MUS 116 Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: She Said She Said, Waldorf Astoria New York, Good Day Sunshine
1966, part 1
●Revolver
details
○ Beach Boys greatest album Pet Sounds
issued 16 May 1966
○ John & Paul attend a Pet Sounds
private playing in London at the Waldorf Astoria
Hotel on 17 May
○Revolver
recorded 6 April to 21 June 1966
○ Issued 5 August 1966
○ #1 in US for 6 wks
○ Cover designed by Klaus Voormann
○ Single: “Yellow Submarine” / “Eleanor Rigby”
○ Lyrics shaped by
■ LSD - Lennon, Harrison, & Starr
■ Indian music & culture
● Harrison
■ Artistic & intellectual friends
● McCartney
○ Studio becomes a creative force (rather than recording setting)
● Some innovative recording techniques
○ Automatic double track (ADT) recording
■ 2 tape recorders at once
○ Tape loops (“Tomorrow Never Knows”)
○ Leslie speaker (“Tomorrow Never Knows”)
○ Variable speed recording (“Here, THere, and Everywhere” )
○ Playback in retrograde (backwards) (“I’m Only Sleeping” )
○ Echo chamber (“Yellow Submarine” )
○ Variety of special sounds effects
○ McCartney’s bass recorded via a loudspeaker
● Some “innovative “ musical details
○ String octet (“Eleanor Rigby”)
○ Changing meters (“Love You To,” “She Said, She Said” )
○ Electronic music techniques influenced by Karlheinz Stockhausen (“Tomorrow
Never Knows”)
○ Subject matter: old age & loneliness (“Eleanor Rigby”)
○ Indian music (“Love You To,” “Tomorrow Never Knows”)
○ Mixolydian mode (“She Said”); Dorian mode (“Love You Too”)
○ Canon (end of “She Said, She Said” and “Good Day Sunshine” )
○ Dissonance (“I want to Tell You”)
● Brian Wilson, “God Only Knows”
○ Recorded March - April 1966
■ Released 16 May 1966 on Pet Sounds,
then in july as a single with
“Wouldn’t It Be Nice”
