It’s a Revolution

My second favorite Beatles song is “Revolution.” Not included on an original Beatles album, it was the B-side to “Hey Jude,” the Beatles’ #1 song in sales. John tried, in vain, to have “Revolution” be the A-side but reluctantly conceded that “Hey Jude” was a better A-side. Regardless, it was the first time a single had both sides tracked for sales. How they did that is beyond me.

“Revolution” was the Beatles’ second overtly political song, with Revolver’s “Tax Man” being the first. The Beatles had always shied away from politics, and staying true to form, Paul, George, and Ringo initially opposed recording “Revolution,” but John insisted, although the song ended up with three versions. 

The first recording is the slower, bluesy “Revolution 1,” released on the White Album during the Summer of Protest in 1968. I’ve always called that one “mom and dad’s” version. It was mellow and had clearly spoken lyrics, and John wanted that to be the single version but gave way to Paul and George’s opposition. The others convinced John to shift the song to a rocker for the single, and rock it does. It is one of two Beatles’ heavy metal songs (“Helter Skelter,” the other), and it laid down a hard rocking sound to convey its political ambivalence message.

Political ambivalence, Kelly? The song’s message was for the far-left movement to cool their jets, and the Beatles wanted to see the plan (and there is never a plan, is there?); John later commented that the French and Russian revolutions were examples of a revolution without a plan. The far-left was incensed at the Beatles’ lack of participation in their radical movement and were aghast that John’s lyrics claimed, “It’s gonna be all right.” The “all right” sentiment came from John’s transcendental meditation studies in India, which is where the song was born. John was all over the place during his life on the counter-revolution, but in his last interview before he was murdered, he had again adopted the “it’s gonna be all right” sentiment.

The single version made #11 on the charts, while “Hey Jude” was #1 forever. Again, how they decide that sales ranking on the B-side of a single is a mystery, but apparently, they factored in radio airplay. “Revolution” was glowingly reviewed by many, including conservative William F. Buckley, Jr., and mainstream (then) Time Magazine, which was the first time Time had reviewed a song instead of an album. The Time article was proof to the far left that the Beatles had forsaken them. The far left and the far right (John Birch Society) were mad, but most people saw it as a reasonable outcome: “Don’t you know it’s gonna be all right? (Ah, shu-bi-do, ah).”

The version that almost everyone panned was “Revolution 9.” John and Yoko were solely responsible for that disaster. John’s power in the group, diminished though it was, still managed to get that version on vinyl on Disk 2, Side B, of the White Album. Chris Carter, host of “Breakfast with the Beatles,” once joked that a disk jockey playing “Revolution 9” was a sure way to get fired.

Fifty-six years later, I have the same sentiments as John. I have friends who say, “Hey, let’s do a Constitutional convention on (guns) (abortion) (taxes) etc.” and I say not so fast. Once you open a Constitutional convention, anything can happen. So, I’ll ride the horse I know because, as John said, “It’s gonna be all right!”

Finally, I need to rank things like songs, albums, artwork, and so forth. It’s something that just comes naturally to me. My kids? No ranking there, except by numeric order. I asked my brother Rusty to rank his favorite Beatles songs. He did the usual, “They are all great. I love them all.” Had I been thinking, I’d have asked him if that applied to “Revolution 9.”

Kelly Burke, attorney, former district attorney, and magistrate judge, writes about the law, rock’n’roll, and politics or anything that strikes him. Contact Kelly at dakellyburke@gmail.com to comment on this article or suggest articles you’d like to see, and visit his website at www.kellyrburke.com.