The Beatles’ ‘Revolver’ Anniversary: A Tale of 16 Quarters

Taylor Swift reigns today, but for decades, little could approach the screeching fandom that was Beatlemania. That abiding love for the Beatles never truly faded. Anyone who held onto their LPs, and was around when Revolver dropped on Aug. 5, 1966, likely has their copy.

Granted, a 58th anniversary is not celebrated the way a 50th is, but this should be marked, especially since two of the Fab Four are still with us. Sir Paul McCartney, 82, and Sir Ringo Starr, 84, remain vital, touring superstars. (John Lennon was murdered in December 1980, and George Harrison died in 2001.)

I’m not fanning the flames of the “my generation was better than yours” fight. But I wonder if you can have as significant of a tie to a file you download as you can to music on vinyl, then held onto all your life.

Revolver was my first major purchase, and one where my parents taught me a valuable lesson about working and saving.

The LP, which includes “Eleanor Rigby,” “Yellow Submarine” and “Good Day Sunshine,” is a brilliant piece of work, melding Indian influences, psychedelia, pop and rock. At the time, I only knew that the Beatles were cool, and my cousin and I were going to marry Paul and John. (We had not worked out the details.)

I coveted that album with its black-and-white line drawings, where the eyes are photos of the Beatles’ eyes. It was their 12th American album, and for this bookish girl growing up in the Bronx, it was my first.

Our neighborhood would soon be felled by heroin, gangs and arson, but at that time it was blue-collar families. In the apartment building where I grew up, the dads included a garbageman, a sewer worker and my father, a taxi dispatcher. The moms tended to not work outside of the home. In our household, money was always tight, and Revolver was not considered an essential expense. (Go figure.)

>> Ladies And Gentlemen … The Beatles! Celebrating 60 years of Beatlemania

My need for this record was consuming. My mother decided if I wanted it that badly, I should save my allowance, which usually went to candy and comics. I earned a quarter a week and my main chore was doing the dinner dishes.

Every Tuesday, I earned 25 cents. Every Wednesday after school, I walked up the block and around the corner to the record store to visit my album. I would alert the bored teenage clerk of my progress. Rarely has anyone cared less; another lesson learned.

I finally accrued 16 quarters. My guess is my grandmother contributed to this effort, because four months of this obsession would have driven the adults to distraction. Flush with $4, I raced to the store. I marched to my record, carried it to the register and counted the quarters into four piles of four, from the groovy black-and-white striped patent-leather purse my uncle had given me.

The clerk looked at me and said, “Taxes.”

At 7, I didn’t understand what this meant, but I knew he wouldn’t give me the LP because 16 quarters were not enough. I ran home and sobbed this tragic news to my mother, who missed neither a beat in her phone conversation nor a puff from her Benson & Hedges to hand me change from her wallet. I ran back and bought the album.

I placed it on my parent’s hi-fi and carefully brought down the needle. The first song, of course, is “Taxman.”