It was on his acid trips that Lennon first found an escape from the unloved pop star reality – “Tomorrow Never Knows” was his attempt to reconstruct this parallel world with all its ecstasies and its tormenting search for identity in the studio.
In one fell swoop, the poetic modernism of Rubber Soul—which had come out just five months prior to those sessions—was ancient hat. And compared to the wild tape-loop effects and Lennon’s eerily alienated voice on this track, the other “Revolver” recordings also seem like just an intermediate stage on the way to reconciling acid and pop song form.
On the album, “Tomorrow Never Knows” could only be at the very end. “Eleanor Rigby,” “I’m Only Sleeping,” and “She Said She Said” might have been bold steps in a new direction – “Tomorrow Never Knows” was jumping off the cliff.
The art form of sampling may also have started with this recording. In January 1966, while tripping, Lennon picked up LSD guru Timothy Leary’s book The Psychedelic Experience, which is ultimately just a continuation of Buddhist concepts (re-incarnation, abandonment of the ego). Lennon turned on his tape recorder, read excerpts from the book (including a description of an out-of-body state) — and soon began writing a song incorporating these Leary quotes. Even the working title – “The Void” – came from “The Psychedelic Experience”.
EVERYTHING was alienated
The Beatles did their best to bring Lennon’s visions to life in the studio. It only took them three tries to agree on the underlying rhythm track. (McCartney had suggested the unusual drummer figures.) Most of the surreal-sounding overdubs were produced during the night of April 6th and the afternoon of April 7th – in just ten hours. There wasn’t a sound source that wasn’t distorted beyond recognition, be it the reversed guitar solo, the soaring drone of Harrison’s sitar, or Lennon’s voice just about to stagger into another state of consciousness. Starr’s tom-toms suddenly sounded like tablas, a mellotron suggested flutes and strings – and the sound of cackling seagulls came from either a laughing McCartney or the wood of a guitar body being pounded.
More from the Beatles
The Beatles: How the recording of “Let It Be” turned into a fiasco
“Eleanor Rigby” by The Beatles: Meditation on Aging and Loneliness
Paul McCartney: ‘John Lennon Instigated The Beatles’ Split’
“Love Me Do” by The Beatles: You could hear the band’s fear
This is the story behind the Beatles hit “Penny Lane”
Why ‘A Day In The Life’ is Lennon/McCartney’s greatest triumph
Lennon himself wanted his voice completely distorted: “It should sound like the Dalai Lama chanting from atop a distant mountaintop.” Sound engineer Geoff Emerick achieved the desired effect by playing Lennon’s voice through the rotating speakers of a Leslie speaker sent hooked up to a Hammond organ. “That sounds damn great,” Lennon exclaimed enthusiastically when he heard the result for the first time. McCartney was also immediately convinced of this sound and described it with the words: “It’s the Dalai Lennon!”
Until the final overdub on April 22, the song was titled “Mark 1” on the studio’s recording logs. It was once again Starr who was quick to come up with an alternative (although the song’s title is now completely ignored in the lyrics): “Tomorrow Never Knows” was – like “A Hard Day’s Night” – one of his verbal corruptions (actually “tomorrow never comes” was meant). But he should be wrong. “Tomorrow Never Knows” came – with a lot of reverb and all power, ecstatic and in Technicolor, at the end of “Revolver”.