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WD_442/ 2008
(  Satoshi Kinoshita )
| Series: | Works on paper: Drawings 5 | | Medium: | oilstick on paper | | Size (inches): | 40.2 x 25.2 | | Size (mm): | 1020 x 640 | | Catalog #: | WD_0442 | | Description: | Signed, date and copyright in pencil on the reverse.
Tomorrow Never Knows (Length 2:57) by The Beatles
Revolver (1966) track listing:
Side one
1. "Taxman"
2. "Eleanor Rigby"
3. "I'm Only Sleeping"
4. "Love You To"
5. "Here, There and Everywhere"
6. "Yellow Submarine"
7. "She Said She Said"
Side two
1. "Good Day Sunshine"
2. "And Your Bird Can Sing"
3. "For No One"
4. "Doctor Robert"
5. "I Want to Tell You"
6. "Got to Get You into My Life"
7. "Tomorrow Never Knows"
"Tomorrow Never Knows" is the final track of The Beatles' 1966 studio album Revolver. It is credited as a Lennon/McCartney song, but was written primarily by John Lennon. Although it was the first song that was recorded, it was the last track on the album.
The song is significant because it contains the first example of a vocal being put through a Leslie speaker cabinet to obtain a vibrato effect (which was normally used as a loudspeaker for a Hammond organ) and the use of an ADT system (Automatic double-tracking) to double the vocal image.
"Tomorrow Never Knows" ends the Revolver album in a more experimental fashion than earlier records, which contributed to Revolver's reputation as one of the group's most influential and expressive albums.[1]
Inspiration:
John Lennon wrote the song in January 1966, closely adapted from the book The Psychedelic Experience by Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert, and Ralph Metzner, which they based on, and quoted from, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, with the understanding that the "ego death" experienced under the influence of LSD and other psychedelic drugs is essentially similar to the dying process and requires similar guidance.[2][3]
Peter Brown claimed that Lennon's only source of inspiration for the song came from the Tibetan Book of the Dead, which it says Lennon read whilst tripping on LSD.[4] George Harrison later stated that the idea for the lyrics came from Leary, Alpert, and Metzner's book.[5] McCartney confirmed this by stating that he and Lennon once visited the newly opened Indica bookshop—as Lennon was looking for a copy of The Portable Nietzsche—and Lennon found a copy of The Psychedelic Experience, which quoted the lines: "When in doubt, relax, turn off your mind, float downstream".[6] Lennon bought the book, went home, took LSD, and followed the instructions exactly as stated in the book.[7][5]
Title:
The title never actually appears in the song's lyrics, but was instead taken from Ringo Starr's interesting collection of malapropisms. Lennon chose to do this because he was embarrassed about the spiritual theme of the lyrics in the song, so he decided to give the song a throwaway title.[8] The piece was originally titled "Mark I".[6] "The Void" is cited as another working title—but according to Mark Lewisohn (and Bob Spitz) this is untrue, although the books, The Love You Make: An Insider's Story of the Beatles and The Beatles A to Z both cite "The Void" as the original title.[4]
Recording:
Lennon first played the song to Brian Epstein, George Martin and the other Beatles at Epstein's house at 24 Chapel Street, Belgravia.[9][10] McCartney remembered that even though the song was only one chord of C, Martin accepted it as it was, and even said that it was, "rather interesting". The song's harmonic structure is derived from Indian music, and is based upon a C drone. The "chord" over the drone is generally C major, with some changes to B flat major.[11][12]
19-year-old Geoff Emerick was hired to replace Norman Smith as engineer on the first session for the Revolver album that started at 8 p.m. on 6 April 1966, in Studio Three at Abbey Road. (Smith was not available as he was working on tracks for Pink Floyd).[6]
