What did you think of "The Beatles-Revolution 9" the first time you heard it?? [Archive]

soma89

10-23-2009, 05:12 PM

What did you think about the song "Revolution 9" when you heard it?

A little background info on the story might be interesting too! (Year/how old you were, what you thought of the White Album in general...etc)

RichieD

10-23-2009, 05:13 PM

Drugs. Lots and lots of drugs.

abadiemet

10-23-2009, 05:19 PM

Number9
Number9
Number9
Number9
Number9
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Number9
Number9
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Number9
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Number9

slopeshoulder

10-23-2009, 05:32 PM

I was 8 and remember that I thought John had gone psycho, that heroin was bad, and that the devil lived in recorded vinyl.
I got better.

Stratobuc

10-23-2009, 05:35 PM

Crap.

And I really, really love the Beatles.

dantedayjob

10-23-2009, 05:49 PM

I was 12, it was in my 7th grade music class (1981). The teacher was really cool, he was kind of a Gordon Lightfoot-esque singer/songwriter, but he introduced us to all kinds of stuff... Sly Stone, The Sex Pistols, on and on... He played Revolution #9 for us one day, I thought it was cool in a strange sort of way... I was a pretty odd kid, so I don't know what that says about me...

As an epilogue, I have that teacher on my Facebook friends list, I had a chance to thank him for being such a huge inspiration to me, both as a musician and as pertained to having a broad appreciation for different genres. It was great to get compliments from him on my playing, etc.

guitarist58

10-23-2009, 05:51 PM

I thought it was weird and trippy--maybe a little spooky (I was 10). Loved the "White album" which I listened to at my cousins' house. They were 18 and 20 at the time. Talked Mom and Dad into buying the album for me :)

Pally

10-23-2009, 05:59 PM

I thought they needed to fill up space to complete the album.

chrisr777

10-23-2009, 06:08 PM

It matched the colors and trails I was seeing very, very well.

goodhonk

10-23-2009, 06:13 PM

i was around 15, and kept waiting for the song to start.

Flyin' Brian

10-23-2009, 06:15 PM

Drugs. Lots and lots of drugs.

Yep. I heard the drugs

Scrutinizer

10-23-2009, 06:17 PM

I was sad that I missed the first 8 revolutions.

phoenix 7

10-23-2009, 06:29 PM

I was a little kid. It kind of scared me.

Flyin' Brian

10-23-2009, 06:35 PM

Don't forget the backwards myth:

Turn me on dead man
Turn me on dead man
Turn me on dead man
Turn me on dead man
Turn me on dead man
Turn me on dead man
Turn me on dead man
Turn me on dead man

Scott Miller

10-23-2009, 07:00 PM

I was 14. I thought it was great. I assumed it was in the tradition of the "long trippy song on side 2," much like Light My Fire, The End, Going Home, Another Country, Freedom, Time, East/West, and many others.

guitarist58

10-23-2009, 07:02 PM

It matched the colors and trails I was seeing very, very well.

:rotflmao So THAT'S why they left the album cover white--a blank canvas! Brilliant!!

DanR

10-23-2009, 07:26 PM

I am and always was a huge Beatles fan. I was 15 when I first heard it. Basically, I just didn't like it.

I still don't like it.

MikeE

10-23-2009, 07:30 PM

I'm a recent Beatles fan (bout 3yrs) and I didn't/don't like it. Just not my thing I guess...

whitecadillac

10-23-2009, 07:39 PM

I have vauge recollections of thinking I wouldn't be cool if I didn't think it was cool. I was 11.

I still can't say that I get it.

GAD

10-23-2009, 07:43 PM

Honestly? Crap.

geoangus

10-23-2009, 07:43 PM

I think I was around 13, had just read Bugliosi's Helter Skelter, borrowed my brother's White Album to see what the fuss was about and scared the crap out of myself. Man it freaked me right out. Something's just not right about that tune.

ABKB

10-23-2009, 08:44 PM

This is why double albums are bad boys and girls :nono

They cause artists to do many drugs and spend too much time in the studio resulting in some pure demented crap being put on the album. The next step is to attempt and justify it as somehow "groundbreaking". :puh Crap is crap, you can lipstick that pig up all you want, it's still a pig. (IMHO of course).

And yes, I love the Beatles too, a lot. But that one, jeez :facepalm

bluesjunior

10-24-2009, 05:56 AM

I was seventeen and although the track never did much for me I can understand why hugely talented, innovative and experimental musicians like the Beatles in general and Lennon in particular would try something like this considering that a lot of influential people in the music press on both sides of the Atlantic were touting electronic music as the future with John Cale and Stockhausen at the forefront of it. It never worked and whether electronic music became the future is debatable.:rockin

scottlr

10-24-2009, 06:24 AM

I never cared for it, though it was crazy to hear stoned. I was 13 when it came out. I didn't hear it stoned until a few years later. 99% of the time I skip over it.

