Like the Wright brothers before them, The Beatles were a force that took fierce risks. We barely give them credit for the fact that as they sat upon a precipice of fame known only to Jesus Christ before them, they were only in their early 20s. Yet, they were more than happy to make a heap of all their winnings and risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss, liberating their sound not only for their own amusement but also for the greater good of culture.
Perhaps the two were entwined for The Beatles; they thrived on pushing society forward and illuminating the future into something far brighter than the drab days they had known in their youth. So, while the majority of people might have been perturbed about the possibility of turning away from the safe hand-holding sound that had launched them to rarified heights, the Fab Four were more fortified in their artistic approach. Thanks to a toke from Bob Dylan, they wanted to get a little funkier as soon as they had the chance.
This led them to the wild artistic risk of Revolver. While it may well be their finest offering, at the time, the world had heard nothing like it from anybody, let alone the leading lights in pop culture. The record might have sounded incredible, but you only have to look at The Velvet Underground’s legacy to realise that such a feat is not enough. Moreover, George Martin claims the band was somewhat floundering at the time.
“During 1966, The Beatles were having a bit of a setback,” George Martin said, “It wasn’t generally known that their general popularity seemed to be a little bit on the wane. Brian Epstein was very worried about it indeed.” Newer, more radical bands had risen to the forefront, and the dwindling days of the group as a touring force sequestered the screams of Beatlemania from the front pages of the papers. They were receiving death threats, John Lennon’s remarks had drawn some heat, and they decided that the studio was now their only creative avenue.
Rather than regress from this perilous position and give the public something safe, something that they wanted—they decided to give them something they never could have ever known they wanted at all. Wanting Revolver would’ve been like wanting a new colour. So, it was fitting that the album cover that housed this Promethean leap bore no colour at all. In fact, George Martin figured that this masterstroke was as pivotal as any song on the album, if not more so.
This might sound like hyperbole in retrospect, but it is very reasonable when you consider the lore of the band. You see, nobody just likes The Beatles’ music. You don’t just hear a song and go, ‘Oh, that’s nice, who is that?’ and then forget all about it the way you might with other artists. The whole magic of The Beatles is that as soon as they’ve got you, you simply have to dive into every dimension that they offer. Their personalities and vitalised spirits are so present in the recordings that the tracks effectively waft a come hither finger up from the groove and welcome you into a world of Beatles fandom.
As has surely been said a million times before, they were the full package. Their records had to follow suit. If the weirdness of Revolver wasn’t marketed properly, 1966 might have seen them more than wane. Thankfully, Klaus Voormann nailed the brief.
Enlisting Voormann alone is another indication of their genius. He was their bass-playing associate from back in Hamburg. In fact, he was essentially the fellow who foisted upon them the notion of ‘being cool’. Voormann was nothing if not cool. So, The Beatles, in a familiar clever play, leant on who they knew as well as what they knew and called on the edgiest creative in their phonebook to not only come up with their album cover but to effectively rebrand them as a radical, mystic experimentalist. And boy, did he succeed. Show me a more pivotal cover, and I’ll show you a gobshite.
As it happens, Voormann nearly said no at first because he ”hadn’t had a pen or pencil in [his] hand for years”. Swayed by the fact he had drawn them a little bit in Hamburg, he figured it might be fun, which is quite a blase way to approach the cover that would mark the group’s second chapter as an enigmatic studio band. They played him ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ as a sample of the kind of thing he had to match. ”It dumbfounded me,” he told Mojo.
He knew he needed something avant-garde. ”I thought the cover has to do the same thing. How far can I go? How surreal and strange can it be? I wanted to push the design further than normal,” he recalled. After an initial scribble, he asked them to bring in some photos from their private collections—a collage that would show their journey in a strange way and an exhibit that showcased Revolver as a culmination. Once again, he pulled this all together in a blase manner, not overthinking the assignment that his old pals had laid out. Then came the task of unveiling it.
”I went to the EMI house, up to George Martin’s office and I stood the artwork up on a filing cabinet. There was Brian Epstein, George Martin, his secretary and the four lads,” Voormann recalled. ”I was scared, because nobody said anything. They were just looking at it. I thought, Shit, they hate it.”
He continued: ”Then Paul looked closer and said, ‘Hey that’s me sitting on a toilet!’ George Martin took a look and said, ‘You can’t show that!’ Paul said, ‘No, it’s great!’ But then he gave it some thought and said, ‘Well, maybe we should take that one off…’ So that broke the ice. Then they started talking about it.”
Did it fit, they wondered? Did it send the right message about the music? The answers were as they only could be. ”Everybody loved it, George loved it, John loved it, Ringo loved it,” he recalled with relief. ”I looked at Brian, who was standing in the corner and he was crying… I thought, Oh no… what is he doing? He came up to me and said, ‘Klaus, this is exactly what we needed. I was worried that this whole thing might not work, but I know now that this the cover. This LP, will work – thank you’.”
Epstein knew more than anyone that image mattered; it always had throughout the band’s lauded history. Now, they had a new image, one that affirmed them as not only the paramount force in pop culture but also pioneers on the precipice of some new unknown excellence—still just four lads having fun, clearly, but reinventing the wheel as they did so.
