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Home
Introduction
A New Interpretation of SMiLE
Zen and Pet Sounds
The Elements
The Koan/The Hallucination
Bio Based SMiLE
The Opposites
Ego
Zen and The Beatles' Revolver
East Or West Indies
Cool Links
The Trip
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Zen and The Beatles'
REVOLVER
Brian Wilson's comment
"Did you hear the Beatles' album? Religious, right?"
is often pointed to as a sure sign of craziness. However, if
we give REVOLVER the Zen treatment, Brian's comment
makes sense(the touring Beatles cabled EMI from Japan with the
album title, REVOLVER, a pun.)
"It might surprise
a lot of people to think of the Beatles as religious,
especially after John Lennon's supposedy anti-religious statement
which caused so much furor....after the furor died down you could
interpret Lennon's quote as just a mild rebuke of organized religion.
Their song Eleanor Rigby is a similar criticism. And since
the Beatles are writing songs along that line, and since
George Harrison is going to India to study music (which is intimately
connected with Indian philosophy and religion), and since..."
~Tom Nolan, "The Frenzied Frontier of Pop Music,"
Los Angeles Times WEST magazine,
Nov.1966.
"Eleanor Rigby" is an unfavorable comment on traditional
Western religion.
"Love You
To" points to
the East.
"She Said
She Said"- for
one to become enlightened, the ego must be dissolved. This is
often called the "great death." In the lyrics of this
song, "I know what it's like to be dead" and "feel
like I've never been born" can be seen as Zen. This along
with the lyric "when I was a boy, everything was right"
both point toward childhood and a purer undivided perception
of reality, closer to the state of mind sought in Zen.
"Good Day
Sunshine"- a
natural connection to Brian's religious Zen experience.
"I Want To Tell You"- first off, dig the following
quote from Brian's fave comedy album, How To Speak Hip;
'"...the Zen Buddhists have these koans, you know, they're
riddles that you meditate on. And the whole purpose of the riddles
is to hang you up, like, "We know the sound of two hands
but what is the sound of one hand?" Now that's had Buddhist
monks hung up for years."' ~John Brent as "Geets Romo"
Now consider the following George Harrison lyrics and how they
might apply to the John Brent quote; "I want to tell you,
I feel hung up and I don't know why. I don't mind, I could wait
forever, I've got time."
"Tomorrow
Never Knows"-
John Lennon originally wanted Tibetan monks to chant on this
track. The lyrics, "surrender to the void" and "you
may see the meaning of within" are just a few of the Zen-like
references here.
"Whenever in doubt, turn off your mind, relax, float downstream."
~Timothy Leary, The Psychedelic Experience,
(pg.14.)
All this added up
to Brian Wilson's gut feeling that he was on the right track
with SMiLE. "That's the whole movement"
he said.
"I think the Beatles will get into this, I think they'll
pick up on it."
~Brian Wilson on his contribution to "the movement."
Those interested in
the Beatles, Zen, and the sixties are advised to seek out the
book Revolution In The Head: the Beatles' records and
the sixties (1994) by Ian MacDonald.
MacDonald refers to
the song "Within You Without You" as "the
conscience of Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band:
the necessary sermon that comes with the community singing."
Note that the titles "Within You Without You" and
"Heroes And Villains" consist of opposites.
Also note the laughter at the end of "Within You Without
You."
"I'm only sleeping"~John
Lennon
"Are you sleeping
brother John?"~lyric from "Surf's Up"
"Up until LSD,
I never realized that there was anything beyond this state of
consciousness. The first time I took it, it just blew everything
away. I had such an incredible feeling, that there was a God
and I could see him in every blade of grass. It was like gaining
hundreds of years' experience within twelve hours. It changed
me and there was no way back to what I was before. It wasn't
all good because it left a lot of questions as well."~George
Harrison, 1987.
"Lucy In The
Sky With Diamonds"
"I Love To Say
Da Da"
"The Beatles'
psychedelic music represents a state of mind different from ordinary
reality: a magical, all-beautiful, all-loving vision in which
opposites are peacefully reconciled."~Ian MacDonald,"The
Psychedelic Experience,"
MOJO Special Limited Edition,
Mar.2002:36.
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