Revolution 9

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Paul is deadRevolution 9 is a song off The Beatles' 1968 self-titled album. It was written mainly by John Lennon and credited to Lennon/McCartney.

Contents

Writing

Revolution 9 was an experiment with musique concrete, influenced by Yoko Ono and the avant-garde art world. Some of the recording came from the last six minutes of the unedited master take of Revolution 1. The end on this take was a mostly-instrumental jam. John Lennon took this recording and added different vocals, tape loops, and sound effects, creating Revolution 9, which would be the longest officially released track during the Beatles' career. Lennon told Playboy in 1980, "The slow version of Revolution on the album went on and on and on and I took the fade-out part, which is what they sometimes do with disco records now, and just layered all this stuff over it. It was the basic rhythm of the original Revolution going on with some 20 loops we put on, things from the archives of EMI. We were cutting up classical music and making different-size loops, and then I got and engineer tape on which some test engineer was saying, 'Number nine'." Though Paul McCartney made no contribution to Revolution 9 because he was in New York at the time, he had recorded a similar piece with The Beatles in January 1967: the still-unreleased Carnival Of Light. McCartney recalled, "Revolution 9 was quite similar to some stuff I'd been doing myself for fun. I didn't think that mine was suitable for release, but John always encouraged me." George Martin and the other Beatles are said to have opposed the inclusion of Revolution 9 on the final album and tried to convince Lennon to agree, but he did not and it went on the album. Even though McCartney had an interest in musique concrete, particularly Karlheinz Stockhausen's Gesang der Jünglinge, it is likely he was concerned about the group's image if the track were to be released. John Lennon commented on the song in 1969, "I don't know what influence Revolution 9 had on the teenybopper fans, but most of them didn't dig it. So what am I supposed to do?" Lennon told Rolling Stone in 1970, "Revolution 9 was an unconscious picture of what I actually think will happen when it happens; just like a drawing of a revolution. All the thing was made with loops. I had about 30 loops going, fed them onto one basic track. I was getting classical tapes, going upstairs and chopping them up, making it backwards and things like that, to get the sound effects. One thing was an engineer's testing voice saying, 'This is EMI test series number nine'. I just cut up whatever he said and I'd number nine it. Nine turned out to be my birthday and my lucky number and everything. I didn't realise it: it was just so funny the voice saying, 'number nine'; it was like a joke, bringing number nine into it all the time, that's all it was."

Recording

The earliest recording on Revolution 9 was on May 30, 1968, when Revolution 1 was recorded. Take 18 was the basis for the recorded version, and the sound effects included on the last six minutes of it were the original basis for Revolution 9. Onto that, John Lennon and Yoko Ono added a range of sound effects and tape loops, and recorded some new sounds. Work on Revolution 9 began on June 6, when Lennon prepared twelve sound effects tapes. Some were created by him, others were taken from Abbey Road Studios' archives. Five of these sound effects tapes were marked 'various,' with others labelled 'Vicars Poems', 'Queen's Mess', 'Come Dancing Combo', 'Organ Last Will Test', 'Neville Club', 'Theatre Outing' and 'Applause/TV Jingle'. Not all of these were used on Revolution 9. On June 10, Lennon spent three hours making three more sound effects tapes. On June 11, while Paul McCartney was in Studio Two recording Blackbird, Lennon was in Studio Three compiling more sound effects. The most significant day of recording was June 20, when Lennon, using studios one, two, and three from 7:00 PM to 3:30 AM, oversaw a live mix of his sound collage, with many tape loops being played across Abbey Road's various tape machines. Lennon told Playboy in 1980, "All those different bits of sound and noise are all compiled. There were about 10 machines with people holding pencils on the loops - some only inches long and some a yard long. I fed them all in and mixed them live. I did a few mixes until I got one I liked." Lennon played a large role that day, fading the sounds in and out in the control room. The following elements are indentified from the four-track tape made that day:

  • A loop of George Martin saying "Geoff, put the red light on," with heavy echo.
  • Choir with backwards violin.
  • Extracts from an orchestral performance, rearranged and played backwards.
  • A repeated sample taken from the orchestral overdub onto A Day In The Life recorded on February 10, 1967.
  • A Mellotron performed by Lennon and played backwards.
  • Various extracts from symphonic and operatic recordings.
  • The last chord from Sibelius' Seventh Symphony.
  • High pitched humming from Yoko Ono
  • Lennon and Harrison whispering the phrase "'There ain't no rule for the company freaks" six times.


The most memorable of theses is the "Number Nine" announcement throughout the tracks, which came from an examination tape from the Royal Academy of Music, formerly stored at Abbey Road Studios. Also during this session, Lennon, Ono, and Harrison recorded a number of random statements, such as Yoko Ono's "You become naked," John Lennon's "Industrial output, financial imbalance, the Watusi, the Twist," George Harrison's mention of El Dorado, and Lennon's "Take this brother, may it serve you well." The track heavily utilized Abbey Road's single tape echo and echo delay (STEED) reverb system. During the live mix of the song, the tape echo ran out, and around 5:11 the sound of a tape being rewound can be heard. Lennon told Playboys in 1980, "Yoko was there for the whole thing and she made decisions about which loops to use. It was somewhat under her influence, I suppose. Once I heard her stuff - not just the screeching and the howling but her sort of word pieces and talking and breathing and all this strange stuff, I thought, My God, I got intrigued... so I wanted to do one. I spent more time on Revolution 9 than I did on half the songs I ever wrote. It was a montage." A stereo mix of the song was made on June 21, 1968, after a final set of sound effects by Lennon and Harrison were recorded. On June 22, the track was finished, with an edit cutting it's running time from 9:05 to 8:12. On the final album, Revolution 9 was preceeded by two other recordings. The first was a Paul McCartney song called Can You Take Me Back? recorded during the I Will session on September 16, 1968. The twenty-eight second excerpt was edited from a full 2:21. The second recording was a small bit of conversation taken from an unknown Beatles session. It features Apple office manager Alistair Taylor apologizing to George Martin for forgetting to bring him a bottle of red wine.

Taylor: ...bottle of claret for you if I'd realised. I'd forgotten all about it George. I'm sorry.
Martin: Well, do next time.
Taylor: Will you forgive me?
Martin: Mmm, yes.
Taylor: Cheeky bitch.

These two recordings were added during a twenty-four hour session from October 16 to October 17, 1968, when The Beatles prepared the final running order, crossfades, and edits for The Beatles.

Recording Sessions


Charles Manson Interpretation

Like most of the "White Album," mass murderer Charles Manson took Revolution 9 as a sign that he had to murder. He found much symbolism in the song's effects and tape loops, and misheard Lennon shouting "Right!" as "Rise!," meaning that it was a call to 'rise' up to a revolt. Manson connected Revolution 9 with the Bible's Book of Revelations. He thought that The Beatles were four angels sent to kill a third of mankind, or the four locusts mentioned in Revelation 9, which he equated with beetles.

'Paul is dead' Interpretation

Revolution 9 came to be featured in the "Paul is dead" myth. When fans played the repeated words "Number Nine" backwards, it sounded to them like "Turn me on, dead man." Other "clues" were found in the song, such as the sound of a car crash, followed by an explosion. This coincided with the Paul is dead myth because it was rumored that McCartney had died in a car crash in 1966.

Personnel

The Beatles

Guest Musicians

Production

Available Versions

Known Unavailable Versions

All below recordings are unavailable on any release, bootleg or legitimate, unless otherwise noted

Available On

Cover Versions

Sources

Retrieved from "http://www.beatleswiki.org/wiki/Revolution_9"
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