Lennon told producer Martin that he wanted it to sound like a hundred chanting Tibetan monks, which left Martin the difficult task of trying to find the effect by using the basic equipment they had. Lennon's suggestion was that he be suspended from a rope and—after being given a good push—he would sing as he spun around the microphone. (This idea was rejected by Martin, but when asked by Lennon about it, he would only reply with, "We're looking into it").[13] Emerick finally came up with the idea to wire Lennon's voice through a Leslie speaker, thus obtaining the desired effect, and without the need of a rope.[6][14] The effect was achieved by putting Lennon's vocal through the cabinet—which meant Emerick having to break into the electronic circuitry of the cabinet—and then re-recording the vocal as it came out of the revolving speaker. This created a vibrato effect that was normally used for a Hammond organ.[13][5]
As Lennon always hated doing a second take to double the sound of his vocals, Ken Townsend, the studio technical manager, went home that night and created the world's first ADT system by taking the signal from the playback and recording heads and delaying them slightly, thereby creating two sound images and not just one. By altering the speed and frequencies he could also create other different types of effects, which The Beatles used throughout the recording of Revolver.[15] It must be noted that Lennon's vocal was clearly double-tracked on the first three verses of the song—due to the varying differences in the singing—but the full effect of the Leslie cabinet can be heard after the (backwards) guitar solo.[16]
Experimentation and tape loops:
The track was one of the first pieces of psychedelic rock, including highly compressed drums with reverse cymbals, reverse guitar, processed vocals, looped tape effects, a sitar and a tambur drone.[14]
McCartney supplied a bag of ¼ inch-wide audio tape loops he had made by himself at home, which he started making after listening to Stockhausen's Gesang der Jünglinge. McCartney found out that if he took off the erase head of a tape recorder and then spooled a continuous loop of tape through the machine, anything he recorded would constantly keep overdubbing itself; creating a saturation effect. Engineers call this process musique concrète, or reinforced music. McCartney encouraged the other Beatles to use the same technique and create their own loops.[12]
The numerous tapes McCartney supplied were played on five individual BTR3 tape machines, and controlled by nonplussed EMI technicians in studio two at Abbey Road on 7 April.[14][5] The four Beatles controlled the faders of each machine, while Martin varied the stereo panning.[17] The tapes created a seagull/Red Indian effect (which was McCartney shouting/laughing) and were made (like most of the other loops) by superimposition and acceleration (0:07)[18] Martin explained that the finished mix of the tape loops could never be repeated, because of the complex and random way in which they were laid over the music.[5]
The tape loops also contained:
* An orchestral chord of B flat major (0:19)
* A Mellotron Mk.II, played on the "flute" tape set (0:22)
* Another Mellotron played in 6/8 from B flat to C, using the "3 violins" tape set (0:38)
* A rising scalar phrase on a sitar (actually electric guitar, reversed and severely sped up), recorded with heavy saturation and acceleration (0:56)
The Beatles further experimented with tape loops in "Carnival of Light"—an as-yet-unreleased McCartney piece recorded during the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band sessions—and "Revolution 9", a John Lennon experimentation released on The Beatles (album).[19]
Mono and stereo versions:
One difference between the mono and stereo mixes is the intro: The opening chord fades in gradually on the stereo version, but the mono version features a more sudden fade-in. The mono and stereo versions also have the tape-loop track faded in at slightly different times and different volumes (in general, the loops are louder on the mono mix). On the stereo version a little feedback comes in after the guitar solo which was edited out of the mono mix.
Personnel:
* John Lennon: double-tracked lead vocals, Hammond organ, tambourine and tape loops.
* Paul McCartney: bass and tape loops.
* George Harrison: sitar and tape loops.
* Ringo Starr: drums and tape loops.
* George Martin: honky tonk piano and tape loops.
