Tomorrow Never Knows

Tomorrow Never Knows sheet music cover

TimothyLeary-LectureTour-OnStage-SUNYAB-1969

Leslie speaker (mechanical diagram)

India - Ladakh - Leh - 012 - lonely gompa south of Leh (3841440587)

magtape1

Beatles love

Tomorrow Never Knows is a song by the British rock band The Beatles, credited to the songwriting partnership of John Lennon and Paul McCartney but primarily written by Lennon. It is the final track on their 1966 album Revolver. The song marked a radical departure from anything the band had done before, both musically and lyrically. Featuring innovative studio techniques such as tape loops, backwards recordings, and automatic double tracking, Tomorrow Never Knows was one of the first glimpses of what would become psychedelic rock.

Background

John Lennon drew inspiration for the song's lyrics from The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead, a book that Lennon had been introduced to by Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert, and Ralph Metzner, who had themselves been inspired by the Tibetan Book of the Dead. The book's guidance on dying and rebirth resonated with Lennon, leading him to craft lyrics that urged listeners to surrender to the experience, to "turn off your mind, relax, and float downstream".

Recording

Recorded in April 1966 at EMI Studios (later known as Abbey Road Studios), Tomorrow Never Knows showcased the Beatles' pioneering studio experimentation under the guidance of producer George Martin and engineer Geoff Emerick. The song featured groundbreaking use of tape loops created by the band members, which were played on various tape machines around the studio and mixed live during the recording. This technique contributed to the song's unique, otherworldly sound. Additionally, Lennon's vocals were processed through a Leslie speaker, giving them a distinctive, ethereal quality that matched the song's avant-garde feel.

Musical Structure and Lyrics

Musically, Tomorrow Never Knows is built around a simple C major chord, with a droning bass line and a steady drum beat. This simplicity serves as a foundation for the song's complex overlay of sounds, including sitar, tambura, and seagull-like tape loop effects. The lyrics, influenced by Leary's book, reflect a melding of psychedelic insight and Eastern philosophy, with lines like "Lay down all thoughts, surrender to the void," encapsulating the song's theme of ego death and spiritual rebirth.

Legacy

Tomorrow Never Knows is widely regarded as one of the most influential tracks in the history of popular music, heralding the advent of psychedelic music and studio experimentation that would become hallmarks of the late 1960s. It has been covered and sampled by numerous artists and continues to be celebrated for its innovative use of studio technology and its profound lyrical message.