Mandoboy

10-24-2009, 06:35 AM

too weird for a kid, but great for a weird adult like me... definitely a mood piece though.

Tripower455

10-24-2009, 08:39 AM

Don't forget the backwards myth:

Turn me on dead man
Turn me on dead man
Turn me on dead man
Turn me on dead man
Turn me on dead man
Turn me on dead man
Turn me on dead man
Turn me on dead man

LOL... beat me too it!

brlfq

10-24-2009, 09:33 AM

Beatlemania is part of my DNA but Revolution 9 is and always was . .. ... crap.

Mike R.

10-24-2009, 09:39 AM

I was 9 years old, listened to it at 9 standing on my head.

If you played me backwards, that makes me Satan.

Better watch out.....:Devil

Jack Gilvey

10-24-2009, 09:43 AM

I was in 7th grade, late 70's. Loved very bit of every album. Wacky, of course. :)

PAF

10-24-2009, 09:46 AM

pretty much dig the White Album, except for ol' #9...

leofenderbender

10-24-2009, 10:20 AM

I thought it was filler to complete yet another album.

Jon Silberman

10-24-2009, 10:26 AM

I didn't like it per se but I found it interesting. If it had been anyone else I probably would have just skipped it but because it was the Beatles I assumed it had value and gave it a full listen.

Sometimes. in life, when you react like that to things you don't at first like or understand you can learn something.

Altanon

10-24-2009, 10:37 AM

I thought it was ... okay. Just okay, which was highly unusual for me and Beatle songs. However, I really liked George's Wonderwall Music and Electronic Sounds albums.

HEY!YOU!

10-24-2009, 11:19 AM

When you're on acid and you have all the time in the world during your trip, it goes by like a blip on a screen.

It doesn't really make sense to listen to it straight/unaltered, not that it's supposed to make any sense.

I think you're just supposed to experience it.......it was the 60's remember.

bluesdoc

10-24-2009, 11:19 AM

I was 23, in med school, in bed with the Hong Kong flu for nearly 10 days. Really, really, really sick. That's my memory of the White album.

jon

Tripower455

10-24-2009, 11:40 AM

It's Time!

10-24-2009, 11:49 AM

I heard the entire White Album the week it came out in 1968 and I thought Revolution #9 was crazy sounding and I thought there had to be some secret meaning to it all.

Today I think a few other songs could have been added instead of it, but they didn't make it.

hamstrat

10-24-2009, 12:05 PM

I'm a fervent admirer of most things Beatle. That being said the top 2 things I'd like to see go away from their catalog are:

Yellow Submarine- I've never been able to listen all the way through.

Revolution 9- may be slightly more embarrassing than the above. Crap.

Bussman

10-24-2009, 12:07 PM

It opened my ears to a genre of music I didn't know existed. Years later, I'm still trying to make my way trough Pierre Schaeffer's "Le traité de objets musicaux". It's not for everyone but you can see how ideas like treating the recording studio has the ultimate musical instrument and using/re-using "found sounds" has been part of the mainstream of music making for quite some time now.
It's cool that a pop band like the Beatles were in tune with what was going on in the avant-guarde and academia and tried to incorporate it into their art, thereby turning on generations of new musicians to these interesting techniques and sounds.

dividedsky

10-24-2009, 03:07 PM

The same thing I think now. This does not belong on the greatest album of all time.

Tuberoast

10-24-2009, 03:11 PM

Multi-track recording equipment, reverse tape ability, a desire to experiment with montage, and some good smoke. It's an island on a great great album.

SGNick

10-24-2009, 03:36 PM

At first I wasn't crazy for it, But I listen to it maybe once every 6 months.

tone4days

10-24-2009, 08:56 PM

noise, un-nerving, kinda scaired of it actually ... was 11 or 12 ... in my neighbor's basement

PUCKBOY99

10-25-2009, 05:04 AM

Yeah, I thought it was cool in a strange sorta way.

LOVED the line "Take this Brother, may it serve you well" I actually find myself saying that a lot :D

I loved the White Album when I first heard it & it was my favorite for a while...I must've been 12-13 or so the 1st time I heard it. :aok

Tonealicious

10-25-2009, 06:32 AM

I just remember thinking how pissed the other Beatles would be that John and his girlfriend had put together this thing, and now it had to be on the album. I might have got the wrong end of the stick though.

Jack Gilvey

10-25-2009, 07:31 AM

PUCKBOY99

10-25-2009, 08:09 AM

I always thought they were saying R-I-O-T ....but yeah, good one :aok

Nick67

10-25-2009, 08:24 AM

I was a teen ager, it was the 1980's, and I hated it. As an adult and a HUGE Beatles fan, I still hate it.

Dr. Tweedbucket

10-25-2009, 08:37 AM

I searched for all the different Paul is Dead clues and there are several in that song! :band

Jack Gilvey

10-25-2009, 09:31 AM

I always thought they were saying R-I-O-T ....but yeah, good one :aok

You may be right, but it's in my head that way for good now. ;)