The Love album remix:
In 2006, Martin and his son, Giles Martin, remixed 80 minutes of Beatle music for the Las Vegas stage performance Love, a joint venture between Cirque du Soleil and the Beatles' Apple Corps Ltd.[20] On the Love album, the rhythm to "Tomorrow Never Knows" was mixed with the vocals and melody from "Within You Without You", creating a different version of the two songs. The soundtrack album from the show was released in 2006.[21][22]
Extracts and references in other musical works:
The Chemical Brothers' first UK number one "Setting Sun" features a similar drumbeat. Their later single Let Forever Be also has some similarities. Both records feature Noel Gallagher on vocals, who is known for his appreciation of Beatles' music. Lawyers for the (then) three remaining Beatles later wrote to the Chemical Brothers, claiming that they had sampled "Tomorrow Never Knows". Virgin Records hired a musicologist to prove that they had not sampled the song.[23][24]
Notes:
1. ^ Beatles, Radiohead albums voted best ever archives.cnn.com - Retrieved 27 October 2007
2. ^ Pied Piper Of Psychedelic 60's, Dies at 75 – 1 June 1996 nytimes.com - Retrieved 27 October 2007
3. ^ The first English language translation of the famous Tibetan death text summum.us - Retrieved 27 October 2007
4. ^ a b Brown "The Love You Make" (1980)
5. ^ a b c d e "The Beatles Anthology" DVD 2003 (Special Features—Back at Abbey Road May 1995— 0:10:59) Harrison talking about the influences of The Psychedelic Experience on Lennon's "Tomorrow Never Knows" lyrics.
6. ^ a b c d Spitz 2005 p600
7. ^ Spitz 2005 pp600-601
8. ^ Lennon: "I took one of Ringo's malapropisms as the title." geocities.com - Retrieved 27 October 2007
9. ^ Miles 1997 p290
10. ^ 24 Chapel Street, Belgravia google.co.uk - Retrieved 27 October 2007
11. ^ Miles 1997 pp291–292
12. ^ a b Spitz 2005 p601
13. ^ a b Spitz 2005 p602
14. ^ a b c Miles 1997 p291
15. ^ Spitz 2005 p603
16. ^ "Tomorrow Never Knows" (Verses 4/7 - 1:27 until 2:47)
17. ^ MacDonald - "Revolution in the Head" - 2005.
18. ^ Miles 1997 p292
19. ^ The "Carnival of Light" tapes abbeyrd.best - Retrieved 27 October 2007
20. ^ Love unveils new angle on Beatles bbc.co.uk - Retrieved: 21 September 2007
21. ^ Legendary producer returns to Abbey Road bbc.co.uk - Retrieved: 21 September 2007
22. ^ Beatles smash hits now a mashup ctv.ca/servlet - Retrieved 27 October 2007
23. ^ The Chemical Brothers "tribute" playphone.com - Retrieved 27 October 2007
24. ^ "Sly homage" artistdirect.com - Retrieved 27 October 2007
References:
* Brown, Peter (1980). The Love You Make: An Insider's Story of the Beatles . Methuen Publishing. ISBN 978-0451207357.
* Friede, Goldie (2005). The Beatles A To Z, 1st edition, London: Methuen, 248. ISBN 978-0416007817.
* MacDonald, Ian (2005). Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records and the Sixties, Second Revised Edition, London: Pimlico (Rand), 190–191. ISBN 1-844-13828-3.
* Miles, Barry (1997). Many Years From Now. Vintage-Random House. ISBN 0-7493-8658-4.
* Spitz, Bob (2005). The Beatles: The Biography. Little, Brown and Company (New York). ISBN 1-84513-160-6.
* The Beatles (2003). The Beatles Anthology (DVD). Apple records. ASIN: B00008GKEG (Bar Code: 24349 29699).
-en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomorrow_Never_Knows
Bardo Thodol -
The Bardo Thodol (Tibetan: bardo "liminality"; thodol as "liberation"[1]), sometimes translated as Liberation through Hearing in the Intermediate State, is a funerary text.
This is often referred to in the West by the more casual title, "Tibetan Book of the Dead", a name which draws a parallel with the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, another funerary text.
The Tibetan text describes, and is intended to guide one through, the experiences that the consciousness has after death, during the interval between death and the next rebirth. This interval is known in Tibetan as the bardo.
The text also includes chapters on the signs of death, and rituals to undertake when death is closing in, or has taken place.
