David Crosby took time out to talk about the Beatles' 1966 classic Revolver, which is set for a deluxe reissue on October 28th. Crosby, who along with fellow Byrds-bandmate Roger McGuinn, had struck up a close relationship with the “Fab Four” back in 1965, spoke about the album, telling Mojo: “Name any song on Revolver and I'll go, 'Yeah, that's amazing.' 'Eleanor Rigby'; nobody else was writing about those kinds of invisible people, so beautiful, heartfelt and kind — and such a great song. 'Tomorrow Never Knows' was beautiful, too, especially the words, but then the words on all of Revolver evolved upwards. There was a stong anti-establishment flavor, too — and 'Taxman' was one of the reasons; you can tell they're pissed.”
He went on to say, “'Got To Get You Into My Life' was an amazing piece of construction using all the tools: the brass, the choruses, everything. Even ''Yellow Submarine,' it was warm and fuzzy, like a dog toy to be played with, it made the Beatles human and open, and it made you love Ringo (Starr) right away. . . I know the other Byrds, especially Roger, were thrilled by Revolver: anyone with a brain would have been.”
Croz went on to shed light on the personal relationship between him and the band: “The Byrds and the Beatles had taken LSD together, playing music and laying around in the sun in the Hollywood Hills, but the starling part was the chemistry between people rather than the drugs. John (Lennon) was more difficult, Paul (McCartney) was more distant, but George (Harrison) was more friendly and undefended.”
When we last caught up with David Crosby, we asked him about how back in the Byrds' mid-'60s heyday, the Beatles treated him and Roger McGuinn on as personal confidantes and musical peers: “They were extremely bright cats; not, y'know, reserved intellectuals from expensive schools — these were kids off the street who had smarts. Real smarts. And a tremendous amount of talent. And hangin' out with them, y'know, it was difficult, because there was such an intense sphere of people. . . y'know, a lotta pressure. It was very difficult for them to get five minutes to themselves. The time that I did spend with them, we spent very privately and doing ordinary things. Playin' guitar, laying out by the pool, talkin,' playing music for each other that we had recorded. Y'know, stuff that was all the more precious because it wasn't a big deal. I loved showin' John Lennon a chord he hadn't seen before. Good cats. And they were very nice to us. Drove us home from gigs, invited us over for dinner, came to our shows. They were as nice as they could be.”