'Revolution 9': The case for the defence of The Beatles' weirdest song
The Beatles released some of the catchiest, most accessible and melodic songs in the history of music.
In the early days there were hits like 'She Loves You', 'Yesterday' and 'Help!'. Even as they developed, you had songs like 'Revolution', 'Something' and 'Let It Be'.
'Carnival of Light': The mysterious Beatles recording that still hasn't been released. But The Beatles were never afraid to experiment.
With the help of the genius that was Fifth Beatle George Martin, even on their first records they pushed the technology available to its limits, marrying new techniques with their own unique style of songwriting.
But it was after they quit touring in 1966 that they really took advantage of the time and space available in the studio to get a little strange. George Harrison jokingly dismissed some experimental music as... "Avant garde? Avant garde a clue!" , but he certainly got in on the act himself.
'The Inner Light' and 'Within You Without You' were a then-experimental fusion of Indian music with western pop sensibilities. 'It's All Too Much' is a glorious racket of cascading sounds.
For John Lennon and Paul McCartney, after the backwards sounds on 'Rain', there was also the strange 'Tomorrow Never Knows', 'Wild Honey Pie' 'Sun King', 'A Day in the Life' and, unreleased for years, glorious freak-out jam versions of 'Helter Skelter' and 'Revolution'.
Most experimental – and divisive – of all though, there was 'Revolution 9'. But do you know who wrote the song, who plays on it, how it came about, and why it's actually a bona fide Beatles classic?
The Beatles had already stretched their quirky limbs with Revolver and Sgt Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band, but it was over the four sides of The Beatles (also known as The White Album) that they really went wild.
it was on The White Album where John, Paul, George and Ringo would occasionally go off and do their own thing, before it was all patched together in one album under The Beatles banner.
That's why John Lennon didn't appear on 'Martha My Dear', 'Blackbird', 'Why Don't We Do It in the Road?', 'Mother Nature's Son' or 'Wild Honey Pie', for example.
Source: goldradio.com/Mayer Nissim
