The record
At a glance
- Artist
- Tomorrow
- Released
- February 1968
- Album
- Only original studio album
- Original tracks
- Eleven
- UK label
- Parlophone PMC / PCS 7042
- Producer
- Mark Wirtz
Why it matters
A finished psychedelic language released after its moment
Tomorrow captures a band whose best-known music was recorded during Britain's 1967 psychedelic expansion but not assembled on LP until February 1968.
The original British album has eleven tracks. Claramount Lake was the B-side of My White Bicycle and entered later expanded editions, not the first Parlophone sequence.
Keith West appears in writing credits under his birth name Keith Hopkins, usually with Ken Burgess. Reading Hopkins and West as two people creates a false songwriter.
Steve Howe's guitar already treats texture, reversal, sitar-like colour and intricate riffs as compositional devices before his later work with Yes.
Mark Wirtz produced and directed the studio construction. The record's effects and layered keyboards are therefore part of arrangement, not evidence of a larger permanent band.
My White Bicycle and Revolution provide public counterculture images, while Colonel Brown, Auntie Mary's Dress Shop and Three Jolly Little Dwarfs use English character whimsy.
The Beatles cover Strawberry Fields Forever is the only outside composition. It tests Tomorrow's studio language against an already canonical psychedelic recording.
The album matters because its delayed release froze a short-lived quartet at full craft, even as its members were already moving toward other careers.
London, 1966–68
From the In Crowd to a delayed Parlophone LP
West, Howe, bassist John Junior Wood and drummer John Twink Alder developed Tomorrow from the earlier In Crowd. Producer Mark Wirtz worked with Howe and became interested in the group's material, especially My White Bicycle. Parlophone released My White Bicycle with Claramount Lake as its B-side in May 1967, followed by Revolution and Three Jolly Little Dwarfs. The album was recorded chiefly in spring 1967 but delayed until February 1968.
By release, West had achieved separate visibility through Excerpt from A Teenage Opera, also connected to Wirtz. Parlophone issued mono PMC 7042 and stereo PCS 7042 editions in a black-and-white sleeve because the budget did not support colour printing. The original LP has five tracks on side one and six on side two. Tomorrow broke up after its short recording life; Howe later joined Yes, Twink joined The Pretty Things, and West and Wood pursued other work.
The quartet
West, Howe, Wood and Twink under Wirtz's direction
West's clear voice keeps complex arrangements legible and moves easily between anthem, dream and comic character.
Howe uses guitar as colour and counterpoint. My White Bicycle's reversed textures differ fundamentally from the riff work in Revolution.
Wood gives shifting song structures a melodic bass foundation rather than simply following roots. Twink makes tempo changes and abrupt sections sound intentional, while his force prevents Wirtz's polish from becoming delicate. Wirtz's keyboards and studio direction expand the quartet without obscuring its playing.
Burgess and Hopkins supply most of the album's melodic-writing base; Howe joins the Revolution credit. The record's personnel should not absorb later guests and alternates listed on anthology reissues. The quartet's identity emerges from the tension between live rhythmic attack and constructed studio colour.
British psychedelia
Backward guitar, harmony, sitar colour and English pop craft
My White Bicycle makes a sharing scheme feel revolutionary through propulsive drums, reversed guitar and whistle. Colonel Brown turns a named authority figure into compact English satire. Real Life Permanent Dream balances vocal harmony with sitar-like guitar colour. Shy Boy compresses social hesitation into bright psychedelic pop.
Revolution uses intricate Howe riffing and an infectious group refrain. The Incredible Journey of Timothy Chase changes melody and tempo as its title character moves. Auntie Mary's Dress Shop makes retail space into theatrical miniature. Strawberry Fields Forever emphasizes heavier rhythm and Tomorrow's own guitar textures.
Three Jolly Little Dwarfs pushes nursery-rhyme whimsy toward percussive absurdity. Now Your Time Has Come gives Howe's intricate riff a darker, extended frame. Hallucinations closes with gentle harmony and a melody that makes altered perception emotionally direct.
Track guide
Eleven originals and one Beatles transformation
My White Bicycle
Hopkins and Burgess turn Amsterdam's white-bicycle idea into kinetic pop. Twink's drive, Wood's bass and Howe's reversed guitar make shared transport sound like liberation in motion. Wirtz turns effects into structure.
Colonel Brown
A compact character follows the manifesto. Military title and comic English detail shrink authority to human scale, while the arrangement remains brisk enough to avoid narrative drag.
Real Life Permanent Dream
Harmony and sitar-like guitar colour make dream a continuous condition rather than sleep. West sings the paradox clearly, allowing layered texture to deepen rather than hide the phrase.
Shy Boy
Hesitation becomes tightly arranged pop. Short sections and bright instrumental answers keep the character moving despite his reserve, providing a human-scale contrast before Revolution.
