You Say You Want A Revolution...

Got something tonight that I just read about yesterday and had the good fortune to find in my inbox today.

A supposedly unreleased Beatles track, “Revolution 1 (Take 20),” surfaced a couple of weeks ago, having been leaked from source(s) unknown. So I’m a little late, but better late than never. But if I’m only just now hearing this, maybe a few of you are, too.

Anyway, this is a 10-minute version of The White Album’s “Revolution 1,” which, according to Rolling Stone, “makes it clear why seemingly unrelated ‘Revolution 1’ and the maniacal ‘Revolution 9’ sound collage share the same name.”

The ultimate source of the recording seems to be a mystery: “According to Mark Lewisohn’s book The Beatles: Recording Sessions, only two copies of the take were made when recording the song was completed on June 4, 1968,” the Rolling Stone article continues. “One copy left the studio with Lennon that day, and the other remained behind. It’s unclear which copy appears on the bootleg, nor how the Revolution (my note: refers to an upcoming, Europe-only bootleg Revolution: Take… Your Knickers Off) makers even acquired it.”

Richie Unterberger, author of The Unreleased Beatles, speculated on the possibility of someone lifting the recording from Lennon’s Dakota apartment. “Who knows if it was someone rummaging through Yoko's stuff in an unauthorized capacity,” he said. “But it's possible that she still had that tape.”

Naturally, this seeming new recording has brought out the doubters. Here are a couple of comments I read in some forums discussing the track:

-The Lennon ‘knickers’ dialogue is not John Lennon speaking, rather a sped up imitator placed to give the whole thing a semblance of plausibility. The actual music is the White Album track gutted, looped + dubbed by obvious use of digital drop in plus samples.

-Rumor is that it was leaked by Paul, trying to convince other Beatles (families) to release [the] album called Long Long Long.

-I'm not convinced. Seems too easy to construct an out-fake. I'd be quite happy to be wrong, though.

My guess is that it’s a real outtake, but who am I to say? Give it a listen and see what you think.

Revolution 1 (Take 20).mp3

Labels: Beatles, classic rock, outtakes

posted by aikin @ 8:37 PM