Loved your thoughtful reaction to The Beatles. For me, Taxman is serious fun, and Eleanor Rigby is a 2 minute-plus masterpiece of songwriting, singing, and arrangement.
Taxman, on some days(especially around April 15 here in the US), is my favorite George Harrison Beatles song. It rocks too, along with the biting lyrics. Ringo Starr on drums is just right, per usual Elenor Rigby...just so melancholy. Sir Paul nailed it. Elanor Rigby has been covered by many artists, an interesting rabbithole to go down, including Kansas(from the album Always Never The Same, with the London Symphony) RIP George Harrison and John Lennon Merry Christmas to all
In my opinion, "Revolver" is their best album. Along with the singles, "Paperback Writer," "Day Tripper," "Rain," "We Can Work It Out," and this is their finest era.
Happy Christmas dear Dawn! Was definitely special starting Christmas by hearing The Beatles, Chris Squire and The Moody Blues! Hope your day is beautiful as well 🤍
@@retroreactions.... Is almost 8pm here so I have wined,, dined and been loaded with pretty sparkly things because I have Magpie eyes!! Not sure the time gap but my day is 3/4 gone. Been lovely though. Christmas is once a year but The Beatles are forever. xx
@@retroreactions.... Well, dang Brandon, that makes us time travellers. I'm in the future while you broadcast from...the past. My day was lovely and I wish the same for you. x Love and light
Taxman - a George song(!) opens the LP, the fade in with the background studio sounds shows they ARE a studio band. Revolver is usually my favorite Beatles LP, but some days it's in second place.
Panning to different channels or speakers was a new tech in the mid 60s. Multitrack recording was in it's infancy, all of this done on a 4 track recorder. Their later songs had the luxury of 8 tracks.
Merry Christmas everyone! Great for you Brandon, having The Beatles for a full album journey with Revolver! It’s kinda nice to hear some 60’s music on the channel. Quite the opposite of the lengthy songs of many prog bands. (Which I LOVE)!! I hoped you had a blessed day with your family. 😊
Stereo mixing was a very new thing in the mid to late 60s and the mixers and engineers hadn't worked out what to do with it yet. So, as a lot of people do when faced with a new toy, they went nuts making it obvious that they were doing the new thing by putting all the guitars on one side or whatever. Because of that, the mono mixes are often a better listening experience for many songs from that period, and that's true far beyond the Beatles. Revolver itself trades blows with Abbey Road as my favorite Beatles album. The stylistic variety from track to track is fantastic, even including a little analog proto-EDM ("Tomorrow Never Knows"). And unlike the White Album, there's no filler.
Brandon, great to see your reaction to these songs!! I know Sgt. Peppers is considered a revolutionary album, but I definitely like Revolver much more. Good to see your poll readers chose this record.
For me when you look at the context this is 1966 for me this is the greatest album of all time. A collection of great and ground breaking songs which ends with a piece of work which is simply the biggest jump in the advancement of popular music ever.
Retro Reactions: Happy Holidays! After completing the "REVOLVER" L.P. (Album), The Beatles went on their final two tours in 1966. The first with concert dates in West Germany, Japan and the Philippines. The second and final tour was of North America. (U.S.A. & Canada)
Rubber Soul began the transition of The Beatles from single-based pop to something deeper....Revolver continued the evolution, and in Sgt Pepper it was revealed in full flower. Those of us teens consuming album music at the time had our tastes in music expanded and changed, as we got to know these songs. They could release a song or album, and at first listen, we could be like "What the hell?" But we would keep listening until we "got it". Because, you know, you HAD to "get it", because it was The Beatles. They were the only band that I have known in my life that not only influenced future music, but who had the cultural clout to basically tell a generation what we SHOULD like, and we accepted their judgement.
Thanks for this one, Brandon. You always read in so thoroughly. On Taxman, Harold Wilson and Edward Heath are mentioned here - so opposite political parties are just as bad as each other. Wishing you a peaceful holiday 😊
For those that weren't around then - "1 for me 19 for you" is talking about money. In those days the GB Pound consisted of 20 shillings so this is saying that for every Pound you earn you get 1 shilling and the taxman gets 19. Great choice, one of my fave Beatles albums, especially "I'm only sleeping" and "And your bird can sing" but there's not a bad track on it.
This is definitely derived from the Batman theme once they heard the similarities they leaned into it. Revolver was released in 1966. The Bands recording career basically lasted from 1962- 1970
I have always found it interesting how the staccato arrangement of the music from the movie "Psycho" influenced the string arrangement for "Eleanor Rigby". There is also a strong influence of the musical arrangement at the end of the 1953 movie "Godzilla" on it as well.
