad song on it.
Can you also take my 3 year old's favourite into consideration - Yellow Submarine.
When I was a lad...
She Said She Said was the song I loved. The jangly guitar riff just blew my little mind, and I'll still stand by it.
However I predict Here There And Everywhere might sneak it.
Another for She Said, She Said ...
...but ooh - so close.
Unless there is an influx of Under 5s voting ...
I cannot see the Villarreal song winning (Yellow Submarine)
Obviously
It's 'And Your Bird Can Sing'
Revolver lasts exactly the length of my walk to work, if you skip Yellow Submarine and play AYCS twice to make up for it.
(I would guess that most people would guess that the fave is Eleanor Rigby, but I think the real answer would be the same as mine, if that makes sense.)
Absolutely
My vote's for 'And Your Bird Can Sing', certainly.
And playing it twice while skipping 'Yellow Submarine' - you have of course, Gatz, identified the perfect way to listen to 'Revolver'.
And Your Bird Can Sing
Is quite possibly my favourite Beatles tune anyway, there's something about Lennon's stoned melancholy from the mid 60s that gets me everytime.
Seconded
Superb Track
Thirded
My favorite Beatle song
Aye, count me in on AYBCS.
Aye, count me in on AYBCS. Definitley in my top 3 Beatles tracks. Just love the harmonies and Lennon's clanging rhythm guitar in the background. Certainly doesn't out-stay it's welcome at 2:02. Looking forward to hearing how that sounds in the souped up remaster come September.
Wonderful song
and there's a great version on Anthology 2 where the boys may well have just 'had a smoke' and repeatedly collapse in fits of giggling whilst amazingly keeping the tune afloat. It never, ever fails to cheer me up.
Eleanor Rigby
I haven't heard it for a few years but I know it isn't Taxman.
Bet
Nobody votes for Taxman.
I'd bet Paul Weller would...
The same thing with Start
He really must like that song.
The thing is...
"Start!" is also a great song in its own right. Great title too. Yes, the riff is a straight steal from Taxman but the 'if I never ever see you' part is totally distinct.
Got to get you into my life
It's where blue-eyed soul began and was never bettered.
Tough
but I love 'I Want To Tell You', closely followed by And Your Bird...
Why? Well, the spooky, slightly dissonant piano chords and the way the lyrics are kind of left hanging in space with slightly weird metre do it for me.
It was an illustration that George's filters were just that little bit skewed with everyone else's. But then George is my favourite anyway.
Actually, I don't think there's a song on that album I don't like (even Yellow Submarine). When the new remasters arrive on Sept 9, I think more than any other, this is the album that'll go in the shopping basket.
Think it's fairly clear AYBCS wil romp away with it
another vote here for
And Your Bird Can Sing. Can't describe why. It's not just the song, it's the sound!
Tomorrow Never Knows
So good they really needn't have bothered ever recording anything else.
And your bird can sing
great tumbling guitar lines. The stoned giggling on the Anthology version always cracks me up too.
"That was it, wasn´t it?"
:)
In a fiercely fought contest
And YBCS gets my vote, just ahead of She said (x2)
Here There & Everywhere for me
But "Bird" is already walking it by the looks of things...
Yup,
'Here, There and Everywhere' for me too. One of the most beautiful songs ever written.
Along with 'Eleanor Rigby'.
And 'Good Day Sunshine'.
And 'For No One'.
And he was only 24. I hate him.
heh
i remember waking up the morning of my 25th birthday and realising what Macca had done by that stage. I muttered a four letter word beginning with C...
Yes
but don't forget, John was the genius; Paul was just a sentimental tunesmith. This is Rock Critic Law.
Used
to be.
Thankfully I'm not sure that it is anymore...
I am of the opinion that Paul McCartney has the greatest facility for writing melodies of anyone in the history of pop music*. He has been blessed with genius more often than any other musician I can think of, and I'm including a great deal of his post-Beatles work in that appraisal.
