Why do y’all have to be hurtin’ on my Beatles, yo? The White Album isn’t pretentious, it’s experimental. They were stretching their wings as newly-fledged solo artists. It also has some delightful parodies of other 60’s muscians, like the Beach Boys (Back In The USSR) and Bob Dylan (Rocky Raccoon).
Revolution #9 is a sound collage, a sound equivalent of a Jackson Pollack painting or a Bird Parker solo. It’s not about anything other than itself. IMHO, the best way to listen to that track is to dose liberally with LSD or mushrooms first. Not that I do that anymore, but back in my wilder days… Listening to Revolution #9 through a lysergic filter will make you think you have a front row seat at the Apocalypse.
Oh, and by the way…it’s “Help” or “I Am The Walrus”. Also, if you want an example of pretension in music, Pink Floyd’s “Several Species of Small, Furry Animals Together in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict” would fit that description.
I love the White album, mostly for the same reasons that a lot of people dislike it. By spreading it out over two disks they had enough room to include some of the less commercial stuff, rather than try and just skim off the songs that would sell.
On what other album would you expect to hear “Rocky Racoon” or “Wild Honey Pie”? Maybe not the best stuff they ever did, but interesting to listen to and one of the few times where it really feels like they recorded what they wanted to record rather than what they thought would sell.
And best song? Too hard to pick, but one of my personal favorites is “Rain”.
IIRC, the person saying “number nine” was Spike Milligan, one of the most famous comedians in the UK. He, Peter Sellers, and Harry Secombe did the long-running “The Goon Show” starting in the 1950s. Also listen to “Good King Eccleslas”, one of the funniest comic routines I’ve ever heard.
I don’t think there are many people who will say Revolution 9 is a great song, but I enjoy it as fill to pad out the album. At least it’s interesting fill, and a nice use of concrete music.
“Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving on a Pict” is a minor classic, OTOH.
I just wanted to retract this answer - my wife and daughter bought me The White Album for a Father’s Day/Anniversary present this past weekend, and I must say it’s a lot better than I remember it being (even without the pot and the headphones.)
There’s no doubt that it should have been a double album. My apologies.
There’s a fine line between pretentious and experimental, and it’s entirely possible to straddle that line–quite common, in my experience.
I vote for drunk and high. And I also agree with McCartney’s assessment of the White Album as a whole.
I know this sounds REALLY picky…but a Charlie Parker solo and Revolution #9 have little to do with each other. Parker was Be-Bop…an exacting form of jazz…surgical almost. Rev#9 took weeks to splice together and was sloppy and explosive (exactly like a Jackson Pollack painting). Parker never ‘spliced’ random things together…he was meticulous about his soloing…anyway, please excuse my inate geekiness on this issue. I love the Beatles and Charlie Parker…I just think there are other ways to accurately explain their relationship to each other.
No offense meant!
Anyway, Rev#9 is really an integral part of TWA…it is hard to imagine the record without it.
With Revolution 9 I guess I can take it or leave it. I agree that it helps provide a unique fill to the album and I wouldn’t just skip past the song when listening to the album. My main complaint with the White Album is that the sound seems incomplete. It sounds almost like they recorded their rehearsal and not the final “clean” studio performance that their albums had up to that time.
Skipping Revolution 9 would be like skipping Pink Floyd’s “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” Parts I, II, and III to get to the singing on Part IV.
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- Best song? In My Life and Rain
Just want to go on record that I appreciate obidiah registering so he could make that intelligent post.
As for the rest of you…
{puffing out chest and crowding into goboy, woodstockybird, and Venkman} BASTARDS! “TICKET TO RIDE”! “TICKET TO RIDE”!
There are several Beatles’ song which I can’t decide whether they are pure pretention or sheer genius.
“Girl”
“I Want You (She’s So Heavy)”
“Why Don’t We Do It In The Road?”
