All the lonely people, where do they all belong?

The Beatles - Revolver  - 1966

Let me tell you how I think it may have been...

Any suburban home in the UK, some time in 1966, teenager gets home with a recently purchased copy of this album. Mum sees him and is not too upset: After all, these four look like good kids. Yes, they wear that "long" hair, and she's not too sure about all those girls going crazy about them, would they be a good example? But Mum can relate. That Paul guy sings such beautiful songs....
While Mum is thinking about Paul, teenager starts playing the album. Ok, Mum thinks, that seems like a nice enough tune. But there's something not quite right here, what are those lyrics? "Let me tell you how it will be / theres 1 for you 19 for me. / Cause I'm the Taxman". What's this? Are they singing protest songs now? She's a bit worried. But since she's heard her hubby also complain about the high taxes they have to pay, she lets it go for now.
And anyway, the next song comes in, and oh my! it's one of those beautiful melodies sung by Paul. Just listen to his voice! Mum is so enthralled by the melody --and they even have strings, now that's proper music, that she doesn't realise how much despair the lyrics have. She's ok, she can go and prepare the dinner. Her child is safe.
From the kitchen, she hears the next song, "I'm only Sleeping". It seems like it is John singing, he seems more of a troublemaker, but this sounds like a nice melody. She can't hear the lyrics too well and can't tell that this is, pretty much, an anthem to laziness. Neither can she hear the slightly psychedelic sounds that subtly appear from time to time.
Suddenly things get weird. Mum is not too sure what is going on. Has the record player broken? Are cats fighting outside? What on earth is going on??? She gets into the living room in time to hear George saying: "I'll make love to you" at the time some incomprehensible sounds come from the turntable. George seemed like such a nice guy!, she thinks. She grabs the cover from her child's hands. She sees the strange drawings on the front. Her heart starts racing. She turns the cover and sees those four "nice boys", but they're changed somehow. They wear shades and strange clothes, and look more like those American beatnik poets than like nice boys. Could they (Heavens forbid) be doing drugs?
She's yanked from her reveries by Paul singing: "To lead a better life / I need my love to be here". The whole world makes sense again. That sweet, melodious voice, those harmonies! "Knowing that love is to share..." Yes! That's more like it! But what was it that I heard before? She's still a bit worried, although it's so hard to worry about anything with that sweet voice singing to you.
Then the song finishes, and Ringo starts singing about us "living beneath the waves in a Yellow Submarine".
Mum has an existential crisis now.

I actually can see that happening a lot back then. Jokes aside, it was pretty much the same confusion I probably felt the first time I heard this one. Back then, I didn't know most of the songs here. I was 17, and the social commentary of some of the tracks, the "weird" sounds added, and the huge difference in sound from previous albums were instantly appealing to me.
Up to this day, I can't overstate how much I love this album. I debated myself a bit on whether or not to put this one separated from any other album, and ultimately decided that I would, because I like it so much, and there's so much to be said about it, that it would not make it justice to put it with other albums.
Also, I was too amused by my own visualisation of my suburban UK family not to indulge myself. My apologies if my bit of self-indulgence above was not to your liking.

Now, to the album itself.
This is the one that really marks a departure from their previous style, both musically and lyrically. Most people usually see Sgt. Pepper's as a pivot point, but if you listen to this album you will see that it was fully out there. I would even go as far as saying that this one is more daring than its successor, and its influence extended farther in time than Sgt. Pepper's. Listen to this album and then listen to any BritPop band from the late 90s, early 2000s (not just BritPop, listen to some electronica, like Chemical Brothers as well) and tell me if it's not true.
As to how out there this one was, just listen to "Tomorrow Never Knows", which was easier to listen than George's forays into Eastern music, but every bit as psychedelic and experimental, including sampling and tape manipulation, concepts that were completely unheard of in 1966.
The lyrics were pretty out there too. The allusions to consciousness-enhancing drugs was clear and not veiled at all. But the social commentary and introspection are what I find the most amazing. I mentioned above how sad "Eleanor Rigby" is, and there's no exaggerating that. This is depressive to the The Cure level. Rarely would you hear songs dealing with loneliness like that. Yes, the topic had been a staple in music forever, but usually related to the "I'm so lonely" type. This is loneliness as social commentary, which was very rare back then. Then we have the aforementioned "Taxman", directly protesting the government, and the irony of "Dr. Roberts", the pill pushing doctor that will prescribe anything for money. Yes, the Rolling Stones also touched upon the subject in Aftermath. But this was The Beatles, and them being the "good boys" the move seemed much more daring.
Now, being "out there" is all fine and well, but certainly it's not enough. The main reason I think I love this album so much is because they not only had the guts of going out there and trying new things. They tried new things, and did the whole Eastern, and psychedelic thing, revered guitar sounds, and the occasional time signature shift, but they also had such classical instruments as a string octet, French horns, a brass fanfare. And it all works so well, it's so perfectly crafted. It's ultimately that perfection in diversity that make this one so much fun to listen to.

• The opening lines of "Taxman" were, actually, absolutely real. At the time, because of their high earnings, The Beatles were paying 95% in taxes. Just imagine that.
• There actually was a real Eleanor Rigby, and she lived in Liverpool. Apparently, there's no relation to the song (Paul always claimed the name was fully invented). The real life one was also a lonely woman, apparently.
• "I'm only Sleeping" had guitars that were recorded backwards. No strange messages here. Only a very audible yawn by Paul right before the second bridge. In theory, you can also hear John saying "Yawn, Paul", right before that. But I can only make myself believe that I hear it. 
• Still today, I find "Love You To" a bit unpalatable. It is a constant with most of George's Eastern-style songs.
• Three of my favourite Beatles' ballads are in this album: "Eleanor Rigby", "Here, There and Everywhere", and "For No One". They are outstanding both from the point of view of composition and interpretation, and they're miles away from his tracks in the first couple of albums. 
• Unbelievable as it may be, at the time people were trying to find secret meaning behind "Yellow Submarine", which probably is the silliest song they ever wrote (and considering some of their earlier stuff, that's a tall order). A bit easier to believe, is that the chorus has been adopted by football fans and strike workers. It's kind of catchy like that. 
• "I want to tell you" is the third song written by George in this album. It was the first time he had written more than 2 songs in an album. It was mostly inspired by the "avalanche of thoughts" that he would experience and that would be so difficult to put in words. Of course, it was heavily influenced by experimenting with LSD and other drugs, as were nearly 50% of the songs here. 
• And talking about drugs, of course, there's "Tomorrow Never Knows", the epitome of psychedelic music. The rhythm always made me think of people dancing in some primitive ritual. The song also had reversed guitars, and tape loops with altered sounds. Wikipedia will explain it much better than I can.  
• This album was released at the time of the whole "we're bigger than Jesus" controversy. It's been theorised that this was part of the reasons why this one wasn't bigger than it was. Whatever the case may be, there's a video of "I'm only Sleeping" below that shows some images of the reactions in the US. I said yesterday that I winced a bit at the opening lyrics of "Run for your Life". I find the images in the video below orders of magnitude more upsetting. 

Random thoughts

• When "Tomorrow Never Knows" was finished, story tells that they gave it to Bob Dylan, anxious to see what he thought of it. Apparently, he said: "Oh, I get it. You don't want to be cute anymore". 
• Someone should make a colouring book out of that cover. Really. 
• Yes, 3 videos from the same album. Don't make me choose just one, or I'll end up with an existential crisis bigger than the mum from my story above. :)