* I'm using 'pop music' here to cover everything from the 1950s onwards, thereby excluding Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Mozart, Beethoven etc who might ruin my argument.
Trying to be controversial...
Are you saying, Patrick, that Paul McCartney may be the KING OF POP?
He's heading that way...
by the look of him he's starting to have as much work done on himself as The Deceased Person Formerly Known as the King of Pop (TDPFKATKOP for short).
Me too
Here, There and Everywhere for me.
Tomorrow Never Knows
Hearing it aged twelve freaked me out. It remains my favourite song on my favourite album. Altough Taxman comes close. And Got To Get You Into My Life. And...well, you get the point.
TNK wins due to the great "Hey, we´re on drugs!"-vibe.
And Your Bird Can Sing
With Tomorrow Never Knows a close second.
Prediction: TNK.
First CD I ever bought
and the vote from Holborn Jury is
Tomorrow Never Knows.
I misread and ranked the whole album
Doh!
Tomorrow Never Knows
Here, There and Everywhere
Eleanor Rigby
She Said, She Said
And Your Bird Can Sing
Got To Get You Into My Life
Taxman
Good Day Sunshine
For No One
Yellow Submarine
I'm Only Sleeping
Doctor Robert
I Want To Tell You
Love You To
And Your Bird Can Sing
Partly because i never heard it until i started listening to yer actual Beatles LPs, as opposed to Greatest Hits collections, and it felt like my own discovery.
Exactly!
An album track...
That would have been countless other groups' best ever single. But that's the hallmark of the Fabs anyway isn't it?
Yes, I'd have to go with AYBCS (at this rate the Mail will have to refer to them as the And Your Bird Can Sing hitmakers...). Favourite bit - the harmonising when Paul's voice rises as he sings 'you tell me that you've heard every sound there is...'
Plus the handclaps!
All in all - a ridiculously exciting pop song.
And Your Bird Can Sing
giggling version. Not least because it reminds you that, all else aside, they were just boys having fun playing music.
Most likely to be picked: Tomorrow Never Knows or Here, There Everywhere.
Not much fat on Revolver is there.
For No One
gets my vote by a very short head - but then I spent part of a misspent youth picking up Beatles keyboard songs by ear, playing them to death and generally pouring scorn on the godawful quality of transcriptions in the songbooks.
I never did find a French Horn player to accompany me though, or a harpsichord to play it on for that matter - the piano had to do.
I've also just noticed that nothing on the album clocks in at more than 3:01 on my CD copy....
The whole darn lot but...
Personal fave - Love You Too
Prediction - And Your Bird Can
Obviously
It's Got To Get You Into My LIfe.
(Or Here, There and Everywhere).
Mine is
"And Your bird can sing" is my favourite.
("Love you to" is a very close second).
As to which one do I think would be favourite? Eleanor Rigby (which now having read our favourites is obviously wrong).
Champagne Supernova
either 'Got to get you into my life' or 'She sais she said'
Taxman if it had better lyrics.
Actually all of them ..I'm not playing
Bring someone in
with a pin and a blindfold - in the nicest possible sense.
I'm going for...
She Said She Said.
I'd have thought Tomorrow Never Knows would have been the shoe-in for eventual victor, but it looks like I'm in for a suprise.
Love You To
I was listening to Revolver on my iPod the other week, and there's something magically spinetingling about the moment when the sitar intro speeds up and the drums (tablas?) come in. Can you imagine hearing that for the first time in 1966? Polycultural psychedelia at its finest (and far better than Lennon's self-consciously 'philosophical' Tomorrow Never Knows).
Close second; For No One.
Despite...
... a strong initial showing from She Said, She Said, And Your Bird Can Sing is ahead by a nose.
Still -- it's early days and the heavily fancied Tomorrow Never Knows and Got to Get You Into My Life remain in the running.
I'm Only Sleeping
is my actual favourite.
