Sunday night’s episode of Mad Men ended with Don Draper's mod young wife Megan handing him The Beatles' new LP Revolver and telling him to put on “Tomorrow Never Knows.”
My first thought watching it was “this must have cost a fortune.” Indeed, the show paid $250,000 for the song, a huge amount for a single use. You can read the show-biz backstory here. In Rock Turtleneck’s opinion, 'twas a bargain. For no song better illustrates how quickly the times they were a-changin’ in 1966 and how Don Draper, once the living vanguard of Madison Avenue, was now hopelessly and arrogantly out of touch at age 40.
Earlier in the episode, we learn that Don can't even wrap his head around the A Hard Day’s Night-era Beatles of two years earlier, and already the Beatles and the culture had moved on. The culture train has left the station and Don is standing on the platform, drinking a scotch.
With the possible exceptions of "A Day in the Life" and "I Am the Walrus," “Tomorrow Never Knows” is probably The Beatles’ most far-out track.
With the possible exceptions of "A Day in the Life" and "I Am the Walrus," “Tomorrow Never Knows” is probably The Beatles’ most far-out track.
A Lennon tune written around the single chord of C, It was the last song on Revolver, but the first to be recorded.
Which means that the Fab Four went straight from largely acoustic (though equally brilliant) Rubber Soul tracks like "In My Life" into demoing an LSD-fueled track with lyrics based on the Tibetian Book of the Dead (which was referenced in an earlier Mad Men episode when Roger Sterling and his young wife take LSD.)
Which means that the Fab Four went straight from largely acoustic (though equally brilliant) Rubber Soul tracks like "In My Life" into demoing an LSD-fueled track with lyrics based on the Tibetian Book of the Dead (which was referenced in an earlier Mad Men episode when Roger Sterling and his young wife take LSD.)
As Lennon said of Revolver, “Rubber Soul was the pot album, and Revolver was acid.” Much of the genius of “Tomorrow Never Knows” lies in Ringo Starr’s innovative, hypnotic drumbeat, which many have called a precursor to techno and house music. Ringo also came up with the song's title.
Lennon originally wanted a chorus of singing monks in the background but settled for the seagull-like squeals made from tape loops of guitars played backwards. He sang the song through a rotating Leslie speaker, which is normally used for Hammond organs, giving the song its trippy effect.
It’s amazing how quickly bands like The Beatles were evolving back then, making radical changes from one month to the next. Now bands like U2 and Radiohead evolve over years and even decades, with spaces between albums that are as long as the Beatles' entire recording career.
46 years on, “Tomorrow Never Knows” still sounds ahead of its time. A few years ago, for the soundtrack to their Cirque de Soleil show LOVE, the producers did a remix combining "Tomorrow Never Knows" with George Harrison's Indian drone "Within You, Without You." Turn off your mind relax and float downstream.
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LOVE soundtrack
Super-informative article, RT!
ReplyDelete-josh