Match the song title: Revolver

 

I remember reading a cover story in the "Gusto" section of The Buffalo News -- the paper's "it's time for weekend fun" section -- during the summer of 1987. It was the 20th anniversary of the "Summer of Love" and also the 20th year since the release of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band" by the Beatles.

It was considered the Beatles' masterpiece, the greatest album ever made, and there was a track-by-track break down that I remember reading on my grandmother's front porch.

Amazingly, somehow, that was almost 35 years ago. The 55th anniversary of that album is next summer. But I'm going to write about the Beatles album that celebrates its 55th anniversary this summer.

In yet another example of how perceptions change over time, "Revolver" is now considered among many critics as the Beatles' best album and is ranked ahead of Sgt. Pepper's on a few lists. I still prefer Sgt. Pepper's (I was always a "later Beatles" fan and like their 1967-1970 albums best), but I have come around on "Revolver" enough to realize its impact and also to devote a "Match the Song Title" post to it.

This is the album that led to so many things about music we know today: the psychedelic rock era, electronic music, progressive music, world music, the importance of studio technology, so many things. Yet, in another creation of the last 35 years, some people "don't like the Beatles," which blows my mind. (There were people who didn't like the Beatles back in the '60s, too. They were known as "squares.")

What I once regarded as one of the Beatles' "transition albums," along with "Rubber Soul," from the poppy Beatles to the experimental Beatles, was really an album that transitioned every listener into a new kind of music experience.

It's time now for Match the Song title, where I try to match up cards with song tracks.

 

Ready?

1, 2, 3, 4 ... 1, 2 ...

Match the Song Title: Revolver, The Beatles

Track 1: Taxman

Basically the first "topical" Beatles song, written and sung by George Harrison (he's all over this album) in protest of the high tax rates assessed top earners by the British government. This song also foreshadows the influence of Indian music that permeates the record.

Taxing is nothing I thought about when I was following baseball as a kid. Now, it is unavoidable. The luxury tax is what makes teams do what they do -- it essentially explains what seems to be inexplainable, such as the Cubs gutting much of their high-priced talent to avoid the competitive balance tax penalty as a third-time payer.

 

Yeah, I know your eyes probably glazed over reading that part. Sorry, that's the baseball world in which we live now.

 

Track 2: Eleanor Rigby

Paul McCartney's song about loneliness. I recall having to sing this in music class around sixth grade and getting stuck on the lyric about "wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door." It was a pretty weird image I had.

Eleanor Engle made history by being the first woman to sign a contract with a professional male baseball team in 1952 with the Harrisburg Senators. She never got to play as the contract was voided by bigwigs and the minor league president at the time called signing women to play ball a "travesty." While saying she had a "terrible time" in '52 due to the media scrutiny and the eyes that followed her, she forgave her detractors.

 

Track 3: I'm Only Sleeping

Although sometimes considered a drug song, it's actually dedicated to the joys of staying in bed all day ... or all week ... or all month ... written and sung by the notoriously lazy John Lennon. There's actually a yawn in the middle of the song. The whole track is filled with studio effects, a backward guitar solo in particular.

 

Mike Napoli is here because of his well-documented battle with sleep apnea. He would wake up at least 50 times a night from the time he started his major league career in his early 20s until he underwent an alarming surgery in 2014 where a doctor sawed away at his chin and jaw, reconfiguring his sinuses in a seven-hour operation. Napoli experienced his first dream in nearly 15 years shortly after the procedure. He was pretty thankful to be "only sleeping."

 

Track 4: Love You To

Harrison recorded this ode to hedonism with a pair of Indian musicians, so here's a card of Dinesh Patel, the first Indian to sign a contract with a Major League Baseball team. Patel pitched two years, 2009 and 2010, in the Pirates organization before being released.

Track 5: Here, There and Everywhere

I love this song because it's about living in the now, being ever-present, which is something I try to do, but fail at often. I try to use it as inspiration.