For No One is the burgeoning Songbook standard
It has to be
And Your Bird Can Sing
for me...
'Yellow...
Submarine'. Great tune.
She Said She Said
by a long way
Another vote for
Tomorrow Never Knows. Love the slowed down version on Anthology as well.
Tomorrow Never Knows..
...is the fave.
Here, There & Everywhere is the prediction.
Just by a nose
Tomorrow Never Knows but She Said, She Said is a very close second.
Winner? I hope it's TNK but have horrible feeling it'll be Here, There and Everywhere.
Why horrible?
It's a fantastic song.
Tomorrow Never Knows
Still sounds modern. I love And Your Bird Can Sing as well.
And I think it will win the poll.
And Your Bird Can Sing....
Brilliant tune. The closest the Beatles came to Mod!
It has to be
She Said She Said. But - just to be contrary - if they had put Rain on it (which, if I can recall R in the H, was recorded at the same time) it would be that.
4 no 1
My fav beatles song
And Your Bird Can Sing
Easy!
Tomorrow Never Knows
By a country mile (whatever one of those is)
Tomorrow Never Knows
(Though "Got To Get You Into My Life" and "For No One" might sometimes pip it for, respectively, sheer joy and beautiful sorrow.)
For No One
It would fit beautifully on Sgt Pepper if it didn't put that entire album to shame. "You find that all her words of kindness linger on when she no longer needs you...you want her, you need her; and yet you don't believe her when she says her love is dead...there will be times when all the things she said will fill your head" The essence of heartbreak encapsulated in two minutes.
Another vote For No One
With honourable mentions for She Said, TNK and Eleanor Rigby.
Very surprised to see the depth of support for AYBCS - must give it another listen!
Got To Get You Into My Life
but that is just today
Although
I have to say, if you listen to The Beatles' recordings in chronological order, the arrival at Tomorrow Never Knows positively blows the top of your head off. It seems to come out of nowhere and nothing is ever the same again.
Are you...
... changing your vote, Lucas?
No
I'm not.
I thought I was going to be all edgy and different
choosing 'And Your Bird Can Sing' !
But then I realised that everyone in the Massive is edgy and different!
'For No One' a close second.
Revolver was my introduction to pop music, aged 8.
It was only ever going to be downhill from there...
Ahh, so that explains your disillusionment with Glastonbury...
you'd have loved it if you'd first been exposed to The Birdie Song!
You might be onto something there..
Like Orson Welles I have lived my (pop) life backwards!
I Want To Tell You
edgy and odd.
Obviously not a winner though
Glad to see
I'm not alone, even though we are in something of a minority!
Here there and everywhere
but the Emmylou version just to piss off the Beatles fans.
And then Eleanor Rigby - great song and I fondly recall playing it as a 7 inch over and over again with if i recall correctly Day Tripper as the double A side.
A vote...
for Eleanor Rigby then, because it's not the Revolver version of Here, There and Everywhere?
Yellow Submarine
I think it was a double A with Yellow Submarine. Day Tripper came with We Can Work It Out.
Sorry, but this is my Rain Man area.
Looks like just me then
plumping for I'm Only Sleeping
Have another listen...
Prefer Suggs version
*runs for cover*
No
If you look up near the top of this thread you'll see I plumped for I'm Only Sleeping.
I am struggling to think of
I am struggling to think of another albumn with more great songs contained within. 'Here there and everywhere' for me, just.
I am struggling to think of
I am struggling to think of another albumn with more great songs contained within. 'Here there and everywhere' for me, just.
Surely this album....
...would be even more of a classic without the Harrison-penned compositions. For me, Taxman, Love You To and I Want To Tell You are three of the four worst tracks. The fourth being Doctor Robert.
Favourite track: Tomorrow Never Knows wins by a nose from Got To Get You Into My Life and Eleanor Rigby with For No One two lengths further adrift.
TNK
so unique!
