REVOLUTION 9, AND ITS BIZARRE, EVEN LUDICROUS RECORDING PROCESS.

"Revolution 9" stems directly from their recording of "Revolution 1," which transpired on May 30th and 31st, as well as June 4th, 1968.  (The brass and lead guitar overdub for "Revolution 1" on June 21st did not play a part in "Revolution 9.")

While the majority of what made up “Revolution 9” consisted of tape loops, certain elements of the underlying last six minutes of the original “Revolution 1” did surface on the finished product.  These include John's repeated shouting of the words “Right” and “Alright” along with his moaning during his initial lead vocal performance, as well as his and Yoko's banter that include her off-the-wall phrase “you become naked,” recorded on 'take 18' of the initial rhythm track on May 30th, 1968.

The first day that attention loomed to what we know as “Revolution 9” was June 6th, 1968.  The Beatles had assembled in EMI Studio Two on this day at 2:30 pm for work on Ringo's song “Don't Pass Me By,” this rather extensive work taking until approximately midnight.  Before they left for the evening, however, sound effects had begun being acquired for future use in “Revolution 9.”  Mark Lewisohn's book “The Beatles Recording Sessions” describes the effects John assembled as “some of his own making, others culled from his own and the Abbey Road collections.”

There were twelve of such sound effects compiled on this day, some of which, we can easily assume, were taken directly from the “trusty green cabinet” of the EMI tape library, although some may have been made by Lennon in his home studio beforehand.  George and Ringo presumably retrieved the ones taken from the EMI library as George had indicated in interviews since they were both present on this day and were out of the country when the remaining sound effects were collected.  This means that the “number nine, number nine” tape was acquired on this day.  Engineer Richard Lush remembers:  “The 'number nine' voice came off an examination tape.  John thought that was a real hoot!  He made a loop of just that bit and had it constantly playing on one machine, fading it in or out when he wanted it, along with the backward orchestral stuff and everything else.”  Engineer Stuart Eltham relates:  “Abbey Road used to do taped examinations for the Royal Academy of Music.  The tapes aren't around now.”  Therefore, the identity of the voice appears lost forever.

John had this to say about that particular tape loop:  “The 'number nine...' was an engineer's voice.  They have test tapes to see that the tapes are all right, and the voice was saying: 'This is number nine megacycles...'  I just liked the way he said 'number nine' so I made a loop and brought it in whenever I felt like it...It was just so funny, the voice saying 'number nine,' it was like a joke, bringing 'number nine' in it all the time, that's all it was.  There are many symbolic things about it, but it just happened.”

John elaborated further on the personal significance of this number.  “In June 1952, I drew four guys playing football and 'number nine' is the number on the guy's back, and that was pure coincidence.  I was born on 9th October.  I lived at 9 Newcastle Road.  Nine seems to be my number, so I've stuck with it, and it's the highest number in the universe, after that, you go back to one...It's just a number that follows me around, but numerologically, apparently I'm a number six or a three or something, but it's all part of nine.”

As for the twelve sound effects collected on this day, five of them showed simply labeled as “Various,” the “number nine” recording undoubtedly being one of them.  The other six were labeled as follows:  “Vicars Poems,” “Queen's Mess,” “Come Dancing Combo,” "Organ Last Will Test," “Neville Club,” “Theatre Outing” and “Applause/TV Jingle.”  Note must be taken, though, that not all of these sound effects were necessarily used for “Revolution 9” since some of these became part of the stage adaptation of Lennon's book “In His Own Write,” the London premiere of which was at the Old Vic theatre in London on June 18th, 1968, directed by actor/friend Victor Spinetti.  On this day, however, the session ended after the sound effects were recorded and labeled, the EMI doors apparently closing at 2:45 am the following morning.

The next session concerning “Revolution 9” was June 10th, 1968.  With both George and Ringo absent on this day, they both flying out to America from June 7th to the 18th, John utilized this studio time by himself (with Yoko undoubtedly by his side) to assemble more sound effects for his brainchild “sound collage” masterpiece.  He arrived in EMI Studio Three at 2:30 pm to capture three more sound effects onto tape for eventual use on the finished product, although none of these received labels at the time.  It also appears that none of the effects yet recorded for this track were cut into loops yet, only committed to tape to be cut and spliced together at a future session.  This session was over early, John and Yoko documented to have left the studio at 5:45 pm.