Paul plays the excellent bass on "Taxman". George tried again and again for many, many takes to get the guitar solo he wanted for "Taxman" - but he never got one that satisfied him and he gave up in desperation. Paul stepped up and gave it a try and came up with what we hear on the record. It's one of Paul's best guitar solos.
@@aBeatleFan4ever Bullshit. NOT true at all. Total absolute made up nonsense from Paul fanboys. Don't just repeat mindless rumors like this unless you are prepared to cite a reliable source from where you found the information, ignorant fanboy.
Originally mixed for mono but there was a stereo mix made too, which I think just amounted to panning the four (!) tracks by different amounts. The recording process and original mix was never aimed at being stereo, and also no one really knew how to mix and pan for stereo yet anyway (especially with only four tracks). The cool kids all say that the mono mixes of the mixed-for-mono Beatles albums are always better than the stereo mixes.
There was an Australian band by the name of Zoot that performed a ripping cover of Eleanor Rigby. Well worth a listen. Thanks for sharing and have a great Christmas.
IIRC, only Abbey Road was actually done in stereo originally. Up until then, it was all mono. Stereo was not much used by music listeners, a small market. So, until Abbey Road, The Beatles had nothing to do with the stereo versions - it was all done by engineers afterwards, to cater to that market. More recently people have made other new versions using modern technology, some of which are better than others. But to get the authentic 60s experience, listen to the mono versions.
@@JohnLRice 100% agree and most serious musicians I know certainly consider them a total prop band, just not in the way of prog like Yes and ELP. Prog damn it not prop.
You referred to the chorus Taxman being inspired by Batman. Hmmm. Not so sure. Batman 1st series only aired Jan-May 1966 and this song was recorded April 66. Given George probably took quite a long time writing it....
I don't care much for "Taxman", I consider it a minor Beatles song. But "Eleanor Rigby" is a timeless masterpiece. I love it paired with the animation when it plays in the "Yellow Submarine" movie (which is a timeless classic in itself, with primitive resources and techniques compared to today's animation works, but very effective and still praised and studied as a classic). Not only is "Eleanor" beautiful, it's highly innovative. Who starts a song with the chorus? Paul didn't care that "one doesn't do that", so he did it, setting the message straight from the beginning. And who repeats the chorus over the last verse? Nobody did it either, but they did. Yes, eternal musical masterpieces can be only 2 minutes long. As for the crude stereo effects, like the instruments in one channel and the voices in the other, you're not the first Beatles reactor I've seen who noticed that (and got a bit annoyed by it), but you seem to forget (or not be aware) that stereophonic sound had just been invented and wasn't very common yet. In fact, I'm not even sure if "Revolver" was originally released in stereo or if this is a later remix - I know for a fact that the Rolling Stones' legendary "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" was recorded and originally released only monophonic. Today we even say "stereo equipment" or just "stereo" for any home or car sound appliance, but that wasn't taken for granted in the 1960s. It was initially very expensive and very few people had true "stereo equipment". We didn't at my home when I was a child, I only got my first "stereo" in the 1970s. It was also common to release albums (only top ones) in two versions, one in mono, the other in stereo, with the latter being more expensive. The same happened later with cassette tapes, which were initially all monophonic, until they found a way to record two tracks on each side of the tape (and improve the sound quality as well, as it was horrendous in the beginning). And that was on the consumer's side. On the producing side, in the 1960s they generally had only four-track tapes available in the studio. With that, you really can't do much more than putting instruments in one channel and voices in the other. Sound engineers weren't yet aware of the possibilities of the technique at that stage either, and didn't know both what could be accomplished and how to do it. It was only in the 1970s that stereo mixing techniques were mastered and a more sophisticated ambience could be achieved and become commonplace. On a different note, congratulations for your 10K milestone! It's so well-deserved, and it seems that UA-cam's algorithm increases recommendations after these milestones. So, you can expect to grow faster from now on. I hope that we'll be celebrating 100K next year, and wish you all the best the rest of Christmas and in the New Year! 🤗
"I don't care much for "Taxman", I consider it a minor Beatles song." I see it as a classic Beatles song. It not only rocks with that excellent bass line and amazing guitar solo... but it was the very first Beatles song to make a political statement. It bitingly knocks a system that takes way too much of a person's income away in taxes... while also being enormously humorous. "If you drive a car, I'll tax the street, If you try to sit, I'll tax your seat, If you get too cold, I'll tax the heat, If you take a walk, I'll tax your feet." And later... "Now my advice for those who die - Declare the pennies on your eyes". I think it's a near perfect song. And, yes... "Eleanor Rigby" is a timeless masterpiece. But I have never liked the animation video. I think it takes away from the great story being told in the song. I always advise people who are new to the song... to listen to it without that video.