I'm Only Sleeping
In my humble opinion
Clearly
you, Carl Parker and I are right and everyone else...
It's so perfect it hurts.
there is really only one way to
decide this....
Fight
.
"Revolver"'s a good record....
...but it's not as good as "A Hard Day's Night".
he's right you know
and that's a tough one - If I Fell, You Can't Do That, or there's that Ricky Gadd9sus4... tough choice.
you forgot the
sugar rush harmonicafest that is 'I should have known better'...
I think this thread is fascinating...that the standout track for a lot of people here
a) isn't the head-turning-christ-they've-only-gone-psychadelic TNK
b) is rather an 'ordinary' pop song (AYBCS) that possesses what can only be called, in the best possible way, an X factor.
but DH
that wasn't the question.
I believe you have over
I believe you have over stated your case here, Revolver is better than 'good'.
Or
Rubber Soul, for that matter.
Or
'Abbey Road'.
I really like Taxman...
...Killer Bass, killer guitar solo, nice use of of the #9 chord, great singing, what's not to like.
Casts vote for TKN anyway. Though ER, FNO, AYBCS are up there.
what' s not to like?
Whiney non-materialistic millionaire reveals hidden shallows?
Whine aside
Can you believe that track was done in 1966?! Musically, it's absolutely, ahem, on the money and so modern. Check out Macca's bass at the 'if you drive a car...' bit.
It's a great track, at the
It's a great track, at the time the current government had just introduced a 90% tax rate for high earners. I think most of us would have moaned about that!
up to a point
Yes, but as ever with progressive taxation, the 90% was only on the top slice, at a level well above the income of most of the country.
Elvis & the Colonel were proud to be 90% taxpayers (as quoted in the excellent Allana Nash biography of The Colonel)
As a working adult I
As a working adult I understand how the taxation system works, regardless of how high the top was sliced I would still resent such a large percentage going to the government. I am not sure I get your point re Elvis and the Colonel, I thought Elvis never actually visited the UK?
Elvis visited Prestwick flying home.
Sorry if I offended you.
They payed their 90% tax in the USA.
No offence taken, but I
No offence taken, but I assumed that the US had a more friendly taxation system.
95% on unearned income
if I recall correctly, hence the line:
"Should five percent appear to small, be grateful I don't take it all"
and
"there's one for you, nineteen for me" (shillings, obv.)
Were the Beatles anything like millionaires in 1966?
I'm genuinely curious. It's a perfectly valid protest song, especially against a 90% tax rate. It's also lyrically light years away from anything PM and JL were writing.
A valid protest song
from a middle-aged Esher dweller, not a 22-year-old working class Liverpudlian with an interest in the spiritual.
According to the Miles/Macca book
"It was in 1965, during his time at Wimpole St, that he received a letter from his accountant, Harry Pinsker, telling him that he might like to know he was now officially a millionaire"
but didn't all these tax man songs
appear around the same time (the Kinks etc) because this is when harrison et al all got their first real tax bill and like every one went form being a communist to capitalist over night whne they saw how much they had to pay.
Interesting to know...
...that £1,000,000 in 1965 was (in 2007) worth £13,939,354.58 using the retail price index.
TNK
...is mine.Aged 15, getting into the Beatles ("What, GTGYIML is a Beatles song? Wow") and then this just sends the hair up on end. I had quite a bit of hair in 1986...
And Your Bird Can Sing
Closely followed by For No One, Eleanor Rigby, Tomorrow Never Knows...
And Your Bird Can Sing
If that had been a one-off single by The Big Three, or Teddy Dee & the Dockers, I'd still be raving about the guitar sound (and it's a great song too)
Here, There & Everywhere
And Your Bird Can Sing is a great song, but Here, There & Everywhere has surely the most wonderful melody they ever wrote.
For No One
My favourite Paul song, I think.
