Beatles Answers

Tomorrow Never Knows

(Lennon/McCartney)

status: review

On this page

First lyric line — "Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream…" (brief identification excerpt; full lyrics © Sony Music Publishing — see Genius link in References.)

Story Outdated

"Tomorrow Never Knows" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles, written primarily by John Lennon and credited to Lennon–McCartney. It was released in August 1966 as the final track on their album Revolver, although it was the first song recorded for the LP. The song marked a radical departure for the Beatles, as the band fully embraced the potential of the recording studio without consideration for reproducing the results in concert. [Wikipedia]

Lennon adapted the lyric from Timothy Leary's The Psychedelic Experience, itself a Westernised reading of the Bardo Thödol (the 'Tibetan Book of the Dead'). The title — 'tomorrow never knows' — was taken from a Ringo malapropism, a phrase the drummer had used in passing. John Lennon's closing vision 'Tomorrow Never Knows,' based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead, ranks among the most experimental and prescient recordings the Beatles produced. The song's disorienting vocal processing, tape-loop accompaniment, and sitar and tabla integration created a psychedelic soundscape that anticipated electronic music and drone traditions. Lennon's lead vocal, processed through a Leslie speaker cabinet to create otherworldly effect, delivered philosophical abstraction with hypnotic precision (Lewisohn 1988, p.70). Kozinn positions both 'Tomorrow Never Knows' and 'She Said She Said' as vivid psychedelic narratives rich in LSD-influenced imagery, representing the album's sophisticated engagement with drug experimentation and surrealist lyrical composition. (Kozinn 1995, p.146,152)

Cut in a single afternoon on 6 April 1966 — the very first session of the Revolver project. The track is built on a single chord (C), Ringo playing a heavily-compressed loop-feel pattern, McCartney's bass providing the harmonic motion. Lennon's vocal was fed through a rotating Leslie speaker (taken from an organ cabinet) for the second half of the track — a Geoff Emerick experiment that violated EMI engineering protocols. Five tape loops, prepared on home Brennell machines, were fed in live to the mix from five different studios on EMI's three floors, each operated by a separate engineer with a finger on the spool to maintain pitch. Recorded across multiple sessions beginning the track employed extensive tape-loop techniques with pre-recorded fragments of sitar, tabla, and orchestral materials layered beneath Lennon's vocal. George Martin's pioneering use of ADT (Automatic Double Tracking) and Leslie speaker processing created the song's signature vocal character. Geoff Emerick's engineering mastered the technical challenges of layering and mixing disparate sound sources into coherent psychedelic composition (Lewisohn 1988, p.70).

What's distinctive

One of 101 songs led primarily by John. Recorded approximately 1 of 16 into the Revolver / Studio Awakening (1966) sessions. Carries the unique tag 'tape-loops' — no other song shares it. Take count: 15 (highest take number documented in Lewisohn (1988)).

Recording

  • Tomorrow Never Knows is the band’s first true studio composition — Lennon’s voice through a Leslie cabinet, five tape loops mixed live by Geoff Emerick and the tape ops, a single varispeeded drum pattern, and the Indian-music tambura drone underneath. It was cut in a single afternoon on 6 April 1966, the very first session of the Revolver project, and is the textbook entry on the EMI technique vocabulary catalogued in Kehew & Ryan’s Recording the Beatles (2006).
  • Per Lewisohn (The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions, 1988, pp. 70–72), the band attended the mono mix at the original April 1966 sessions; the stereo mix was prepared subsequently without the band present. Mix variation across releases is therefore narrower than for Strawberry Fields Forever — but the documented differences across reissues are still editorially worth surfacing (see Releases).

Equipment Outdated

StudioEMI Studios, Abbey Road — Studio Three (largely)
Tape machineStuder J37 four-track (with vari-speed, ADT)
ConsoleREDD.51
MicrophonesNeumann U47/U48, AKG C12, STC 4038, close-miking pioneered (Emerick) on Ringo's bass drum
Outboard / effectsEMI RS124, EMT 140 plate, Fairchild 660 limiter, EMI Artificial Double Tracking (ADT), Leslie cabinet (vocals)
GuitarsEpiphone Casino, Gibson SG (Harrison), Rickenbacker 4001S bass (McCartney introduced)
AmplifiersVox AC100, Vox 7120, Fender Showman, Fender Bassman

Recording Timeline

vivid psychedelic narratives rich in drug imagery.— Allan Kozinn, The Beatles (Phaidon 1995)

Studio Notes

Releases

References & external databases

Frequently asked

Who wrote Tomorrow Never Knows?

“Tomorrow Never Knows” is credited to John Lennon (Lennon–McCartney).

Who sings lead on Tomorrow Never Knows?

The lead vocal on “Tomorrow Never Knows” is by John Lennon.

When was Tomorrow Never Knows recorded?

“Tomorrow Never Knows” was recorded 6 Apr 1966 at EMI Studios, Abbey Road.

How many takes did Tomorrow Never Knows require?

Mark Lewisohn's session log documents up to 15 numbered takes for “Tomorrow Never Knows”.