The Beatles are one of few bands that are as well-loved for their more tame pop music works as they are for their experimental psychedelic ventures. Let’s look at four examples of The Beatles’ most experimental songs!
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1. “Tomorrow Never Knows”
John Lennon was the primary songwriter behind this gem that closes out Revolver. And it’s pretty obvious who wrote it after one listen. The song is one of Lennon’s odder works inspired by his experimentation with LSD. Just as well, it’s also one of the band’s most beautiful ventures into psychedelia.
“Tomorrow Never Knows” was also a substantial change for the Fab Four. It was recorded without considering how difficult it would be to reproduce the song live.
2. “I Am The Walrus”
The Beatles put out quite a few experimental songs in the latter half of their career, and we just couldn’t leave out “I Am The Walrus”. In a way, this track from Magical Mystery Tour is one of the Fab Four’s most experimental, nonsensical songs, yet also their most accessible psychedelic rock track that even mild fans seemed to love when it was first released. It’s another Lennon classic, and also another song inspired by his experience with LSD.
3. “Happiness Is A Warm Gun”
There’s a pattern here! Many of The Beatles’ most experimental songs were penned by Lennon. “Happiness Is A Warm Gun” is an excellent example of Lennon’s ability to inject psychedelic sounds, sexual innuendo, and progressive rock elements into a single song. This isn’t an easy song to cover, either. There are a number of different rhythm and time signature changes throughout the track that are hard to keep up with.
4. “Rain”
This 1966 psychedelic rock song from The Beatles is another experimental work recorded during the Revolver sessions, though it doesn’t appear on the finished album. Lennon wrote this song with a simple theme: People “moaning about the weather” all day long.
Despite its simple subject matter, the song itself is a real experimental trip. “Rain” features a very drone-like bass line, manually slowed-down rhythm tracks, and vocals played backward. Before “Rain”, very few pop songs featured reversed sounds.
Photo by Bill Orchard/Shutterstock
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