REVOLUTION AND ITS INCREDIBLE RECORDING PROCESS.

The first time "Revolution" was committed to tape was on May 28th, 1968 when The Beatles all met at George's 'Kinfauns' home in Esher, Surrey, to make demo recordings of songs they were going to include on their next album. These recordings laid on George's four-track Ampex tape recorder, the group taking turns acoustically playing their newly written songs and then performing various overdubs as ideas of what they would do when they got in EMI Studios.

This demo recording of “Revolution” is very lighthearted and spirited, conveying the semi-political lyrics in a way that one could easily envision as their next single. John plays acoustic guitar and sings while the other Beatles clap along and occasionally join in on backing vocals with a great sense of harmony. John then double-tracks himself on acoustic guitar and vocals but, as the final verse begins to kick in, his timing gets noticeably off. This results in the overdubbed tambourine in this verse, probably played by Ringo, to compensate in order to catch the beat correctly. (This awkwardness stands corrected on the 50th Anniversary "White Album" releases.) All in all, while containing flaws, this acoustic version is very impressive and paints a very accurate picture of how Lennon originally conceived of the song.

The first song The Beatles took to recording during the extensive sessions for their new album, which became the “White Album,” was “Revolution.” Please refer to the “Revolution 1” page on this website for the detailed Recording History for that song.

Regarding the need to re-record the song a second time, John explains: “When George and Paul and all of them were on holiday, I made 'Revolution' which is on the LP. I wanted to put it out as a single, but they said it wasn't good enough...We recorded the song twice. The Beatles were getting real tense with each other. The first take, George, and Paul were resentful and said it wasn't fast enough. Now, if you go into the details of what a hit record is and isn't, maybe. But The Beatles could have afforded to put out the slow, understandable version of 'Revolution' as a single, whether it was a gold record or a wooden record. But, because they were so upset over the Yoko thing and the fact that I was again becoming as creative and dominating as I was in the early days, after lying fallow for a couple of years, it upset the applecart. I was awake again, and they weren't used to it.”

Engineer Geoff Emerick, in his book “Here, There And Everywhere,” details the disagreements about what would be their next single. “In the early days, George Martin had picked the songs that would comprise the A-side and B-side of a Beatles single. But by this point in their career, it would be the group's decision; George might offer some input or suggestions, but it was their final call. Apparently, John and Paul had been arguing for some time about what would be the next A-side. John was pushing hard for 'Revolution 1,' but Paul resisted, telling John he thought it was too slow; eventually, he brought George Martin in as an ally. Personally, I think Paul felt that the song simply wasn't all that good, and he was using its slow tempo as an excuse not to have it released as a single, but John had defiantly taken him up on the challenge and so was insisting that they cut it again, faster.”

With this in mind, John ran them through a series of rehearsals for a more up-tempo version of the song, designated as "Revolution (Remake)," in EMI Studio Three on July 9th, 1968 in the early morning hours after they continued their extensive work on Paul's “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da.” This occurred at approximately 1 am the following morning, The Beatles running through the song repeatedly, all of this still recorded with clean electric guitar minus any distortion. Common EMI practice at the time was to re-record over recorded material when decided that the contents of the tape ranked unusable, as this was. However, six minutes of these rehearsals, which comprised John on electric guitar and vocals, Paul on bass on harmony vocals, George on electric guitar and Ringo on drums, were discovered at the end of a re-recorded reel of tape sometime in 2018 when mixing new material for the 50th Anniversary "White Album" releases. These six minutes reveal an interesting transition between the sessions that resulted in "Revolution 1" and the harder "Revolution" as released as the b-side of "Hey Jude" in August of 1968, George touching on elements of his future Beatles composition "Old Brown Shoe" in the process. The session on this day ended at 3:30 am that morning.

The brief snippet of this taped discovery that appears on the Super Deluxe 50th Anniversary release of the "White Album" shows that it was John that plays lead guitar this time around. “On 'Revolution,' I'm playing the guitar,” he explained in an interview at the time, “and I haven't improved since I was last playing. It sounds the way I wanted it to sound. It's a pity I can't do it better, the fingering, you know. But, I couldn't have done that last year; I would have been too paranoiac. I couldn't play. George must play, or somebody better. My playing has probably improved a little bit on this session because I've been playing a little. I was always the rhythm guitar anyway, but I always wanted to fiddle about in the background.”

