Video will appear as you scroll through the story
The Beatles · S9 E5
Revolution
John's response to 1968: the assassinations, the protests, the chaos. Two versions recorded. One distorted, one gentle. The political Beatle emerges
It's the summer of 1968, and the world is on fire. Martin Luther King Jr. has been assassinated in April, Robert Kennedy in June, Soviet tanks have rolled into Prague, students are rioting in Paris, and John Lennon sits in Abbey Road Studios trying to decide whether he's for or against the revolution.
"Now and Then" (The Beatles, 2023). The Beatles' final release, completed 45 years after Lennon recorded the original demo. Using AI to separate John's voice from a cassette tape, Paul and Ringo finished what their friend started. This is where the road that "Revolution" opened ends: a band that began by asking whether the world could change, closing with a love song that says it doesn't matter, because some things survive everything.
Now and Then, The Beatles (2023)
John recorded the demo on a boombox at the Dakota building in New York around 1978, but the piano and vocal were so tangled on the cassette that George and Paul couldn't separate them during the Anthology sessions in 1995. In 2022, the same AI technology Peter Jackson used for the Get Back documentary finally isolated Lennon's voice. Paul added bass and piano, Ringo played drums, and George's 1995 guitar part was included. Listen for the string arrangement by Giles Martin, George Martin's son, completing a circle that stretches across five decades.
Sources
The Beatles official press release, November 2, 2023.
McCartney, Paul. Various interviews, 2023.
Two Revolutions
John records two versions of "Revolution" in the summer of 1968. The first, "Revolution 1," is slow, bluesy, almost gentle, with John singing "count me out... in" at the crucial moment, refusing to commit to either side. The single version is the opposite: fast, loud, distorted into a snarl, with John screaming "count me out" and meaning it. Same song, same man, two completely different answers to the same question.
Sources
MacDonald, Ian. "Revolution in the Head." Chicago Review Press, 2005.
Lewisohn, Mark. "The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions." Hamlyn, 1988.
“I wanted to say my piece about revolution. I wanted to tell people I thought it was a mistake to be violent, but that I didn't know what the answer was.”
— John Lennon
TAP TO REVEAL: What did the New Left think of 'Revolution'?
1968
The year is a catalogue of violence: the Tet Offensive in January, King shot in Memphis in April, Bobby Kennedy killed in a Los Angeles hotel kitchen in June. Across Europe, students occupy universities and fight police in the streets. For a songwriter who made his name with "All You Need Is Love" just twelve months earlier, the question of what to do with all this anger is inescapable.
Sources
Gould, Jonathan. "Can't Buy Me Love." Crown, 2007.
Wiener, Jon. "Come Together: John Lennon in His Time." University of Illinois Press, 1991.
Revolution
Yer Blues, The Beatles (1968)
Written in Rishikesh, surrounded by peace and meditation, John poured out one of the darkest songs the Beatles ever recorded. He was genuinely struggling: isolated in a meditation camp, aware his marriage was falling apart, unable to stop thinking about Yoko Ono. The band recorded it in a tiny annexe room off Studio Two because the main room felt too polished for something this raw. In December 1968, Lennon performed it at the Rolling Stones' Rock and Roll Circus alongside Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, and Mitch Mitchell.
Yer Blues, The Beatles (1968)
"Feel so suicidal, even hate my rock and roll." The title deliberately mocks British blues purists (hence "Yer" instead of "Your"), but the pain underneath is real. Lennon was channeling the desperation he felt in India, stuck between the spiritual life the Maharishi was selling and the emotional chaos of falling in love with Yoko. The 12-bar blues structure is deliberate: John strips away every Beatles studio trick and goes back to the rawest musical form he knows.
What's the key difference between the two versions of 'Revolution'?
Paul McCartney reads a review of The Who's latest single calling it the loudest, most aggressive song ever recorded, and he takes it as a challenge. The result is "Helter Skelter," the most ferocious thing the Beatles will ever put on tape, and a song that will be permanently stained by the worst crime of the decade.
0 XP earned this session