McCartney’s “Eleanor Rigby,” which is not a rock song at all, is a Dickensian study of the loneliness and isolation that people in society seem to feel; although we all interact with each other on a daily basis, we seem unable to get past the superficial relationships we have with our society. “Ah, look at all the lonely people” sings McCartney in a lyric about a lonely spinster, over a Bernard Hermann-inspired string section. Considering that the Beatles’ main audience during the Revolver era was mostly teenage girls, it is amazing that they even attempted to challenge their listeners with such social commentary. To imagine the Backstreet Boys doing such a thing is laughable...
 McCartney has a handful of classics on Revolver; in addition to “Rigby,” there is also the beautiful “Here, There, and Everywhere,” which is a delicate love song with intricate harmonies inspired by the Beach Boys, as well as the Motown-inspired “Got To Get You Into My Life.” This song, which McCartney has stated is about marijuana, features soul trumpets and ringing guitar, woven together in one of the best crafted songs McCartney would write. Quite simply, this is as close to a perfect rock song as one can get.
 McCartney was not the only Beatle who was in a particularly creative period; John Lennon, who was experimenting with hallucinogenic drugs in 1966, contributed his own memorable compositions. One of these, “I’m Only Sleeping,” is among the best of Lennon’s compositions. The lyrics (“When I wake up early in the morning/ Lift my head, I’m still yawning”) reflect a man who is groggily wondering about the fast pace of life around him, and are perfectly set to a Kinks-inspired melody that somehow captures the feeling of lethargy perfectly.
 The hard rock of “And Your Bird Can Sing” features opaque lyrics and a gorgeous melody, combined with some complicated guitar work that weaves itself throughout the song. The song “She Said She Said,” which Lennon said in one of his last interviews featured “amazing guitar sounds,” is famous for the line, “I know what it’s like to be dead.” Lennon has stated in numerous interviews that the line was repeated over and over to him by actor Peter Fonda, and he later wrote
the song based on an acid trip shared with Fonda.
 Perhaps the greatest song on Revolver is the final song, “Tomorrow Never Knows.” Featuring hypnotic drumming, backwards guitars, tape loops galore, and a terrific Lennon vocal, the lyrics begin, “Turn off your mind, relax, and float
down stream/ This is not dying, this is not dying.” Lennon took the lyric from Timothy Leary’s book, The Psychedelic Experience, and the track is absolutely leaps and bounds beyond any of the popular music that was being made in 1966.
From the lyrical content, to the mesmerizing sound of all the noises, to the insistent drum beat, “Tomorrow Never Knows” is a track which is impossible to follow, and which is the precursor to much of today’s “industrial” rock. The only difference is, when the Beatles did it, it was a fresh idea, and that freshness remains today.
 The Beatles would go on in 1967 to release “Sgt. Pepper,” but to many listeners, Revolver is the album that catches the band at its most creative, when all four members were enthusiastically contributing ideas to make music that they felt would matter. 35 years later, not only does the music matter, it manages to retain its sense of freshness and potency. Revolver, at 35, is still the sort of inspired rock music that musicians strive to emulate, and that listeners want to hear.