These guys actually invented the long song after they finally got away from the record companies That would be beginning with Abbey road especially. They were so famous they didn't have to worry about airplay radio stations want a three minutes song.
For me a strong and diverse bridge between early and late Beatles... Thanks for watching! 🥰
Rubber Soul was the first step into the music we would have known in the future...
Absolutely correct. The "batman", "taxman", connection. Harrison loved watching batman tv series
@@retroreactions.... To sing Taxman as Batman, describing Taxman as a hero, was the classic George Harrison's kind of sarcasm!
@@roberthubal6278Batman was only aired for the first time in Jan 66 and this was recorded in April 66. I am not convinced - at all.
12 days of Beatles?? SWEET!! Merry Christmas!!
Taxman is another Beatles song with insanely great drumming by Ringo
Loved your thoughtful reaction to The Beatles. For me, Taxman is serious fun, and Eleanor Rigby is a 2 minute-plus masterpiece of songwriting, singing, and arrangement.
Appreciate your thoughtful reactions, especially when it comes to the Beatles. ❤ It doesn't get any better than the Fab 4.
Congrats on the 10k subscribers!
Thank you so much Scott! Appreciate your support 😊
Thank you so much for this wonderful "!2 Days of Beatles" gift!!!!🎶✝⛪🎄
Taxman, on some days(especially around April 15 here in the US), is my favorite George Harrison Beatles song. It rocks too, along with the biting lyrics. Ringo Starr on drums is just right, per usual
Elenor Rigby...just so melancholy. Sir Paul nailed it.
Elanor Rigby has been covered by many artists, an interesting rabbithole to go down, including Kansas(from the album Always Never The Same, with the London Symphony)
RIP George Harrison and John Lennon
Merry Christmas to all
Merry Christmas Michael! Thanks for being a wonderful long time supporter of my channel. Much love and peace! 😊
In my opinion, "Revolver" is their best album. Along with the singles, "Paperback Writer," "Day Tripper," "Rain," "We Can Work It Out," and this is their finest era.
I LOVE those songs you mentioned.
@helenespaulding7562 Thank you! The best.
Hm I loved Abbey Road, hard to choose
Rigby is a work of art. Merry Christmas!
Oh, miss Jones!
Cool! The Beatles are an endless supply of goodness!
Yes, so much to discover! Thanks for all your support you've given the channel Mark!!
@ you’re welcome. Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas!
@@retroreactions....have you reacted to the beatles new song now and then if so i love the beatles !
Merry Christmas Brandon and to everyone in the Retro Reactions family! 🎄🤗🎄
Merry Christmas John!! I made it...now onto prepping for the party. Enjoy the day 🤍 🥇
@@retroreactions.... Have a great time! 🎄🤗🎄
And you, John. Peace and goodwill etc.! Hope you’re all well over there 😊
@@mattleppard1970 🤗👍
Happy Christmas Brandon. Happy Beatles Day. Hope it's awesome.
Happy Christmas dear Dawn! Was definitely special starting Christmas by hearing The Beatles, Chris Squire and The Moody Blues! Hope your day is beautiful as well 🤍
@@retroreactions.... Is almost 8pm here so I have wined,, dined and been loaded with pretty sparkly things because I have Magpie eyes!! Not sure the time gap but my day is 3/4 gone. Been lovely though. Christmas is once a year but The Beatles are forever. xx
Gotta remember you live in the future LOL...8 hours to be exact! 😁
@@retroreactions.... Well, dang Brandon, that makes us time travellers. I'm in the future while you broadcast from...the past. My day was lovely and I wish the same for you. x Love and light
Taxman - a George song(!) opens the LP, the fade in with the background studio sounds shows they ARE a studio band. Revolver is usually my favorite Beatles LP, but some days it's in second place.
Panning to different channels or speakers was a new tech in the mid 60s. Multitrack recording was in it's infancy, all of this done on a 4 track recorder. Their later songs had the luxury of 8 tracks.