Paul's as well apparently,
Paul's as well apparently, still TNK for me
I wish
I was only sleeping. Had 4 hours. Have Hangover. 4 yr old boys keep strange hours. And show no mercy. I'm only sleeping? If only.
you still managed to get on here, though ?
I sympathise - get Tom & Jerry on and cuddle in on the sofa.
(A patented cure for me!)
Thank you
I have an 8 month old daughter (after a 16 year break from children) and am also a sleep deprivation sufferer - YOU ARE NOT ALONE
And Your Bird Can Sing
It's a little gem of a song that hasn't been flogged to death over the years, and a virtuoso guitar performance in my opinion - not flash but just really good.
Here There and Everywhere
How can this not win? It's two songs in one.
For No One
is my favourite but TNK is probably the most significant.
Chalk one up for FNO.
Impossible to choose...
But today it's For No One
I've got to be honest...
I really like Dr Robert; always have done, especially recently, when I decided that I ought to add a Beatles song to my repertoire of songs I can hamfistedly strum through on my guitar, and found that it's easy to play - and that several consecutive listens don't cause it to pall. It's an unusual song, and I love its sardonic edge. And I'd like to be the first to vote for it.
But I can't, because Here, There And Everywhere is my favourite song on the album. Simple really.
For No One
Good luck to the fella gathering these results. Prehaps The Word could get polling functionality on the site?
My vote: For No One
The winner: And your Bird...
I'll give it a bit...
I initially said a week, but I think I'll wait till the thread sinks then collate the results. Tally so far reveals that And Your Bird Can Sing is indeed the leader but the real battle is for second place...
TNK
.
Here, There and Everywhere
which is not only a fabulous track on a terrific album but is a marvellous song: witness the number of covers. (Emmylou's is the best, imho.)
Damn it, I have to go with the crowd...
And Your Bird Can Sing
or maybe...
I'm Only Sleeping, For No-One, TNK, She Said(squared)...
and what about - "Good Day Sunshine"?? Forget Girls Aloud et al - THAT is "perfect pop"
Tomorrow (or possibly later on this evening) I'll have changed my mind several times over.
When
do we get to do the White Album?
Nothing to stop you starting a thread
Seeing as we're in a 'vote for the Beatles' groove.
i'll have a fiver on Revolution 9 winning
as we all jostle for position in the 'I don't care, I like it' stakes!
For No One
We're arguing degrees of perfection here, but I'm backing FNO because it still, unaccountably after all this time, seems to be a relatively undiscovered song. (Accent on relatively.) Yesterday is the most covered song of all time while FNO, in a similar vein but to these ears clearly the superior work, awaits its full due. This is, of course, one of the wonders of the Beatles catalogue, that even the most scrutinized body of work in pop history can still hold neglected jewels. Speaking of which, I'll give honourable mention to Love You To, the best (and most authentic in its Indian-ness) of George's Eastern excursions.
"authentic in its Indian-ness"??
Pah! I spit on your "authentic"...
quite right...
Waiter, I'd like the blandest thing on the menu. And bring me some of those 'Bread Rolls'...
Eleanor Rigby
Looking forward to going home tonight to listen to the album for the first time in many a year. Thanks for the promopt.
Revolving thoughts
And Your Bird Can Sing for me too. Whatever the merits of McCartney's Beatles songs, which I know are considerable, and of course one shouldn't forget his suggestions and hugely significant contributions for the others' songs also, his slower ones are sometimes spoilt for me by a certain cloying quality I can't get over, together with an occasional 'Yes I know, this sounds lovely doesn't it?' doe-eyed delivery. I do tend to lean toward the Lennon side of things Beatles-wise, in line with Rock critic tradition and against tendency of Word massive revision. She Said She Said, I'm Only Sleeping and Eleanor Rigby are also among the very best tracks I would say.
Last chance for votes
If everybody has voted, I think I may close the booth and tot up the results.
Any more for any more?
Voting closed.
Results posted here...
http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/revolver-poll-results