Over the past couple of days, Beatles fanatics have been chattering about an amazing outtake that recently leaked onto the Internet. The 10-minute-plus recording of "Revolution" (embedded below) offers a fascinating look at the wildly ambitious plans the band originally had for the song, eventually included in much shorter form on The White Album. "As someone who’s heard, I’d say, 99.8 percent of the Beatles music that hasleaked onto bootleg, this is really interesting," says Richie Unterberger, author of the book The Unreleased Beatles.
According to Mark Lewisohn’s definitive book The Beatles: Recording Sessions, this unheard version was recorded on May 30 and 31, and June 4, 1968. Strangely, John Lennon recorded his vocals while lying flat on his back, hoping it might make his voice sound different. The song starts off very similar to the version that was eventually released, but halfway through it veers off in all sorts of strange directions, adding whooping vocals, tape loops, and other sonic embellishments. It sounded great, as you can hear above, but there was a problem: The band quickly realized "Revolution" had potential as a single, and a 10-minute running time would make that impossible. The solution? They chopped it in half. The first part became "Revolution 1," while the rest served as the basis for the "Revolution 9," an experimental noise-fest that has long baffled many fans. Mystery solved! When you listen to this complete 10-minute version, suddenly "Revolution 9" starts to make a lot more sense.
How the track leaked after all this time is hard to say. It’s possible — but highly improbable — that one of the few people with access to EMI’s vaults swiped it. More likely, it came (indirectly) from Lennon himself. According to Lewisohn’s book, Lennon took a copy of the song home with him from the studio after the June 4 session. It’s possible that the recording sat in his apartment in the Dakota for years, and somebody — the cable guy? The dog walker? — recently stole it. "That’s not so far-fetched," says Unterberger. "John kept a lot of his tapes. Who knows if it was someone rummaging through Yoko’s stuff in an unauthorized capacity, but it’s possible that she still had that tape." But whatever happened, we’re grateful. It’s not often that completely new Beatles material trickles out, and we’re eager for anything that helps solve the endless mysteries of the band’s ever-elusive genius.
So what do you think? Is this better than the two songs it became, "Revolution 1" and "Revolution 9"? Or would you rather keep listening to the originals?
Who is the female sounding voice and what is (she) saying there at the end?
Boy, that’s really irritating.
I’ll just continue to listen to the original, thank you.
Interesting – though I still prefer the straight-up rock-and-roll of “Revolution 1.” Hearing it slowed down with “shoo-be-doowop” background vocals was strange.
They definitely were listening to a lot of John Cage and Sun Ra when they recorded the White Album. And Rebecca, I’d recommend listening to the White Album the whole way through once in your life- the “shoo-be-doowop”s are in there and are nothing new.
LSD is bad MMM Kay
Mary Joo Wanna is bad MMM Kay.
Glad their producer was looking out for the bottom line. They never would have survived on junk like this.
I think a lot of people–including the article’s author–forget that the single version of Revolution–released as a B-side to “Hey Jude”– is actually much faster and louder, and more well known. The slower, album version, “Revolution 1″, with all the shoo-be-doowops, was actually recorded first, but NOT release as a single as such.
Jeff, the woman who says “you become naked” at the end is probably Yoko Ono, no?
WOW now it makes sence why there are 2 different versions of that
Revolution 1 and Revolution 9 they both add up to 10 which is how long this song is.
The Beatles were a very mysterious group. But I love them anyway.
You know, until the blogosphere came along, I always thought it was old farts who always had a kneejerk (with the emphasis on jerk) reaction to anything “new”. This was obviously something experimental they did with what would become a Beatles classic, and I’m thrilled to hear it, thank you very much. I do, however, feel a little dirty if it was indeed stolen. It’s The Beatles, though. How could I resist. (By the way, that’s Yoko, who says, “…if you become naked…” at the end.)
The last six minutes is out there. With all those looped siren sounding guitars, vocal effects, and then the sampled outro. This became the basis of the heavily sampled and mixed looped affects of “Revolution #9″?
Dan- you’re right, I misspoke (mis-typed?). I was referring to the single version of “Revolution,” the more up-tempo version of the song.
What was the purpose in making it so long? It was repetitive noise. I still enjoyed listening.
Sure it will be better choice for White Album neither two Revolutions existed on album.
Great stuff. Why choose? Much like Bob Dylan, who does multiple versions of songs, each one has it’s own charm. Revolution #9 is a great way to end the album, and with Good Night after it, it doesn’t get any better.
That woman’s voice at the end is Yoko at the end. The story I heard is that John and Yoko recorded the experimental part that became Revolution #9 one night and finished it off at dawn by making love for the first time.
What the hell? EMI is all ready blocking ET from allowing us to hear the clip? Number one, it is a news story so ET should have showed some balls in the matter. Second, this is another example why the days of companies like EMI are almost over. I am just going to download the track … for free. Thanks, EMI
I’ve been waiting years for this! On my iIPOD, I’ve programmed the ‘ WHITER ALBUM’, deleted Revolution 1 and 9…put this in the place of Revolution 9, with What’s The News Mary Jane (from the Anthology 3) preceding it, after ‘Cry Baby Cry’ . Put ‘”Not Guilty ” (also from Anthology 3) after “Birthday” and before ‘Mother Nature’s Son. Add the 6 orchestral tracks from Yellow Submarine soundtrack, they fit nicely after ‘Good Night’…and VOILA! The bizarre ‘WHITER ALBUM’!