Merry Christmas Brandon!🌲☃️.Thanks for the great music and congratulations for the 10k subscribers👏🥳
Merry Christmas everyone! Great for you Brandon, having The Beatles for a full album journey with Revolver! It’s kinda nice to hear some 60’s music on the channel. Quite the opposite of the lengthy songs of many prog bands. (Which I LOVE)!! I hoped you had a blessed day with your family. 😊
Stereo mixing was a very new thing in the mid to late 60s and the mixers and engineers hadn't worked out what to do with it yet. So, as a lot of people do when faced with a new toy, they went nuts making it obvious that they were doing the new thing by putting all the guitars on one side or whatever. Because of that, the mono mixes are often a better listening experience for many songs from that period, and that's true far beyond the Beatles.
Revolver itself trades blows with Abbey Road as my favorite Beatles album. The stylistic variety from track to track is fantastic, even including a little analog proto-EDM ("Tomorrow Never Knows"). And unlike the White Album, there's no filler.
Brandon, great to see your reaction to these songs!! I know Sgt. Peppers is considered a revolutionary album, but I definitely like Revolver much more. Good to see your poll readers chose this record.
For me when you look at the context this is 1966 for me this is the greatest album of all time.
A collection of great and ground breaking songs which ends with a piece of work which is simply the biggest jump in the advancement of popular music ever.
The Beatles son los Putos Amos.
Cambiaron las reglas.
Saludos desde Chile ! 🇨🇱
I find this album
Every member got involved in every song. Contributing their style and thoughts
When you start mouthing the words at just the right moment, then you have heard it before..
I think it’s explaining that Beatles in these days paid 98p out of £1 in tax
Yes indeed. That is correct.
My favourite Beatles LP. I still have it!
Its definitely the album by them that I would revisit the most often, and not skip a track.
Revolver is my fav
Retro Reactions:
Happy Holidays!
After completing the "REVOLVER" L.P. (Album), The Beatles went on their final two tours in 1966.
The first with concert dates in West Germany, Japan and the Philippines.
The second and final tour was of North America. (U.S.A. & Canada)
Rubber Soul began the transition of The Beatles from single-based pop to something deeper....Revolver continued the evolution, and in Sgt Pepper it was revealed in full flower. Those of us teens consuming album music at the time had our tastes in music expanded and changed, as we got to know these songs. They could release a song or album, and at first listen, we could be like "What the hell?" But we would keep listening until we "got it". Because, you know, you HAD to "get it", because it was The Beatles. They were the only band that I have known in my life that not only influenced future music, but who had the cultural clout to basically tell a generation what we SHOULD like, and we accepted their judgement.
Thanks for this one, Brandon. You always read in so thoroughly. On Taxman, Harold Wilson and Edward Heath are mentioned here - so opposite political parties are just as bad as each other.
Wishing you a peaceful holiday 😊
Fun fact: Paul played the guitar solo on Taxman.
For those that weren't around then - "1 for me 19 for you" is talking about money. In those days the GB Pound consisted of 20 shillings so this is saying that for every Pound you earn you get 1 shilling and the taxman gets 19. Great choice, one of my fave Beatles albums, especially "I'm only sleeping" and "And your bird can sing" but there's not a bad track on it.
I love "And Your Bird Can Sing". The next track "For No One" is my favorite on the album.
This is definitely derived from the Batman theme once they heard the similarities they leaned into it. Revolver was released in 1966. The Bands recording career basically lasted from 1962- 1970
Two of their best.
I have always found it interesting how the staccato arrangement of the music from the movie "Psycho" influenced the string arrangement for "Eleanor Rigby". There is also a strong influence of the musical arrangement at the end of the 1953 movie "Godzilla" on it as well.
Merry Christmas everyone!
Taxman could be played today and still as relevant today.
Obviously, "The Jam" took the rift from this song for their track "Start"
Taxman guitar solos by McCartney, and I believe George played the bass.
Paul plays the excellent bass on "Taxman". George tried again and again for many, many takes to get the guitar solo he wanted for "Taxman" - but he never got one that satisfied him and he gave up in desperation. Paul stepped up and gave it a try and came up with what we hear on the record. It's one of Paul's best guitar solos.
@@aBeatleFan4ever Cheers, thanks.
@@aBeatleFan4ever Bullshit. NOT true at all. Total absolute made up nonsense from Paul fanboys. Don't just repeat mindless rumors like this unless you are prepared to cite a reliable source from where you found the information, ignorant fanboy.
George only played bass on one Beatles song, a song called She Said She Said (from this album)
Beatles for 12 days? Happy Birthday to me!🙂
Originally mixed for mono but there was a stereo mix made too, which I think just amounted to panning the four (!) tracks by different amounts. The recording process and original mix was never aimed at being stereo, and also no one really knew how to mix and pan for stereo yet anyway (especially with only four tracks). The cool kids all say that the mono mixes of the mixed-for-mono Beatles albums are always better than the stereo mixes.
