Number 9

Revolution Number 9 was written by Lennon and McCartney and recorded in 1968.  This song appeared on The Beatles’ ninth original UK album, their self-titled double long-player commonly known as the White Album.  John Lennon said, “Revolution 9 was an unconscious picture of what I actually think will happen when it happens; just like a drawing of a revolution.  All the thing was made with loops.  I had about 30 loops going, fed them onto one basic track.  I was getting classical tapes, going upstairs and chopping them up, making it backwards and things like that, to get the sound effects.  One thing was an engineer’s testing voice saying, ‘This is EMI (Electrical and Musical Industries) test series number nine’. I just cut up whatever he said and I’d number nine it.  Nine turned out to be my birthday and my lucky number and everything.  I didn’t realize it: it was just so funny the voice saying, ‘number nine’; it was like a joke, bringing number nine into it all the time, that’s all it was.”  In his later years Lennon became fascinated with numerology, and was well aware of the role of the number nine throughout his life.
It’s a highly experimental piece, which Lennon once called ‘The music of the future.’ It is the most controversial and bizarre track on the album and you have to have a very open mind to appreciate it.  Paul McCartney and Beatles producer George Martin hated this and tried to keep it off the album. This is the longest Beatles song running for 8:15.  It also took longer to complete than any other track on album.  This helped fuel the ‘Paul is dead’ rumors. If played backwards, you were supposed to hear the car crash where Paul died, and a voice saying ‘Turn me on, dead man.’  Also, playing the line, “I’m not in the mood for wearing clothing” in reverse eventually becomes a rather odd but clear reversal, “There were two, there are none now.”  This is referencing the rumor that Paul McCartney died in a car with ‘Lovely Rita’ and that the two were burned away after the wreck.  The rumor took off in October 1969 when a listener called the radio station WKNR in Detroit and told the DJ Russ Gibb about the backward message. When Gibb played it backwards on his show, listeners went wild and spent the next week calling in and offering their own rumors.  The story quickly spread, and McCartney helped it along by laying low and letting it play out.

Written for Linda G Hill Life in progress January 18, 2018 #JusJoJan Daily Prompt is Revolt by Sandra at What Sandra Thinks.