Revolution
Hopkins, Burgess and Howe close side one with the guitarist's most explicit writing credit. Intricate riffs and a communal refrain make change celebratory, but the arrangement's precision keeps the anthem from becoming shapeless.
The Incredible Journey of Timothy Chase
Side two begins as episodic travel. Melody and tempo changes define the journey more than literal geography, with West guiding a pop narrative through multiple rooms.
Auntie Mary's Dress Shop
A shop becomes miniature theatre through quick character detail and changing sections. The band treats English whimsy as arrangement craft, balancing charm with rhythmic bite.
Strawberry Fields Forever
Tomorrow does not attempt to erase the Beatles master. Heavier drums, West's voice and Howe's guitar translate it into the quartet's vocabulary. The cover is comparison by performance, not an authorship claim.
Three Jolly Little Dwarfs
Nursery-scale figures enter a hard-edged rhythmic setting. Repetition and percussive emphasis make the joke increasingly strange, turning whimsy into deliberate psychedelic distortion.
Now Your Time Has Come
The album's longest original track builds around Howe's intricate guitar figure. Darker harmony and extended development give time an urgent, almost judicial force before the soft finale.
Hallucinations
Gentle voices and an unusually affecting melody close the album from inside altered perception. Rather than escalating effects, Tomorrow lets emotional clarity carry the final transformation.
Tomorrow imagined
Freedom, dream, revolution and comic English worlds
Freedom appears through shared bicycles and collective revolution rather than solitary escape. Dream and hallucination frame altered perception as both permanent condition and closing intimacy. Colonel Brown and Timothy Chase make authority and adventure personal through named figures. The dress shop and dwarfs create English miniature worlds that contrast with public anthems.
Shyness provides ordinary vulnerability amid ideological and psychedelic language. Strawberry Fields connects Tomorrow's imagined England to the Beatles while remaining an outside composition. Time is active in Revolution, Timothy Chase and Now Your Time Has Come. The album has no plot; its coherence comes from transforming everyday English objects into unstable possibilities.
Parlophone 7042
A black-and-white sleeve for Technicolor music
Parlophone issued the original album in mono PMC 7042 and stereo PCS 7042. The sleeve was printed in black and white despite music built around strong colour imagery and studio effects. Mike Sedgewick provided the illustration.
The original side break after Revolution separates five compact statements from a six-track theatrical second side. Later colour covers and expanded programmes are reissue history, not evidence that the first LP looked or ran that way.
February 1968
February 1968: delay without chart reward
Tomorrow appeared in February 1968 after a long delay from the principal 1967 recording period. The timing weakened its commercial impact because British psychedelic fashion was already shifting. Neither the LP nor the original singles gave the quartet sustained chart success.
West's Teenage Opera visibility could not fully transfer to a band whose release schedule had lost momentum. Retrospective criticism has praised My White Bicycle, Revolution, Hallucinations and Howe's developing guitar language. The album's reputation grew through reissues, compilations and the later fame of Howe and Twink.
The sole album
One album before four separate futures
Tomorrow remains one of British psychedelia's defining one-album groups. My White Bicycle survives as a studio single whose political origin and sonic design reinforce each other. Howe's guitar forecasts versatility without making the record a proto-Yes album. Twink's later work with The Pretty Things and Pink Fairies connects Tomorrow to other underground histories.
West's writing identity must remain joined to the Keith Hopkins credit on the labels. The album's whimsical songs have divided critics, but their structures are rarely casual. Expanded editions recovered excellent period material while also obscuring the original eleven-track boundary. Its legacy is a complete short-lived language: intricate pop, rhythmic force and studio invention caught before dispersion.
Original programme
Eleven originals before Claramount Lake
The original British album contains eleven tracks. Claramount Lake is the B-side of My White Bicycle, not an original LP track. The side break follows Revolution. Keith Hopkins is singer Keith West's birth-name credit.
Strawberry Fields Forever is the only outside composition. Later anthologies contain alternate personnel and material beyond the album. The 1976 Harvest edition inserted Claramount Lake and used a colour cover. Restore the eleven-track order before exploring bonus recordings.
A listening path
Restore the 1968 side order
- Hear My White Bicycle as both political idea and studio construction.
- Follow character, dream and shyness into the side-one Revolution.
- Reset before Timothy Chase's changing journey.
- Compare Auntie Mary's miniature with the Beatles transformation.
- Let the dwarfs' percussion disturb the whimsical surface.
- Give Now Your Time Has Come its extended guitar role.
- End with Hallucinations before playing Claramount Lake separately.
Research trail
Sources and further reading
- Tomorrow album, credits and review — AllMusic
- Original UK eleven-track discography — Progrography
- Institutional release-group record — MusicBrainz
- Tomorrow artist and catalogue history — AllMusic
- Original Parlophone programme — RareVinyl archive
- Album historical review — JazzRockSoul