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Spring… the evening of any rainy London spring. After a break of about half an hour, at 8:30 p.m. the Beatles return to studio 3 at Abbey Road and begin recording a new song written by John Lennon and inspired by one of his increasingly frequent dreamlike shipwrecks during that period.
Thanks to the use of those substances that allow you to embark on long journeys without moving from where you are, a change was also felt in the musical world. Completely unexpected.
At the end of '65, the Beatles had released “Rubber Soul,” a naïve attempt to give voice to those voices that were increasingly circulating in the minds of the guys. The graphics are also a sign of this. A distorted photographic proof that came out of the darkroom immediately struck Lennon, who insisted on that image for the cover of the new record, as a testament to a quest, even visual, for that ever-growing detachment from reality.
“Nowhere Man,” “If I Needed Someone,” and “Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)” were unconscious examples of that new feeling in the air. At the beginning of the following year, a distinct voice from California caught everyone's attention (musicians first and foremost) by sending back to Liverpool the challenge launched with the rubbery soul… it was “5th Dimension” by the Byrds. A little hallucinogenic pearl was contained within it. “Eight Miles High” was the new anthem coming from the fervor of the West Coast of the United States, where the very strong garage scene was also attempting to capture the change, thus exploding the colors of groups like 13th Floor Elevators, Love, The Misunderstood, Electric Prunes, The Sonics… just to name a few fundamental ones. Everyone had to reckon with this track. But in London, there was no sea and sun of California, so in Lennon's mind, the psychotropic expansions brought him violently into the whirlwind of the ever-changing weather, which has always plagued the British, and suddenly he comes out with a brilliant children's litany trying to play with meteorology… mixing rain and sun into one. This is how the idea of “Rain” was born, in my view, the first consciously psychedelic piece in the history of rock.
So, on the evening of April 14, 1966, Lennon found himself with his companions trying to give a completed form to his bizarre idea. After the nighttime session, the Beatles finished the recordings of “Rain” throughout the entire day of Saturday, April 16, relying, in addition to the help of their trusty producer George Martin, on the powerful means at their disposal in studio 3 of EMI. Innovative techniques were experimented with in the realization of the track, limiters, compressors, jangle boxes, Leslie speakers, and various oddities (nowadays fashionably defined as Vintage) serving musical parts played at a higher speed to then be slowed down during the mixing phase, thus altering the frequencies of the instruments. A dark and mysterious tone emerges from this game of effects, on which Lennon's voice is overdubbed multiple times (even reversed at the end, thanks to Varispeed, an effect achieved by playing with tape loops, McCartney's latest “fad”) resulting in harsh and uncompromising, as not even Roger McGuinn dared to do for “Eight Miles High”.
All this succeeded in astonishingly rendering the atmospheres of altered consciousness narrated in the lyrics. The sun and rain alternate and overlap in a kaleidoscope of lights and shadows, which Lennon's lysergic mind tries to see with the eyes of the frightened child desperately asking for help “Can you hear me.. ?”. These quirky regressions are gently laid on the soft carpet created by the guitars of Harrison and Lennon himself, apparently contrasting with McCartney's pulsating bass and especially with Ringo Starr's hammering and obsessive rhythm (which he himself continues to claim as his best performance with the Beatles); cooking a sticky and claustrophobic blend like never before and rarely after (perhaps only with Arnold Layne's strange hobby). The Beatles decided to place it on the B-side of the single “Paperback Writer”, perhaps a bit intimidated by the result obtained, thus gifting it only to those few who truly understood its importance.
The psychedelic era was definitively born, quickly becoming not only a musical style but especially a lifestyle, with its excesses and masterpieces. It may be that the Beatles weren’t fully aware of it and others took pride in it, but it is certain that such a complete form had never seen an acidic drop fall, before. They only left it sculpted in the grooves of this small vinyl (it would never appear on any compilation until the 80s) released in stores worldwide around May 30, 1966 (in the USA) and June 10 of the same year (in the United Kingdom). “Rain” seems to emerge from another dimension, and this is exactly what determines its originality… so that it still sounds otherworldly today. The magic was finally freed.
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