Good morning, dear friends of the prestigious Hive platform. I hope you are all well. Please accept my warmest greetings, which I also extend to the wonderful project at https://scrobble.life/. It's a pleasure to be with you all again. Hugs to everyone.
Today I bring you a little-known, universally acclaimed song by The Beatles. However, the album it's on is widely known (the album is titled Revolver), full of incredible tracks, and for me, this is one of them: a purely experimental and innovative song. I'm talking, of course, about the song "I'm Only Sleeping," recorded in May 1966.
In this magical song, we can hear George Harrison's guitar playing in reverse. That is, Harrison originally played it normally, and then it was processed and remixed by engineers, and finally produced by George Martin. That reversed guitar solo took Martin more than six hours to finish and complete. For me, it's absolutely marvelous.
The dreamlike, reverie-like quality that carries us through the song is partly due to the sleepy melody, which includes a yawn from Paul McCartney around the 2:00 mark. I've researched and searched through his other songs, both before and after this track, and it's truly the first and only time McCartney includes this natural bodily expression before or after a rest that involves sleep. In other songs, we've heard laughter, conversation, footsteps, murmurs, kisses, whistles, shouts, jokes, but this yawn from McCartney is unique in a piece by the Fab Four.
The song was recorded, as I mentioned earlier, in May 1966 at EMI Studios in London, under the Parlophone label, and produced by George Martin. It features John Lennon on lead vocals, as well as rhythm and acoustic guitar; Paul McCartney on bass and some reverse guitar work by George, and backing vocals; George Harrison on rhythm guitar with an experimental reversed tone and backing vocals; and Ringo Starr on drums. Lennon McCartney is credited on the track. The song was recorded in 12 takes, one of which included a vibraphone, a type of xylophone or marimba. However, this take was omitted from the final album version. In March 1996, on the compilation album "Anthology 2," we hear this take with the vibraphone and its distinctive, sleep-inducing sound.
It's framed within the beginnings of psychedelic rock, which, with the album immediately following (Sgt. Pepper) the next year, formally launched that term and that offshoot of rock, which had its greatest boom between 1967 and 1970.
It amused me somewhat when Lennon declared in 1972 in Hit Parader magazine that he had composed the song while he was daydreaming, and added, "That's me, daydreaming," hahaha, brilliant, right?
Well, my dear friends, it has been a pleasure for me to share this review with you, made with much love for all of you. We'll see each other, read, and comment again soon. Until next time... Blessings...!!!
Original YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-OEnyBwHrE
Original story by @cayitus63 (Based on historical data with my own personal observations and opinions)
Screenshots from the The Beatles - "I'm Only Sleeping" -1966
Images from the era of singles, EPs and song promotions.
Separators created and edited by me in Canva: https://www.canva.com/
Translated with Google Translate: https://translate.google.com/
Rating: 90/100
Originally posted through scrobble.life/music.
