Revolution 9

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Revolution 9
The Beatles
publication November 22, 1968
length 8 min 22 s
Genre (s) Avant-garde music
Author (s) Lennon / McCartney
album The Beatles

Revolution 9 (often called Revolution No. 9 or Revolution # 9 ) is an experimental piece by the Beatles that appeared on the band's ninth studio album, the so-called White Album . Contrary to what is officially stated, it is not a Lennon / McCartney composition, but a sound collage that John Lennon and Yoko Ono produced in collaboration with George Harrison in June 1968. Paul McCartney, however, was not involved in the creation of the piece. With a running time of eight minutes and 22 seconds, it is the longest published piece by the Beatles.

Emergence

The musical concept of the sound collage was created in connection with the musique concrète as early as the 1940s , when artists like the French sound engineer Pierre Schaeffer discovered new technical possibilities such as tape loops and sound changes and combined natural noises, music excerpts and other samples to create often disturbing sound experiments. Following the artistic concept of collage thereby originated from compositional conventions debonded works that an immense influence on later electronic music and the form of repetitive arrangements should have. The Beatles, like their producer George Martin, were fascinated by this style and by avant-garde composers such as Karlheinz Stockhausen and John Cage , and from 1966 they regularly incorporated appropriate recording techniques into their songs, for example in Tomorrow Never Knows and Strawberry Fields Forever .

Soundtracks used

(Selection)
  • Number Nine , spoken by a male voice (presumably from a tape archive). This sample runs like a red thread through the entire production (a total of 13 times).
  • Piano sounds (played by Lennon)
  • Choir
  • Violins
  • orchestra
  • Laughter of a female person
  • Orchestral track from A Day in the Life
  • Sample of a shattering glass
  • applause
  • Mellotron
  • various spoken words by John Lennon, George Harrison and Yoko Ono
  • Baby noises
  • Big drum
  • various vocal samples from the song Revolution
  • Horses' hooves hitting asphalt
  • Sound of a machine (possibly a plane taking off)
  • Sound of crumpled paper, reminiscent of a crackling fire through sound effects
  • Sounds of war (possibly from a war movie)
  • alienated piano passages from the recordings of While My Guitar Gently Weeps
  • slamming car door
  • female voice (possibly from an airport announcement)
  • probably some tape tracks from the recordings of Tomorrow Never Knows

Others

The play was parodied in the series The Simpsons in the episode "Homer and the Singing Brothers" .

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Steve Turner - A Hard Day's Write, Rockbuch Verlag Buhmann & Haeseler GmbH, Schlüchtern, 2002, ISBN 3-927638-10-2 .
  2. ↑ Yoko Ono: This is how one of the funniest "Simpsons" jokes became a reality. February 18, 2019, accessed on June 2, 2019 (German).