This is the most internationally famous and widespread work of Tibetan Nyingma literature.[2]
Title:
This text is commonly known by its the Western title: The Tibetan Book of the Dead, however, Fremantle (2001: p.20) states:
...there is in fact no single Tibetan title corresponding to the Tibetan Book of the Dead.[3] The overall name given to the whole terma cycle is Profound Dharma of Self-liberation through the Intention of the Peaceful and Wrathful Ones, and it is popularly known as Karma Lingpa's Peaceful and Wrathful Ones.[4] It has been handed down through the centuries in several versions containing varying numbers of sections and subsections, arranged in different orders, ranging from around ten to thirty-eight titles. These individual texts cover a wide range of subjects, including the dzogchen view..., meditation instructions, visualizations of deities, liturgies and prayers, lists of mantras, descriptions of the signs of death, and indications of future rebirth, as well as those that are actually concerned with the after-death state. the [sic.] Tibetan Book of the Dead as we know it in English consists of two comparatively long texts on the bardo of dharmata (including the bardo of dying) and the bardo of existence.... They are called Great Liberation through Hearing: The Supplication of the Bardo of Dharmata and Great liberation through Hearing: The Supplication Pointing Out the Bardo of Existence.[5] Within the texts themselves, the two combined are referred to as Liberation through Hearing in the Bardo, Great Liberation through Hearing, or just Liberation though Hearing,[6]....
Background:
According to Tibetan tradition, the Bardo Thodol was composed by Padmasambhava, written down by his primary student, Yeshe Tsogyal, buried in the Gampo hills in central Tibet and subsequently discovered by a Tibetan terton, Karma Lingpa.[7]
The Bardo Thodol is recited by Tibetan Buddhist lamas over a dying or recently deceased person, or sometimes over an effigy of the deceased. The name means literally "liberation through hearing in the intermediate state".
The Bardo Thodol differentiates the intermediate state between lives into three bardos:
1. The chikhai bardo or "bardo of the moment of death", which features the experience of the "clear light of reality", or at least the nearest approximation of which one is spiritually capable.
2. The chonyid bardo or "bardo of the experiencing of reality", which features the experience of visions of various Buddha forms (or, again, the nearest approximations of which one is capable).
3. The sidpa bardo or "bardo of rebirth", which features karmically impelled hallucinations which eventually result in rebirth. (Typically imagery of men and women passionately entwined.)
The Bardo Thodol also mentions three other bardos: those of "life" (or ordinary waking consciousness), of "dhyana" (meditation), and of "dream" (the dream state during normal sleep).
Together these "six bardos" form a classification of states of consciousness into six broad types. Any state of consciousness can form a type of "intermediate state", intermediate between other states of consciousness. Indeed, one can consider any momentary state of consciousness a bardo, since it lies between our past and future existences; it provides us with the opportunity to experience reality, which is always present but obscured by the projections and confusions that are due to our previous unskillful actions.
Comparison with the Western experience of death:
One can perhaps attempt to compare the descriptions of the Bardo Thodol with accounts of certain "out of the body" near-death experiences described by people who have nearly died in accidents or on the operating table. These accounts sometimes mention a "white light", and helpful figures corresponding to that person's religious tradition.
English translations and related teachings:
* Graham Coleman with Thupten Jinpa (editors). The Tibetan Book of the Dead [English Title]. The Great Liberation by Hearing in the Intermediate States [Tibetan Title]. Composed by Padma Sambhava. Revealed by Karma Lingpa. Translated by Gyurme Dorje. Penguin Books. 2005. (The first complete translation). ISBN 978-0-140-45529-8.
* W. Y. Evans-Wentz (editor) Lama Kazi Dawa-Samdup (translator). Tibetan Book of the Dead: Or, The After-Death Experiences on the Bardo Plane, Oxford, 1927, 1960. ISBN 0-19-500223-7 This was a long-term best-seller in the 1960s. Evan-Wentz came up with the title based on the previously published famous Egyptian Book of the Dead.
* Edward Conze provides a precis in Buddhist Scriptures, Penguin, 1959.
