How The Beatles Achieved a Digital Sound on ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ Using Only Analog Equipment

Raymond Schillinger of You Can’t Unhear This explained how The Beatles achieved a fantastic digital sound with “Tomorrow Never Knows” from the Revolver album, long before digital recording tools were available. This was achieved through the creative use of strictly analog equipment, including unusual instruments, vocal treatments, recording devices, and tape loops that were sped up and/or reversed.

“Tomorrow Never Knows” is arguably the most pivotal and revolutionary song of The Beatles career. Combining John Lennon’s composition with Paul McCartney’s predilection for the avant garde, infused with George Harrison’s infatuation with Indian music and underpinned by Ringo Starr’s mesmerizing rhythm, it’s a mind-bending three-minute collage of sonic experiments that helped kick open the doors to a bold new era for popular music.

There was a mystery involved with the recording of the song. It remains unclear whether George or Paul played the backwards solo, a pivotal part of the song.

They decided to add another Beatle first here: a backwards guitar solo. There’s a debate, however, over who actually played this scorching backwards solo. …when the backwards solo is reversed to the original direction, it sounds strikingly similar to the guitar solo from “Taxman”, the first song on “Revolver”. “Taxman” was indeed a George Harrison song, but the guitar solo on Taxman was actually performed by Paul.