The next day, June 11th, 1968, with George and Ringo still out of the country, both John and Paul assembled in EMI Studios for more work on what became the “White Album.” However, Paul arrived at 6:30 pm and worked alone in EMI Studio Two working on a new composition of his entitled “Blackbird” while John arrived at 7 pm and worked alone (along with Yoko) in EMI Studio Three compiling yet more sound effects for “Revolution 9.”

Producer George Martin had recently acquired a new assistant, the young Chris Thomas, who ultimately got his feet wet by becoming a producer for certain Beatles sessions during the making of the “White Album.”  Engineer Geoff Emerick, in his book “Here, There And Everywhere,” explains: “One by-product of Chris's being there as surrogate producer was that The Beatles – who clearly didn't like being in one another's company anymore – were able to split up into small groups, working simultaneously in two or even all three of the studios in the Abbey Road complex.  This soon became standard operating procedure for much of the rest of the 'White Album.'  It was as if the four band members were so much in separate spaces personally, they wanted to make their record in separate spaces physically.  On those evenings, I would normally work with Paul because I had the best rapport with him...That was the situation on the night that we worked on...'Blackbird.'”

Emerick continues: “Neither Ringo nor George was present on that particular evening, and John wanted to (continue) compiling sound effects for what would ultimately become 'Revolution 9,' so as soon (as) he learned that another studio was available, he decided to head off with Chris Thomas and Phil (McDonald) – accompanied, as usual, by Yoko.  That left George Martin and me alone with Paul, which came as a blessed relief to me after all the stress of the preceding sessions; it always was a lot easier to deal with one Beatle.”

The book “The Beatles Recording Sessions” mentions how surrogate producer Chris Thomas recalls “going with John to find sound effects tapes and helping him make up loops,” so it appears that actual tape loops were now being created for use during the mixing stage of “Revolution 9.”  The sound effects assembled on this day, however, were unnumbered and undocumented, so there is no telling which effects they decided upon during this session.  It did end rather early though; John and Yoko left the studio at around 10:15 pm.

The next session for “Revolution 9” occurred on June 20th, 1968, beginning at 7 pm.  George and Ringo finally returned to the country, and George (but not Ringo) was present on this day, but Paul had flown out to New York at 6 pm, an hour before the session began, and therefore not present.  There was almost no recording session in Beatles history that Paul wasn't present for, but this marked one of them.  However, this wasn't the only reason why this session was especially unique for EMI Studios as Geoff Emerick recalls: “George Martin had booked all three Abbey Road studios for the complicated mix of the sound pastiche known as 'Revolution 9.'...It was just John and a rather unenthusiastic George Harrison working on the track.  The two of them, accompanied by Yoko, would occasionally venture out into the studio to whisper a few random words into a microphone.  Just as we had done when we mixed 'Tomorrow Never Knows' two years previously, every tape machine in the facility was required for the playback of tape loops, with every available maintenance engineer once again standing around in his white coat holding pencils in place.  The big difference was that on this night there was a good deal of resentment among the staff because the session was running quite late – well past midnight – and they wanted to go home.  I didn't blame them; many of them had been there since nine in the morning – they didn't turn up in mid-afternoon like we did.  Plus, the session had to be dead boring for them because they couldn't even hear any sound; they were just standing in the various control rooms, holding pencils while the tape went round and round.  Occasionally one of the loops would break, and they'd have to get on the phone and let us know, which, of course, annoyed John no end.”

John himself recounted this session in 1980:  “There were about ten 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...I spent more time on 'Revolution 9' than I did on half the other songs I ever wrote.”

Concerning John's involvement with the mixing stage of this track, Geoff Emerick relates:  “By the time of the 'White Album,' it was not uncommon for various Beatles to sit behind the mixing board alongside me; they were no longer afraid to touch the equipment. On this night John sat with me behind the console like a kid with a new toy.  He was the composer, and he knew what he wanted, so he manned the faders instead of me, although I served as an extra pair of hands, doing bits of panning and looking after the overall level, so things didn't get out of hand and distort.”