And how he wanted it was much different from the earlier version, as Geoff Emerick continues: “John wanted the second, up-tempo version of 'Revolution' to be even tougher and more biting than the first one. That was typical of him in those days; that was his vibe: pissed off. Ever since we'd first started work on the 'White Album,' John had wanted to play louder and louder – he kept winding his guitar amp full up, but there were acoustic limitations as to how loud you could play and still capture the sound before it turned into a mess, leaking onto everything else and becoming all muddy. He didn't understand that, no matter how many times I tried to explain it to him, so he just became more and more frustrated and angry. Making things worse was the fact that, behind the scenes, Magic Alex (Mardas) was telling him that he would be able to play as loud as he wanted, without restriction, in the new studio he was building for them.”

The following day (that is, later that evening), July 10th, 1968, The Beatles re-entered EMI Studio Three at around 7 pm to officially start recording the newer, faster version of “Revolution.” After the session tape from the previous day's rehearsal tape was rewound, the rhythm track was recorded on top of it first, this time consisting of John and George's electric guitars recorded on tracks one and two of the four-track tape, and Ringo's drums recorded on track three. “We got into distortion on that,” George Martin explains in the “Anthology” book, “which we had a lot of complaints from the technical people about. But that was the idea: it was John's song, and the idea was to push it right to the limit. Well, we went to the limit and beyond.”

Tape operator Phil McDonald remembers how they achieved the guitar distortion. “John wanted that sound, a really distorted sound. The guitars were put through the recording console, which was technically not the thing to do. It completely overloaded the channel and produced the fuzz sound. Fortunately the technical people didn't find out. They didn't approve of 'abuse of equipment.'" Kevin Howlett, in the "Track By Track" section of the Super Deluxe 50th Anniversary "White Album" book, describes this distortion effect as being achieved by plugging the guitars "straight into the mixing desk using KIT (Direct Injection Transformer) boxes. The overloaded mic amps in the desk produced a particularly abrasive form of distortion."

Ten 'takes' of the rhythm track were recorded on this day, one of which Apple included in the Super Deluxe 50th Anniversary "White Album" box set, apparently mislabeled as "take 14 - instrumental backing track" because of obvious differences between it and 'take 10,' which documented notes refer as the 'keeper.' Then, onto track four, was overdubbed handclaps and added snare drum beats from Ringo which, according to Mark Lewisohn's book “The Beatles Recording Sessions,” was “very heavy...compressed and limited and generally squashed to sound hard and uncompromising.” All four tracks of the tape were full at this point, so three attempts at a reduction mix were made, placing both guitars onto track one and all drums and handclaps onto track two, this reduction mix taking the song to 'take 13.' Onto this John concentrated on overdubbing his lead vocals onto track three, then manually double-tracking the odd word here and there for emphasis on track four, even though detected obvious flubs occurred on the released recording. This second vocal overdub also included the blood-curdling scream in the song's introduction. This filled up the four-track tape once again, so two more attempts remedied a tape reduction, this taking the song to 'take 15' with apparently both guitars on track one, all drums and percussion on track two, and both of John's vocals on track four. Rough mono mixes were made for John to take home. This session was complete at 1:30 am the following morning.

Later that day, July 11th, 1968, The Beatles returned to EMI Studio Three for two recording sessions, the first three-hour session used exclusively for an overdub on “Revolution.” This session started at 4 pm and lasted until 7 pm; the only thing accomplished here being an electric piano overdub during strategic parts of the song. This electric piano was surprisingly not played by any of The Beatles but by studio musician Nicky Hopkins, who was an in-demand session player who had recently worked with The Rolling Stones on their late 1967 hit “She's A Rainbow.” He got on well with George, Paul, and Ringo on their June 25th recording session for George's song "Sour Milk Sea" for Apple artist Jackie Lomax, so he was thought of to contribute to this Beatles song as well. Nicky Hopkins relationship with The Beatles continued afterward with his contributions to various solo albums by John, George, and Ringo in the '70s.

The second session in EMI Studio Three on this day started immediately afterward, running from 7 pm to 3:45 am the following morning, the change in sessions probably due to the switching of 2nd engineers from Richard Lush to Phil McDonald. While most of this session engaged work on Paul's “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da,” a further tape reduction of “Revolution” was made in order to open up yet more tracks for overdubbing, 'take 15' becoming 'take 16.' on a song now documented as "Revolution No. 2." Onto this, Paul recorded his first bass guitar part for the song onto open track four.

