Paul McCartney isn’t always the most confident man. He once freaked out that The Beatles’ Revolver was entirely out of tune. He explained how the other Beatles reacted to his feelings. John Lennon had something interesting to say about Revolver in retrospect.
Paul McCartney said listening to The Beatles’ ‘Revolver’ horrified him
During a 2018 interview with 60 Minutes, Paul called Revolver “one of the early Beatles records.” That’s an odd statement. The Beatles bubblegum albums like Please Please Me are usually classified as their early records. Revolver came in the latter half of the band’s career and they’d already made the transition to psychedelic music by that point. Then again, Paul probably has a better understanding of The Beatles’ chronology than anyone else.
Paul wasn’t always a fan of Revolver. “I got the horrors one day,” he said. “I thought it was outta tune. I thought the whole album was outta tune. I listened to it and for some reason just, like, ‘Oh my God.’”
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Paul went to his bandmates with the news. “I went to the guys, I said, ‘It’s outta tune. It’s outta — I don’t know what we’re gonna do,’” he recalled. “You know? And they said — and they got a bit worried and listened to it. They said, ‘No, it isn’t.’ I go, ‘Oh, OK.’”
Today, Revolver is widely considered a huge step forward for The Beatles and one of the greatest albums of all time. It includes undeniable classics like “Eleanor Rigby,” “Got to Get You Into My Life,” and “Tomorrow Never Knows.” Nobody, even its rare detractors, considers it to be “out of tune.” Paul’s feelings show that self-doubt is universal.
The “Live and Let Die” singer recalled people telling him he had nothing left to prove. He dismissed that idea. Then he was asked to name the biggest misconception about him. “I don’t know really,” he said. “I don’t — I don’t hear about them. I don’t know what people think about me.
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“I can — I can try and guess,” he added. “I’ll — I’ll — I’ll tell you what, ‘You must have no insecurities.’ Just like anyone else, you have insecurities. ‘Cause everyone has them. And no matter how high and great and wonderful you get, there’s still something will make you worry.”
What John Lennon thought of ‘Revolver’ near the end of his life
The book All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono includes an interview from 1980. In that book, John was asked to name his favorite album. The “Power to the People” singer revealed he wasn’t a big fan of albums in general. However, he still named a few favorites, including Revolver, Rubber Soul, The White Album, and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. John was notoriously picky and dismissed a lot of The Beatles’ music. The fact that he liked Revolver is a testament to its quality.
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Paul was insecure about Revolver but the world loved it.