“The whole thing was extremely haphazard,” Emerick continues.  “If he'd raise a fader and there was no sound, he'd say, 'Where's it gone?'  A curse word might escape his lips from time to time, but that was about it.  He never really lost his temper that night, though you could tell from his tone of voice that he was getting irritated.  Yoko, as always, was by his side, whispering in John's ear and lifting the odd fader on occasion.  Every once in a while, Lennon would shoot a glance at George Martin and me to see if we approved of what he was doing.  Personally, I thought the track was interesting, but it seemed as though it was as much Yoko's as it was John's.  Certainly, it wasn't Beatles music.”

To identify and/or categorize all of the sound effects that appear in “Revolution 9” is a true Herculean task.  Author and historian Mark Lewisohn, in preparation for writing his book “The Beatles Recording Sessions,” was treated to the experience of actually hearing the source tapes for all of the Beatles recording sessions including this track.  He reveals the following from what he observed:

“A close study of the four-track tape reveals the loops and effects to include:  George Martin saying 'Geoff...put the red light on,' heavily echoed and played repeatedly.  A choir, supplemented by backward violins.  A symphonic piece, chopped up and played backward.  A brief extract of the 10 February 1967 'A Day In The Life' orchestral overdub, repeated over and over.  Backward mellotron (played by John), miscellaneous symphonies and operas.”

Of the classical music pieces heard therein, sources have cited the following as their sources:  Beethoven's Choral Fantasy “The Streets Of Cairo,” Schumann's “Symphonic Studies” (backwards tape), Vaughan Williams motet “O Clap Your Hands,” and the final chord of Sibelius' “Symphony No. 7.”  Also included are Farid al-Atrash's Arabic song “Awal Hamsha” (just after the seven-minute mark), a French horn/Oboe duet, a backward electric guitar, and a tape loop previously used in the Beatles song “Tomorrow Never Knows.” Various straightforward sound effects are also heard, such as gunfire, loud crashing cymbals, crowd laughter, breaking glass, car horns, and a crowd of American football fans chanting “Hold that line / Block that kick!, “some sources citing that they come from an Elektra Records Sound Effects album. All in all, at least 45 different sound sources have been identified.

One interesting element of “Revolution 9” recorded on this day involved John, Yoko, and George.  Mark Lewisohn relates:  “The original tape does indeed show that John and George went on the studio floor to read out bizarre lines of prose – in voices sometimes equally bizarre – into a couple of microphones, abetted by Yoko Ono humming at a very high pitch.  These ran for the duration of 'Revolution 9,' then faded in and out of the master at John's whim.  Among John's random pieces were 'personality complex,' 'onion soup,' 'economically viable,' 'industrial output,' financial imbalance,' 'the watusi,' 'the twist' and 'take this brother, may it serve you well.'  George's contributions included 'Eldorado' and shared with John Lennon and whispered six times over, 'There ain't no rule for the company freaks!'  At the end of their long overdub, still whispering, John said to George, 'We'd better listen to it then, hadn't we?”

Upon listening, it's of interest to hear that after several minutes of fading in and out the large variety of sound effects, John opted to hone in on individual sounds to finish off the track.  After isolating his voice saying “Take this, brother, may it serve you well,” he cut directly to the final section of “Revolution 1” with his and Yoko muttering somewhat incoherent phrases.  Then, just after Yoko's words “you become naked,” he cuts directly into the isolated football crowd chant of “Hold that line / Block that kick” and then fades out the track with this extensive tape loop being the final thing heard.

Engineer Alan Brown explains yet another unintentional effect heard prominently on the finished recording.  “In 'Revolution 9' we had the STEED system of tape echo fed via a tape delay system.  The track ran for so long that there is one point where the delay runs out and you can hear the tape being re-wound, live.  Even that impromptu thing, an accident, contributed to the finished result.”

All in all, this unique recording session ended at 3:30 am the following morning.  Actually accomplished on this day was viewed as assembling the “master version” of “Revolution 9,” not the actual mixing of the track which was to happen the following day (actually later that day).

There were, in fact, two recording sessions on June 21st, 1968 in EMI Studio Two.  The earlier session was primarily for adding brass to John's “Revolution 1” while the second was to mix “Revolution 9” into stereo.  John and George were the only Beatles present on this day and, after an hour break from the end of the first session, they returned for their second session at 10 pm that evening.  Documentation indicates that an additional overdub to “Revolution 9” surfaced at this session, but the identity of the overdub is not known.