One more session was determined to be necessary to complete this new version of “Revolution,” this session held in the now vacant EMI Studio Two beginning at midnight, July 13th, 1968, after an hour break following an eight-hour session on the evening of the previous day.

Geoff Emerick recalls the frustration of recording this song which came to a head on this day. “All that week...John had been exceptionally moody. 'No, no, I want that guitar to sound dirtier!' He kept demanding of me, often without even giving me a moment's space to try something out. By the end of the week, it was really starting to get to me. Fridays were usually a little more tolerable than the other nights because I at least had the weekend to look forward to – two days away from the nastiness in the studio. But on this evening, Lennon arrived at the studio looking ready to chew someone's head off, and I was the nearest target.”

“'Haven't you sorted out that bloody guitar sound yet, Geoff?' he asked me almost as soon as he walked in the door. Actually, I had an idea I wanted to try – one that I thought might satisfy John, even though it was equipment abuse of the most severe kind. Because no amount of mic preamp overload had been good enough for him, I decided to try to overload two of them patched together, one into the other. As I knelt down beside the console, turning knobs that I was expressly forbidden from touching because they could literally cause the console to overheat and blow up, I couldn't help but think: 'If I was the studio manager and saw this going on, I'd fire myself.' The ironic thing was that, years later, this ended up being precisely the guitar sound every grunge band in the world aspired to.”

“Lennon stood over me as I knelt there, a relentless taskmaster hammering his guitar harder and harder as I delicately moved the knobs, trying to come up with the maximum amount of overload the board could take without bursting into flames. Suddenly he ran out of patience and growled, 'You know, three months in the army would have done you good.' The nasty remark implied that I was just some kind of upper-class twit who had never been exposed to the real world...I somehow managed to keep my cool and finish the session.”

While, as Geoff mentioned above, the highly distorted guitar sound heard on “Revolution” became the touchstone for various genres of rock and roll throughout the decades, it was very startling for 1968. "You had a full spectrum of frequencies distorted," Emerick explained in Andy Babiuk's book "Beatles Gear," adding, "Today, you'd just have 5kHz distorting, or maybe 60Hz distorting." Even George

Harrison, when interviewed for the book “Beatles Anthology,” states: “The thing about 'Revolution' (and you could get into a debate about this), is that it's not so much the song but the attitude in which it was done. I think 'Revolution' is pretty good, and it grooves along, but I don't particularly like the noise that it makes, and I say 'noise' because I didn't like the distorted sound of John's guitar.”

Paul countered with “I liked the sound on 'Revolution,'" but many in the record-buying public thought differently. Chris Ingham's book “The Rough Guide To The Beatles” relates that “the track's brutally over-driven guitars caused many a 'Hey Jude' lover to attempt to return the record, imagining there was something wrong with the B-side. Harassed record department assistants were heard explaining, 'it's called distortion, apparently. It's meant to sound like that.'" Since the sound level in the second half of "Hey Jude" needed to be lower because of it being such a long song contained on a seven-inch disc, it habitually startled many record owners when they simply turned the record over to play the b-side. This, of course, is what John intended.

After John recorded another distorted guitar part, Paul superimposed another bass guitar part. The result of the final master tape comprised John and George's original distorted electric guitars on track one, all drums and handclaps on track two, Nicky Hopkins playing electric piano, two lead vocals and final John electric guitar on track three, on Paul's bass on track four. Four attempts at a mono mix took place, made by George Martin, Geoff Emerick, and Richard Lush, documented as 'remixes 10 through 13,' and the session was over by 4 am.

John took one of these mono mixes home to review over the weekend and determined that engineers could do better. Therefore, on July 15th, 1968, the first order of business in EMI Studio Two at 3:30 pm was to create a new mono mix for “Revolution.” The same engineering team of Martin, Emerick, and Lush gave it two more tries, indicating them as 'remixes 20 and 21' for some reason, but the final mix sounded worthy of The Beatles next single.

Or was it?  Two weeks later, Paul brought a song into the recording studio that he felt was more suited for the next Beatles single, and everyone agreed it was better. “We put out 'Hey Jude,' which was worthy – but we could have had both,” Lennon remarked in 1970, eventually admitting in 1980 that it was “one of his masterpieces.” John relinquished the A-side to the next single to Paul's “Hey Jude” but did end up striking a startling note with the general public with “Revolution” as the B-side.

On August 8th, 1968, George Martin made a tape copy of 'mono remix 21' in the control room of EMI Studio Two, which he indicated as 'number 5,' to review in preparation for the upcoming single release along with the recently created mono mix for “Hey Jude.”

