There’s normally something for everyone sprinkled throughout The Beatles’ catalogue. Even if some people think that their best stuff is all on one album, there is usually at least one thing that the Fab Four have put out that can get the seal of approval of the most casual music fan in the world. While it’s hard to find any one song that says it all for their entire career, ‘Nowhere Man’ has all the hallmarks of their career layered on top of each other.
At the time the group recorded the track, though, they were already starting to manoeuvre their way through fame a little bit. The last few years had seen them become one of the biggest bands in the world, and while they had started to see the studio as a pit stop between tours, they also started to learn how to use it as an instrument by itself.
Whereas most songs featured in their movies were still meant to match their moptop persona, Rubber Soul was the first time people got a different view of what they had to offer. Despite ‘We Can Work It Out’ being viewed as the archetype for what Beatles music is supposed to sound like, it isn’t quite nailed down in that tune yet.
Yes, the balance between Paul McCartney’s optimism and John Lennon’s cynicism is accounted for, but the surrealist imagery isn’t quite there. And while Lennon initially didn’t even think of ‘Nowhere Man’ as being a song at all, his writer’s block at home led to him getting autobiographical for one of the first times on record.
‘Help!’ was the first true song, by Lennon’s own admission, but the thought of someone living like a void inside their own life is a lot more poignant and artistic than what he had done before. In fact, this could be considered the start of those psychedelic images the group would go on to do, with the ‘Nowhere Man’ being replaced by everyone from ‘Mr Kite’ to ‘Polythene Pam’ to ‘The Walrus’.
The sonic hallmarks aren’t there yet, but compared to their early stuff, something is certainly different here. From the way that Lennon and Harrison play the guitar solo in unison to the way the harmonies fall on top of each other, this was the first time where Lennon’s need for things to sound weird started to infiltrate the music. The vocals were still as sharp as ever, but the sheen was much different.
And for all of the great moments in the song, I’m going to leave you with one important question: What is the chorus of this song? It’s easy to say that the ‘Please listen’ section serves as a chorus, but even then, it feels like the group is building tension before getting back into the verses. Even in their musical construction, The Beatles drew from the past ABAB song structure while making everything sound modern.
Despite being an album track during this period, ‘Nowhere Man’ served as a major starting point as well. Other tunes on the record, like ‘Norwegian Wood’ and ‘In My Life’, are objectively better, but in terms of adventurousness, ‘Nowhere Man’ is the start of them trying to cram all of their unique ideas into one song while still keeping the catchiness of their older material.
And it’s not hard to forget where they go from here, either, especially when the guitars they used for the solo became the legendary psychedelic-painted ‘Rocky’ that George Harrison would use in the performances of tunes like ‘All You Need is Love’. Anyone can use a thousand different buzzwords to describe what The Beatles sound like, but no matter how they choose to look at it, they often end up describing this tune without realising it.
