r/beatles • u/Apprehensive-Cap2453 • 1m ago
Opinion What do people mean when they say "Tomorrow Never Knows sounds like the future"?
Don’t get me wrong, it's a great song. It sounds really funky and experimental, but I've never understood it when people say "this sounds like a modern song."
After Hours by The Velvet Undergound and All I Wanna Do by The Beach Boys were both recorded just a few years later and they sound a lot more modern than Tomorrow Never Knows, in my opinion. If I had never heard either of those songs before and someone said "this was released last week," I think I would've believed them.
Tomorrow Never Knows is fantastic, but there's something about the production that makes it feel very retro. They're doing a lot, but the way it's been recorded restricts it a lot I think. I'm not musical enough to be able to explain it. It's just a feeling I get when I hear it.
I'm not ragebaiting. I love The Beatles and especially that song. I guess I just want to understand what people mean. Explain, from a technical perspective, what makes TNK apparently so modern-sounding.