John, along with George Martin and engineers Geoff Emerick and Richard Lush, made two attempts at creating this stereo mix in the control room of EMI Studio Two, the second attempt being the keeper.  Mark Lewisohn writes that John “had a marvelous time” working on this stereo mix, “pushing different images through on both channels and panning the words 'number nine' across the stereo in fractions of a second.” John also thought to pan the final “Hold that line / Drop that kick” chanting back and forth repeatedly during most of the closing seconds. The track clocked in at 9:05, the longest Beatles track ever.  With this complete, as well as creating a stereo mix of “Revolution 1,” this session ended at 3:30 am the following morning.

One final thing needed to be done to get “Revolution 9” to its releasable state, and that was accomplished on June 25th, 1968 in the control room of EMI Studio Two by John and the engineering team of Martin, Emerick, and Lush.  A decision was made to edit the previously made stereo master from 9:05 to 8:15, reducing the length to a good degree but still managing to be the longest Beatles track in their released catalog.  This having been done, as well as creating yet another stereo mix of “Revolution 1,” a tape copy of “Revolution 9” was made for John's listening pleasure.  By 8 pm, this session was complete for the day.

Since Paul was not involved in the creating of this recording, most of the time being out of the country, the question remained of what his reaction to the finished “Revolution 9” would be. Geoff Emerick relates: “A few days later, all four Beatles reunited in the studio, and John proudly played the two tracks that he had completed while the rest were away.  I could see from the dark cloud that came over Paul's face that he was totally underwhelmed with 'Revolution 9' when he first heard it, and there was an awkward silence after the track faded out.  John looked at Paul expectantly, but Paul's only comment was 'Not bad,' which I knew was a diplomatic way of saying that he didn't like it. Ringo and George Harrison had nothing to say about the track at all.  They looked distinctly embarrassed, and you could tell that neither one of them wanted to get caught in the middle of this.”

“'Not bad?' Lennon said derisively to Paul.  'You have no idea what you're talking about.  In fact, this should be our next bloody single!  This is the direction The Beatles should be going in from now on.'  Yoko, with an appalling lack of tact, managed to aggravate things further still by blurting out, 'I agree with John. I think it's great.'...Judging from his look of disdain, I was quite sure Paul was thinking, 'You've got to be kidding,' but, to his credit, he didn't rise to the bait and didn't argue...he simply didn't see it as Beatles music, and he certainly didn't agree that it was the direction that The Beatles should go in.”  One can only imagine what would have transpired if John got his way in releasing “Revolution 9” as the next single instead of “Hey Jude”!

The usual custom of the time was to create both a stereo and mono mix for release of each Beatles recording.  The mono mix of “Revolution 9” occurred on August 20th, 1968 in the control room of EMI Studio Three by engineers Ken Scott and John Smith, but not in the usual way.  Since the complicated stereo mix could in no way be duplicated for a separate mono mix, a decision was made to create a straightforward dub of the stereo mix that combined both channels into one.  This was improved upon, though, on August 26th, 1968, by the same engineering team to ready it for release on the mono pressings of the album.

One final process was needed before the final release of the “White Album” was prepared, and that was the track selection and final sequencing of the album.  This was done during a record-breaking 24-hour session at EMI that stretched from 5 pm, October 16th to 5 pm October 17th, 1968.  Decisions were made on this day to omit songs from the album, these turning out to be George's “Not Guilty” and John's “What's The New Mary Jane.”  However, there was also strong consideration for one more omission.  Geoff Emerick writes: “When they were sequencing the 'White Album,' I heard through the grapevine that John and Paul ultimately had a huge row over 'Revolution 9.'  Paul absolutely did not want it on the album, and John was just as adamant that it would be on there.  In the end, of course, he got his way.”

During this sequencing session, however, a decision was made to infuse a quiet introduction to “Revolution 9.”  An interesting recording of a conversation between George Martin and Apple office manager Alistair Taylor was added to the track, then chosen as the opening segment to the entire recording.  Alistair is heard begging forgiveness from George for forgetting to bring a “bottle of Claret” for him.  “Well, do it next time,” George instructs.  “Will you forgive me?” Alistair asks.  After George says “Yes,” Alistair then proceeds to call him a “cheeky bitch!”  The actual date of this spoken word recording has never been documented.

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