Now it's later.
Although Leslie has lots of interesting things to say about the Lennon/McCartney oeuvre, he really hits his stride with the album Revolver, particularly in his discussions of "Tomorrow Never Knows" and "Eleanor Rigby." He points out that the two songs have a lot in common:
…both John and Paul came back from their break with songs about death written from a detached omniscient perspective. In “Tomorrow Never Knows,” John dispenses instruction from the mountain top. In two minutes, "Eleanor Rigby" captures the entire lives of two individuals in a series of stark images. Musically, both songs are stripped down to a few parts in order to distill and intensify some essence.
"Eleanor Rigby" confines itself to a narrow melodic range and the song has minimal harmonic development. Like “Tomorrow Never Knows” it alternates between just two chords set in a minor key.
Still it's hard to explain "Eleanor Rigby." Nobody had created a pop song like this before. Its cultural ubiquity has stopped us from noticing how strange it is, at least as radical in its way as "Tomorrow Never Knows,” which John came up with after hearing Paul play "Eleanor Rigby."
That last part resonates with me. I blogged about Eleanor Rigby almost ten years ago now, and I also commented on how surprising it is, especially since it was written by a 24-year-old pop star.
Leslie continues:
…Paul ends each line of "Eleanor Rigby" with a little commentary or question on what has preceded it: lives in a dream; who is it for; no one comes near. Similar to the gods-eye mode of Tomorrow Never Knows.
The two songs speak to one another. In "Tomorrow Never Knows," however distant Lennon's voice sounds, the message is ultimately soothing. "Eleanor Rigby" offers no comfort. It turns an unflinching, even acerbic gaze on its characters: a woman picks up rice in a church tidying up after a wedding, oblivious to joy. She lives in a dream and wears a face that nobody sees. In the second verse we meet Father McKenzie writing his sermon for nobody. In the third and final verse, they are brought together without coming together: he buries her in a perfunctory ritual. Everything is concise. economical and devastating: no one was saved.
Around this time both John and Paul were dwelling on the decline of Christianity. In Cleave's interview, John contrasted it with the rise in popularity of The Beatles a relatively mild observation that came back to haunt him. But in "Eleanor Rigby," Paul slid a knife into the bone...
And I also liked this description of "Tomorrow Never Knows."
...The finished track feels like standing in a full-force gale as the rubble of history blows by us. Lennon's voice surfs serenely above an unearthly concatenation of noises and Ringo's stuttering, pulverising drum beat. John commands the chaos and subdues its terrors, inviting us to consider the meaning of within and to play the game to the end of the beginning, a phrase that John Winston Lennon borrowed not from (Timothy) Leary, but from Churchill, who had died the year before. What they were now calling "The Void" was by far the strangest sounding track that The Beatles or any pop group had ever recorded. There was no girl or boy, no verse or chorus, just a continuous flow that loops around toggling between two chords and fades out on the word beginning. It brought together McCartney's experiments in sound with Lennon's desire to communicate truths about the meaning of life. It blended Indian music with Stockhausen; psychedelic philosophy with English poetry and comedy...
Leslie has a similar commentary for "Strawberry Fields Forever" which I will talk about soon.
He also talks about the origin of the title "Tomrrow Never Knows:"
Lennon decided that "The Void" as a title was too heavy. During a televised press conference in 1964, Ringo had expressed the unpredictability of the group's career by saying "tomorrow never knows." In the footage you can see Lennon cracking up behind him...
The Beatles, like Shakespeare, preferred to avoid portentousness.
And thanks to YouTube, we can see exactly what Leslie is talking about: