The Beatles’ song “Revolution” seems to use a mixing technique in certain lines that has Paul singing a single syllable in the middle of one of John’s lyrics. An example :
John sings “You say you want a real solution,” and Paul also sings the “LU” syllable in the word “solution.”
The above example may not be in the song (I don’t have access to it right now), but it should illustrate my point.
I’ve heard the song hundreds of times. I’d bet a weeks pay that when John sings “You tell me that it’s evolution,” Paul chimes in with (or is overdubbed in with) “Jew” right in the middle of the word “evolution.” In other words, I hear:
"You tell me that it’s evil-jew-shun."
I’ve tried the song at all different volume levels, and I hear it every time.
I LOVE the Beatles - they are my favorite musicians. I am not interested in bashing anyone or accusing anyone of antisemitism. People think I’m crazy.
And even if I did, it doesn’t make sense. What could evil-Jew-shun possibly mean? Unless of course, you think the Beatles were sufficiently immature to make up a nonsense word just so they could sneak ‘evil Jew’ into it, and so lacking in talent that they couldn’t come up with a better way to say it that would also make sense as a double entendre of some sort…and you clearly have a higher opinion of the Beatles than that.
Sort of reminds me of the ‘Paul is dead’ meme that was going around for awhile, where if you played one of the Abbey Road songs (I forget which one) backwards, Lennon’s voice could supposedly be heard saying ‘Paul is dead, Paul is dead.’ This was supposedly substantiated by the fact that Paul was barefoot on the album cover, and it was said that in England people are buried without shoes and socks.
Like you said, maybe it was the mixing going on then, but people seem to be able to hear all sorts of odd things in Beatles music of that era.
OK, I went and dug up my copy of “Past Masters Volume Two” to listen to it. It sounds to me like Paul says “Joosh” instead of just “Jew”; as far as I know, “Joosh” is not a recognized ethnic slur, though I admit I’m not really current on such matters. (I don’t think it was an elision from the word “Jewish,” either.)
As you heard, there’s definitely a “j” or “ch” sound at the beginning of Paul’s syllable, but I think there’s also a “sh” or “ch” at the end. Doesn’t sound at all like “evil-Jew-shun” to me.
Yeah, I hear it, actually. I mean, “evil-jew-shun” wouldn’t have occurred to me, but Paul does jump in there with a sound that seems to start with a “j” or “ch” sound, and ends with an “s” sound. So, jews, or juice, or chews, or maybe just the “lut” sound distorted somehow.
Paul’s voice is absent from Revolution. To get that chorused effect, John’s vocals were double-tracked (i.e. he recorded a second take of himself singing along with the first take). This tactic is common nowadays, but I believe the Beatles were among the first to really take advantage of it.
The double-tracking is very sloppy in *Revolution * compared to other Beatles songs – the vocals don’t sync well and you can here several syllables (like the “jew”) that don’t seem to belong. I think this was done intentionally to give the song a loose, off-balance feel, and I’m willing to bet the “jew” or “choo” sound is just a nonsense syllable. The Beatles were big on experimenting with sound during this period.
if you pronounce evolution as evil lyoooo shun, as he does, and lurch into the lyoooo syllable with sufficient force it’s going to come out as jyooooo.
I hear that every time. The “joo” sound is definitely there, but it’s almost certainly nothing more than an odd artifact of the double-tracking combined with John’s somewhat slurred vocal. It’s fun to listen for hidden messages and in-jokes in Beatles songs, but I can’t imagine that this was some deliberate comment on Jews.
I used to sing “Rocky Raccoon” by myself and with a band. After hearing it about ten times, a friend asked me what “Gidjinz” meant. As in “Gidjinz” bible. ( The lyric is, “Only to find Gideon’s Bible.”) I never really realized how much I was slurring the line, it was just a habit I developed after singing the song so many times.