* Francesca Fremantle and Chögyam Trungpa, The Tibetan Book of the Dead: The Great Liberation through Hearing in the Bardo by Guru Rinpoche according to Karma Lingpa, Shambhala, 1975, 2003, ISBN 0-394-73064-X, ISBN 1-59030-059-9
* Robert Thurman (translator), Dalai Lama (Foreword), The Tibetan Book of the Dead, as popularly known in the West. Known in Tibet as The Great Book of Natural Liberation Through Understanding in the Between, Composed By Padma Sambhava Discovered by Karma Lingpa, Harper Collins, 1994, ISBN 1-85538-412-4
* Fremantle, Francesca (2001). Luminous emptiness: understanding the Tibetan book of the dead. Boston, Massachusetts, USA: Shambhala Publications, Inc. ISBN 1-57062-450-X
* Timothy Leary Psychedelic Prayers, a loose interpretation of the book.
* Timothy Leary, Ralph Metzner, Richard Alpert, The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead The three hallucinogenic drug pioneers and researchers authored this book strongly influenced by some parts of the Tibetan Book of the Dead. It was intended for reciting during hallucinogenic drug sessions. 1964. ISBN 0-8065-1652-6.
* John Lennon (The Beatles), Tomorrow Never Knows, a song based on the philosophies found in The Tibetan Book of the Dead.
* Jean-Claude van Itallie, The Tibetan Book of the Dead for Reading Aloud
* Graham Coleman (Translator), Gyurme Dorje (Translator), Thupten Jinpa (Editor) , The Tibetan Book of the Dead, Penguin Classics; new edition (2005) ISBN 0-7139-9414-2
* Lati Rinpochay and Jeffrey Hopkins, Death, Intermediate State and Rebirth, Snow Lion, 1985.
* Lama Lodo, Bardo Teachings. Snow Lion, 1987.
* Chokyi Nyina Rinpoche, The Bardo Guidebook, Ragjung Yeshe, 1991.
* Karma Lingpa (revelator); Gyurme Dorje (translator); Graham Coleman (editor) : The Tibetan Book of the Dead. Viking Penguin, NY, 2006.
* In 2007, The History Channel released a documentary film, Tibetan Book of the Dead: "The Tibetan book of the Dead is an important document that has stood the test of time and attempts to provide answers to one of mankind's greatest questions: What happens when we die? Interviews with Tibetan Lamas, American scholars, and practicing Buddhists bring this powerful and mysterious text to life. State-of-the-art computer generated graphics will recreate this mysterious and exotic world. Follow the dramatized journey of a soul from death...to re-birth. In Tibet, the "art of dying" is nothing less than the art of living."[8]
See also:
* Bardo
* Six realms
* Reality in Buddhism
Notes:
1. ^ Fremantle (2001: p.21) states that: Liberation is synonymous with the Sanskrit word bodhi, which means awakening, understanding, or enlightenment, and with nirvana, which means blowing out or extinction: the extinction of illusion.
2. ^ Dorje, Gyurme. The Tibetan Book of the Dead. "A Brief Literary History of the Tibetan Book of the Dead. (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition, 2007). Translated by Gyurme Dorje. ISBN 978-0-14-310494-0.
3. ^ Information about these texts and others relating to death can be found in Detlef Ingo Lauf, Secret Doctrines of the Tibetan Books of the Dead, Boulder, Shambhala, 1977.
4. ^ In Tibetan, zab chos zhi khro dgongs pa rang grol and kar gling zhi khro.
5. ^ In Tibetan, chos nyid bar do'i gsol 'debs thos grol chen mo and strid pa'i bar do ngo sprod gsol 'debs thos grol chen mo.
6. ^ In Tibetan, bar do thos grol, thos grol chen mo, and thos grol.
7. ^ Evans-Wentz (1960), p. liv; and, Fremantle & Trungpa (2003), p. xi.
8. ^ The History Channel: Tibetan Book of the Dead
-en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bardo_Thodol
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