"You Can’t Do That
“Tell Me Why”
“Because”
“I Will”
“Lovely Rita”
“Wait”
“Don’t Pass Me By”
“Help!”
“Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey”
“You’ve got To Hide Your Love Away”
“Im Down”
“Here There and Everywhere”
“Get Back”
“Don’t Let Me Down”
“Come Together”
“Long Long Long”
“Oh! Darling”
“Good Night”
Ok I admit that halfway into the list, I just started to get cute and created a dialoguewith Beatles’ song titles. Now that’s pretentious.
When they boys were cutting the “White Album” basically each one of them, well John and Paul mainly, were adamant that they got adequate space on the albums…
But compared to a lot of other rock records of the same period (the 22 minute “Inna Gadda Da Vida”…or whatever it was comes to mind) “Revolution #9” was pretty restrained. “Helter Skelter” was partly a bit of a poke at that whole scene.
Thanks, Ukulele Ike!
To add yet another take on the identity of the voice that repeats “Number Nine”…
From **The Beatles Recording Sessions: The Official Abbey Road Studio Session Notes 1962-1970 **by Mark Lewisohn:
"The most famous of all the ‘Revolution 9’ sound effects also made its bow during this evening: the faceless voice uttering “number nine, number nine, number nine”. Richard Lush has a detailed memory of the session. "Lennon was trying to do really different things…we had to get a whole load of tapes out of the library and the “number nine” voice came off an examination tape. John thought that was a real hoot! […] The identity behind the voice remains unclear to this day. “Abbey Road used to do taped examinations for the Royal Academy of Music,” recalls Stuart Eltham. “The tapes aren’t around now.”
I’m surprised to hear that George Martin was the Beatles’ manager. Producer, arranger, friend, yes. Manager, no.
Like it? It’s my favourite Beatles song!
Studi
Actually, I’m pretty sure the “Revolution” used in the Nike Commercial was Revolution #1. “Revolution #1” is the slow version with the “shoo-be-doo-wop” vocal. “Revolution” is the fast version that was on the flip side of “Hey Jude.” And as long as we’re being clear about things, the title of the record that contained both “Revolution #1” & “Revolution #9” was “The Beatles.”
I always thought that the “Revoultion” version on the White Album, the up-tempo one with the fuzzed-out guitars and the screaming and hollering, was #3. Don’t know where I heard that, but I picked it up somewhere. My favorite version, regardless.
And I love the entire White Album, and it MUST be played in its original song order. But that’s because I had a copy on cassette which I had recorded from my vinyl LP. I listened to that tape so much that eventually, I could play the entire thing back in my head from memory. And I frequently did, while hiking or rockclimbing.
If you could photograph sections of my brain and label them according to function, there would be one area labelled “The Beatles’ White Album.”
(The other albums that I could play back in my head were “Led Zeppelin #2” and “The Worst of Jefferson Airplane.”)
However, I usually turned the tape off when I got to the babies crying in “Revolution #9” - it was just too chaotic for my taste.
And FWIW, I did buy the 30th anniv. remastered White Album on CD from Amazon.com for under $30. It was definitely worth it!
(And lest I come across as a stuck-in-the-70’s-classic-rock fogie, the last two albums I bought were “F@%K - Ibiza: The South Beach Trance Sessions” (I love good Trance) and a reggae compilation that’s just called “Jamaica” from a little no-name label I can’t recall right now.)
Want to play with #9 yourself?
here ya go…
http://www.escape.com/~dario/beatles/number9/
BTW…best beatle album…Sgt Peppers.
I don’t mind Revolution #9
The best Beatles album is a tie between Revolver and Abby Road.
The best Beatles song is Strawberry Fields Forever.
I have a feeling that Number 9 is way, way ahead of its time. People living a hundred years from now will be able to appreciate and understand it far better than we can now, and they will be in awe that the Beatles came up with this song in the 20th century, akin to Leonardo DiVinci drawing a diagram of a helicopter in the Renaissance.