George Martin saw fit to make yet another tape copy of "Revolution" on September 3rd, 1968 in the control room of EMI Studio Two but for an entirely different purpose. The Beatles were to mime to this recording for a promotional film for television and, in order to escape the British Musicians' Union ban on miming, needed to sing live for the clip. The tape copy made on this day was instrumental only, panning out all vocals for their use the following day at Twickenham Film Studios.

Since “Revolution” was only intended as a single, no stereo version of the song was created in 1968, mono being the format used for all singles at that time. The first stereo mix for the song occurred on December 5th, 1969 in preparation for the soon-to-be-released American album “Hey Jude” (aka “The Beatles Again”). This single attempt at a stereo mix was made in EMI Studios Room 4 by George Martin, Geoff Emerick, Phil McDonald, and Neil Richmond. The startling left / right separation on this mix is quite jarring, diluting the impact of the overall sound on the superior mono mix. In 1974, Lennon expressed his dissatisfaction in this stereo mix by saying that "they took a heavy record and turned it into a piece of ice cream!" John's distorted guitar work is also quite softer in the mix, which is somewhat disappointing.

The Beatles did perform two impromptu renditions of "Revolution" during the filmed and taped rehearsals for what became the "Let It Be" movie. While they were rehearsing new material at Twickenham Film Studios in January of 1969, they touched on the song on both January 2nd and 7th, but neither were officially released as of yet.

Meanwhile, the officially released stereo mix of "Revolution" was improved upon sometime between 2004 and 2006 when George Martin and his son Giles Martin returned to the master tape to create a new stereo version of the song for use in the Cirque du Soliel production “Love.” This superior stereo version is included on the resulting compact disc album of the same name in a truncated form, although the entire stereo mix they made at this time is available on the DVD and iTunes version of the album.

Sometime in 2018, Giles Martin, along with engineer Sam Okell, took to creating stereo mixes of both the newly discovered studio rehearsal of the song on July 9th, 1968 and one of the instrumental takes recorded on July 10th for inclusion on the Super Deluxe 50th Anniversary edition of the "White Album" as released in 2018. The original Esher demo of the song, as The Beatles recorded on May 28th, 1968, was also mixed during this time and was included on various 50th Anniversary editions of the "White Album."

Song Structure and Style

The structure for "Revolution" is quite standard, namely 'verse/ bridge/ chorus/ verse/ bridge/ chorus/ solo/ verse/ bridge/ chorus' (or abcabcdabc) with an introduction and conclusion thrown in. The song is predominantly in 4/4 time with a swing beat but with exceptions as we'll see below.

The introduction is four measures long, the first three measures taken up primarily with John on manic highly distorted guitar playing triplets, moving to a startling riff in the fourth measure to usher in the first verse that follows. Ringo joins in with a thud on snare and kick drum on the downbeat of the third measure and then provides a simple snare drum fill at the end of the fourth measure as a segue into the verse. One final element not to be forgotten is the blood-curdling shriek John gives at the end of the third measure which extends throughout the fourth measure, undoubtedly shredding his vocal cords to an equal degree as he did nearly five-and-a-half years earlier on “Twist And Shout.”

The first verse, like all the verses, last twelve-measures long and are mostly in 4/4 time, the exception being the second and eighth measures which are in 6/4 time to allow John to stretch out his phrase “well, you know” on both occasions. The full band kicks in for this entire verse, both John and George playing electric rhythm guitar with John overdubbing another guitar on top, Paul on bass and Ringo playing a double-tracked full drum beat focusing on toms and heavy snare without the use of any cymbals. John's vocals are double-tracked sporadically, such as on the words “revolution,” “know” and “world” in the first phrase, and then on the third syllable of the word “evolution” in the second phrase with what sounds like the word “juice,” making it appear that he's singing “evo-juice-tion”! Then after he double-tracks the words “well, you know,” the chords change to move nicely into the bridge that follows.

The bridges are all five measures long, all of which are in 4/4 time except for the third measure which is in 6/4. The guitars all play staccato chops on the downbeats of measures one through three and then power chords on the accents at the end of the third measure which holds out nicely into the final measures of the bridge. Paul's bass accentuates the guitar chords throughout while Ringo plays a double-tracked snare and kick drum pattern for the first three measures, heard here with handclaps, and then accents the power chords at the end of that measure with added crashing cymbals. Speaking of cymbals, Ringo's cymbal crash swells in the first measure of this bridge and then dissipates just before the second measure begins, possibly the result of the use of compression during the mixing stage. The fourth measure has Ringo thumping on the kick drum while he then plays a triplet drum fill on mostly the snare drum in the fifth measure to bring on the following chorus. As for John's vocals, his double-tracking kicks in on the words “destruction” and “count me out,” as well as the phrase that brings in the chorus, namely the falsetto “don't you know it's gonna be.”

