Tomorrow Never Knows

I am currently savouring the newly released box set of the re-mastered 1966 album Revolver. It is a visual and aural beauty and study is rewarding as songs one has known for more than half a century (yes, it is that long!!). It comes complete with a 100-page hardback book. The final song on the album, Tomorrow Never Knows, is in many ways the most Avant Garde and interesting. It was the first to be recorded in April 1966.

 

 

It is my experience, drawn for 71 years of surprises, that John Lennon got it right when he wrote this song. Having gone to Liverpool University to study Politics, I transferred to read Law, then having graduated and trained to be a solicitor, I went to university in Dundee to qualify as a social worker. I guess my point is that life is full of surprises.

 

This book you are considering, was written during my long perambulatory career, never knowing where tomorrow might take me. I dropped out of a career as a London solicitor, I was unhappy about making money for people who had already too much. I resigned, went on the dole and within three months found work in Scotland with learning disabled adults. I learned so much from these people, their generosity of spirit, absence of guile and general good humour and that has stayed with me such that when, 33 years later, having returned to Scotland, I was made President of my professional association, three of my former colleagues, Elaine, Jimmy and Roberta travelled to Crieff to be present at my induction. In between times I had studied in Dundee and Nottingham, worked in many different social work settings and risen through the ranks to Director

 

Some of my moves have been deliberate but some, pure happenstance like when I applied to work in one city and was allocated to another. So, it is true, Tomorrow does never know!

 

Lennon had another appealing aphorism – “Life is what happens to you when you are busy making other plans.” I see this as a similar but different formulation. Tomorrow never knows is whimsical and mystical. It gives agency to the individual, as in tomorrow never knows what I will do next - but I might. On the other hand, “Life is what happens to you when you are busy making other plans.” is more fatalistic locates agency somewhere external to the individual, rendering the individual powerless.

 

I was forced into an early medical retirement following cardiac problems, leading to a chain of unexpected events that eventually led to the completion of this book.

 

The Beatles had many of these seemingly paradoxical aphorisms. Ringo was famous for naming the first film when after an exhausting session he said “it´s been a hard day’s night that was!”

Oh, and by the way, you might not be surprised to learn that Ringo was also responsible for naming Tomorrow Never Knows.  John Lennon later explained, “I took one of Ringo´s malapropisms, like a hard day´s night, to take the edge off the heavy philosophical lyrics”.

 

We all know of Lennon´s love of language and wordplay but Ringo is less often acknowledged for his unique contribution.

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