There was an Australian band by the name of Zoot that performed a ripping cover of Eleanor Rigby. Well worth a listen.
Thanks for sharing and have a great Christmas.
IIRC, only Abbey Road was actually done in stereo originally. Up until then, it was all mono. Stereo was not much used by music listeners, a small market. So, until Abbey Road, The Beatles had nothing to do with the stereo versions - it was all done by engineers afterwards, to cater to that market. More recently people have made other new versions using modern technology, some of which are better than others. But to get the authentic 60s experience, listen to the mono versions.
Radiohead packs as much cool theory type stuff in 4-6 minutes as any prog band most of the time.
Radiohead IS a prog band! Fight me! 😅
who?
@@JohnLRice 100% agree and most serious musicians I know certainly consider them a total prop band, just not in the way of prog like Yes and ELP. Prog damn it not prop.
You referred to the chorus Taxman being inspired by Batman. Hmmm. Not so sure. Batman 1st series only aired Jan-May 1966 and this song was recorded April 66. Given George probably took quite a long time writing it....
I don't care much for "Taxman", I consider it a minor Beatles song. But "Eleanor Rigby" is a timeless masterpiece. I love it paired with the animation when it plays in the "Yellow Submarine" movie (which is a timeless classic in itself, with primitive resources and techniques compared to today's animation works, but very effective and still praised and studied as a classic). Not only is "Eleanor" beautiful, it's highly innovative. Who starts a song with the chorus? Paul didn't care that "one doesn't do that", so he did it, setting the message straight from the beginning. And who repeats the chorus over the last verse? Nobody did it either, but they did. Yes, eternal musical masterpieces can be only 2 minutes long.
As for the crude stereo effects, like the instruments in one channel and the voices in the other, you're not the first Beatles reactor I've seen who noticed that (and got a bit annoyed by it), but you seem to forget (or not be aware) that stereophonic sound had just been invented and wasn't very common yet. In fact, I'm not even sure if "Revolver" was originally released in stereo or if this is a later remix - I know for a fact that the Rolling Stones' legendary "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" was recorded and originally released only monophonic. Today we even say "stereo equipment" or just "stereo" for any home or car sound appliance, but that wasn't taken for granted in the 1960s. It was initially very expensive and very few people had true "stereo equipment". We didn't at my home when I was a child, I only got my first "stereo" in the 1970s.
It was also common to release albums (only top ones) in two versions, one in mono, the other in stereo, with the latter being more expensive. The same happened later with cassette tapes, which were initially all monophonic, until they found a way to record two tracks on each side of the tape (and improve the sound quality as well, as it was horrendous in the beginning).
And that was on the consumer's side. On the producing side, in the 1960s they generally had only four-track tapes available in the studio. With that, you really can't do much more than putting instruments in one channel and voices in the other. Sound engineers weren't yet aware of the possibilities of the technique at that stage either, and didn't know both what could be accomplished and how to do it. It was only in the 1970s that stereo mixing techniques were mastered and a more sophisticated ambience could be achieved and become commonplace.
On a different note, congratulations for your 10K milestone! It's so well-deserved, and it seems that UA-cam's algorithm increases recommendations after these milestones. So, you can expect to grow faster from now on. I hope that we'll be celebrating 100K next year, and wish you all the best the rest of Christmas and in the New Year! 🤗
"I don't care much for "Taxman", I consider it a minor Beatles song."
I see it as a classic Beatles song. It not only rocks with that excellent bass line and amazing guitar solo... but it was the very first Beatles song to make a political statement. It bitingly knocks a system that takes way too much of a person's income away in taxes... while also being enormously humorous.
"If you drive a car, I'll tax the street,
If you try to sit, I'll tax your seat,
If you get too cold, I'll tax the heat,
If you take a walk, I'll tax your feet."
And later... "Now my advice for those who die - Declare the pennies on your eyes".
I think it's a near perfect song.
And, yes... "Eleanor Rigby" is a timeless masterpiece.
But I have never liked the animation video. I think it takes away from the great story being told in the song. I always advise people who are new to the song... to listen to it without that video.
Nobody is interested in what you care for, Beavis.
@@nonrepublicrat, YOU obviously are, Butthead, otherwise you wouldn't have had the trouble to reply.
These guys actually invented the long song after they finally got away from the record companies That would be beginning with Abbey road especially.
They were so famous they didn't have to worry about airplay radio stations want a three minutes song.
Sorry can’t listen to these terrible 60s panned stereo mix. Please please try the remastered from 2024