As for a trading card, I'm going with Fernando Tatis Jr., who the Padres, MLB and all of social media is broadcasting here, there and everywhere. Social media seems to have a fascination with declaring someone "The Face of Baseball" and how we're "losing" to some other major sport if baseball doesn't have someone immediately identifiable by every man, woman and child.

Meanwhile, I want players I see here, there and everywhere to just go away.

 

Track 6: Yellow Submarine

Like most kids of my generation, this is probably the first Beatles song I ever heard, likely incorporated into Sesame Street or some other Kids Television Network show. It was actually written as a children's song. It's Ringo Starr's chance to shine and the sound effects are still marvelous.

I wish I could claim the idea of using Kent Tekulve and his yellow get-up/submarine style for this song as my own. But it was actually inspired by a card creation of artist Scott Hodges.

That is fantastic. And what Project 70 should look like.

Track 7: She Said, She Said

A song John Lennon wrote that includes a sentence uttered by Peter Fonda during an LSD-influenced conversation with Lennon, Harrison and Starr and members of the Byrds. Fonda, referencing a childhood operation in which he had technically died, said: "I know what it's like to be dead."

Former NHL player Rich Peverley collapsed on the Dallas Stars bench during a game against the Blue Jackets in March 2014. Peverley's heart rate flat-lined for nearly two minutes and there was real concern he was gone before he was eventually revived. Peverley retired not too long after that although he's doing well.

Peverley played college hockey for St. Lawrence University, which we cover heavily at the paper. It was a big story.

 

Track 8: Good Day Sunshine

This song evokes all the things you love about life when it's warm: the first nice day of spring, the first day of vacation, and, of course, Opening Day. It's the only day of the season that the Colorado Rockies will be happy, even if just for a moment.

 

Track 9: And Your Bird Can Sing

The first card I thought of. This song is John Lennon's reference to someone who has seen and done it all.

 

 

Track 10: For No One

This song baffled me for a bit as it's about Paul McCartney's relationship with a former girlfriend that fell apart and he still doesn't know why. "A love that should have lasted for years!"

How does that fit with baseball?

Then, like I often do, I turned to the Dodgers trading Mike Piazza. When you hear that the working title for this song was "Why Did It Die?," it all makes sense. It's amazing how we let relationships blind us. Piazza was a no-brainer for remaining with the Dodgers for his entire career. Yet he's in the Hall of Fame as a Met.

Track 11: Doctor Robert

A fairly straight-ahead song about a doctor who gave his patients amphetamine injections, which I would say is pretty appropriate for baseball.

Not that Dr. Dave Roberts is doing any of that funny business. But he was just what the Dodgers needed to get over the postseason hump and win a World Series.

Track 12: I Want To Tell You

Harrison singing about the abundance of thoughts in his head that he can't get across. It was influenced by LSD as several Revolver songs were. I don't have a baseball card that can sum up what Harrison was saying, so how about the Beatles running along the beach in the 1964 Beatles set with George Harrison's fake signature across it?

 

Track 13: Got To Get You Into My Life

A Stevie Wonder-inspired song that was later released as a single by, no, not Peter Frampton, but Earth, Wind and Fire.

This was all thanks to the universally panned Sgt. Pepper's flick released in 1978. Donruss released a 66-card set based on the movie. Did anyone buy the cards?

Track 14: Tomorrow Never Knows

The biggest drug trip on the record and the most praised song as well, as it's considered a pioneer for so many songs that would come later. It was a huge departure for the Beatles but a sign of things to come. 

"Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream" sounds like Dock Ellis to me. So here is Dock on a very psychedelic-looking '72 Topps card. Dig it.

And that's where the needle comes off the record.

I purchased "Revolver" way back when I first acquired a CD player in 1985. I think I bought "Rubber Soul" and "Abbey Road" at the same time. (The first Beatles record I owned was "Let It Be").

The Beatles are one of those groups that is timeless, but sometimes you have to let the young'uns know what came before so they can appreciate it.

This is where a lot of your music started. Right here.