The chorus is a standard eight measures long and is fully in 4/4 time for a change. For the first six measures, three electric guitars are churning away playing various rhythm and lead patterns while the bass follows nicely and the drums plod along similarly to how they played during the first verse. John sings his simple “all right” phrase three times, his double-tracking appearing on the word “all” the first time and then on the word “right” for the other two times. The seventh and eighth measures break the intensity as Ringo cymbal crashes an abrupt 'Beatles break' with the guitar chords and bass ringing out. In the break, John performs a transitional chord-like lead guitar run while Ringo finalizes the eighth measure with another triplet pattern drum fill.

Next comes a virtual repeat of another verse, bridge, and chorus, the instrumentation remaining identical to the first. John's vocal double-tracking in the verse consists of the middle syllable of the word “solution” and then “well, you know” and “love” in the first phrase, then “you ask” and “you know” in the second phrase. No double-tracked vocals occurred in this bridge, but the second and third “all right” in the chorus that follows is double-tracked, the second occurrence being noticeably off in timing. The final two measures in this chorus have two additional elements, these being John giving out a falsetto “ooh” at the end of measure seven and a highly fuzzed additional guitar overdub which slightly bends and bleeds into the solo section that follows.

This solo section can be parsed out to be eight measures long and in 4/4 time except for the second measure, which is in 6/4 as the verses are. Instrumentally, the same elements are present and played in a similar fashion as in the verses but with some added elements. Most noteworthy is the presence of Nicky Hopkins on electric piano which appears throughout this entire section of the song. He's not playing a solo per se but is vamping appropriately and heard most prominently in the first two measures, John kicking in with raunchy lead guitar work in measures three through eight which leads to a transitional climax. Another element is John 's rhythmic grunting which huffs throughout this section at various volumes. Interestingly, Ringo adds a rapid-fire snare drum fill in the sixth measure followed thereafter by his usual triplet snare fill in the final measure.

Next follows another verse, bridge and chorus set, not unlike the first set except for new lyrics. An overdubbed lead guitar passage arrives in the final three measures of the bridge which extend into the final chorus but are faded down and out by the end of the third measure of said chorus. Double-tracked vocals in this verse consist of the third syllable of the word “constitution” and “well, you know” in the first phrase, and the first syllable of the word “institution” in the second phrase. In the bridge, John made sure he double-tracked the word “Mao,” the rhyming word “anyhow,” and the falsetto phrase “don't you know it's gonna be.” As for the chorus, he double-tracked the first “all right,” the word “all” the second time the phrase is repeated, and the word “right” the third time the phrase enters. The final measure of this last chorus features John's excited “All right!” as repeated seven more times in the conclusion of the song that follows.

This conclusion is eight measures long and features all instrumentation as heard throughout the song as well as the return of Nicky Hopkins on electric piano playing rhythmic flourishes intended to bring the song to a climactic finish. John vibrantly repeats the phrase “All Right!” seven more times, each one accelerating in intensity until the rawness of the final one in the seventh measure. An overdubbed lead guitar passage reaches such a fever pitch in volume that it cuts in and out of the mix, giving the impression that it was overloading the circuitry of the equipment, which it undoubtedly was. (Witness the solo in Badfinger's song “Love Is Easy” which is said to have been recorded the same way as “Revolution” by Beatles producer Chris Thomas.) Ringo puts in another rapid-fire snare fill at the end of the fourth measure and then brings the song to a natural conclusion within the eighth measure with the multiple distorted guitars ringing out, leaving the listener breathless.

With John at the wheel, all four Beatles, along with Nicky Hopkins, performed with the utmost enthusiasm to create what is arguably the raunchiest, ear-splitting Beatles song in their catalog. “Helter Skelter,” which they recorded approximately two months later, may have been thought of as equal to what was done here, as was a couple other heavy tracks included on the “White Album” to a lesser degree, but “Revolution” brought this organized cacophony of sound to AM radio unlike anything heard there before. What better precursor to The Sex Pistols or Nirvana could there have been but none other than The Beatles, once again the 'pied pipers' for the future of popular music.

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