According to those bickering yet informative sods over at the atease message boards, the extended take leaked as part of a new bootleg, Revolution.. Take Your Knickers Off. Where things start getting interesting is that apparently only two copies of the take in question were ever made at the end of the session: one was taken home by John Lennon and the other by someone whose name isn’t noted in EMI documents. Hmmm. Scandalous!
How does it sound? Well imagine “Revolution 1″, and then imagine “Revolution 9″. Now, imagine the where the first song normally ends. Then, imagine the “shooby doo wop” back up vocals continuing for a further seven minutes while some of the sound collage noises from number 9 play over the top, eventually arriving to a crescendo before scaring the shit out of us all with a creepy spoken word piece by Yoko. I guess, John decided to chop the song in half, or rather, separate the sanity from insanity. ROCK AND ROLL!
The Beatles – Revolution 1 (Take 20).mp3 (10min 47sec) – File removed by request (I guess that’s an indication of the validity?)
If I were one of the boys back then, I would have left just because of Yoko, never mind the “artistic” differences (Yoko’s contribution here is self-indulgent shit, not art), the grudges, or the fights. Lennon should have gotten his sex and his (so-called) musical inspiration from different places. Yoko’s fishing off the company dock did nothing for these guys. What a frigging shame.
I presume this tape has been leaked [great by the way, but, would we really expect other wise ?] by one of the production team working on the beatles remasters ?, i mean, it dosent sound like it’s from a 40 year old tape that’s just been found and transferred onto disk, and there are no obvious signs of the heavy handedness of standard public audio cleaning [some very good jobs done, but the software always takes too much off]. If the case is that they are cleaning all of this up [instead of just the mix we all know and love] i cant help but wonder if we will be seeing any bonus tracks, which would be great, a not chopped up “Not Guilty” for example would be great as would the long version of Helter Skelter, and this is just from the white album, maybe now we will see the offical release [and the debút release for a couple of songs] from the decca sessions as a “please please me” bonus. Personally, i would love to hear multitrack isolations, but the odds for that are slim at best. ofcourse “Carnival Of Light” is the one we all want to hear, but, although Paul wants to put it out, he still needs permission from Yoko, Ringo and Olivia [whom i could imagine would want to uphold George's wishes, and not put the song out, who knows]. “Now And Then” is another, the amount of times we have been told by various sources that Paul is working on that, well, it’s crazy, but, it would be awsome. i would also like to hear a propperly produced, and cleaned version of George’s “Circles” demo, with Paul on harmonium [sounds great, but, the quality is pretty poor]
Sorry for the essay
-Bob
Obviously the encoder in iTunes 7.7 is very bad. I’m used to lame, and even if I encode to 96 kbit using the low-quality mode, it’s better than what iTunes did here at 192 kbit.
Wow, we’re being spoilt! First Revolution 1, take 20; now Revolution 9, alternative mix! Is this real?!! :-) This is the new version which has surfaced along with take 20:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDRdMSTAnAg
There’s something eerily over-produced about this track. How do we know it’s not a hoax? A lot of the masking is also heard on other “White” album tracks, etc.
The first part sounds like the released #1 less the distorted guitar and the horns. The rest sounds like they just kept jamming and used some of the loops that ended up on #9. My favorite bit is at the end is when Yoko says “Maybe, it’s not that” (which is on the released #9) and then John says “It is That!”
Hearing this makes it easier to understand why there is a #1 and a #9 on the album. When it became clear to John that they wanted to use just the first half of #1 for a single, he must have figured fine then and put together #9 which was a sound collage void of “the beat” (Beat Less?).
My favorite part of #9 is when George says “He found the night watchman, unaware of his presence in the building”. You can just picture him whispering that into a mike in the studio late at night, great stuff.
Oh and by the way, thanks Yoko for helping to let this side of the Beatles grow.
My thoughts:
- Nice version of the song itself, sort of a sweet, bluesy groove compared to the ‘harder’ version on the album.
- The extended riff is less interesting – as someone said elsewhere on the thread, it’s overproduced. It’s the Beatles, so it’s worth listening to, but not much more. If this version (or something like it) had made it onto the album, something else would have had to be taken out.
- What is that silly woman doing on a Beatles recording? Couldn’t sing, couldn’t play, crummy poet, a no-talent, self-promoting, phony avant-garde ‘artist’ – she added nothing to this. John, sorry to say, was a fool when it came to Yoko. I’m amazed the others put up with her.
I agree that this version sounds overproduced–and admittedly, it’s not the version of “Revolution” that I like best (I always preferred the one used as the B-side of the “Hey Jude” single)–but apart from that, I noticed the frequent recurrence of that sound effect that I can only describe as something like an Arabic ney flute recorded backward (the ever-popular reversed tape loops used so often for psychedelic effect on records between 1966-69). It could almost be one of the mash-ups that didn’t make the cut for LOVE. When the Beatles and EMI finally decide to stop nit-picking over minor contractual details and just put out the upgraded remasters we’ve all been waiting for like Godot, it ought to be quite a revelation as to what gets included as bonus tracks. It would be a sin not to do them as expanded deluxe collectors’ editions!
Damn! I’m too late! EMI already got rid of the Youtube vid and I cannot believe I didnt get a chance to listen to this..I was travelling internetless!! My god, I am so pissed off!
by the way, ” and the orgasm-inducing approx. seven hour long “Helter Skelter” slow-groove jam that Macca won’t release; “…WHAT?! Ive never heard of that either! that freaking amazing!! does anyone else have more info on that to share?
AND What the hell is up with these record companies just storing up all these tapes?– leaving them to rot, mold and gather up dust in shelves as if their were useless, valueless shit?! The world is dying to hear everything!
It would be awesome if even after Paul and RIngo die (omg….i cannot believe I said that)..but EMI should just release every little bit of Beatle thing…every single studio dialogue, take, film…EVERYTHING!
The Revolution 9 alt mix sounds recent, judging from some of the reverbs I was hearing – which sound modern (digital), and not at all like the old reverb used then.
I’m with the people who think that this recording sounds too good to be one of the 2 known “take-home” tape copies that left the studio the night this mix was done over 40 years ago. It sounds more like someone working on the “LOVE” project made a personal copy of this master, and that somehow got spread around. Just took this long to show up in public. It would be nice to hear just the extended basic track without all the effects that have been overlaid on this version.
For the people who don’t know this little bit of Beatles history, Yoko used to make tape recordings on a portable tape player to John when they first met . She would just record her personal psychopathic ramblings to him anytime they where apart, such as when John would be recording the basic track of “Revolution 1″ with the other Beatles in the studio and Yoko was up in the booth. George Martin must have just loved that! Well fragments of some of these personal tape recordings are used within this and the official Revolution 9 mix. For years, the only way fans could hear any out-takes from the “Revolution 1″ sessions was from copies of some of Yoko’s personal tapes to John that had leaked into the public via CD bootlegs in the 90’s. The Beatles playing the song live, as well as tape playback in the control room was picked up by Yoko’s recorder.
anyone know where i can get this, links been pulled. please please please email me
I was thinking, although this could well be a fake, dont you think that EMI are taking too much care to remove all sources of this if it infact was ??
Get it while you can. It the top of the list
http://www.cd1059.com/StevesBlog/tabid/3819/Default.aspx
Actualy in response to VICKIE S
” and the orgasm-inducing approx. seven hour long “Helter Skelter” slow-groove jam that Macca won’t release; “…WHAT?! Ive never heard of that either! that freaking amazing!! does anyone else have more info on that to share?
They got that wrong, its not 7 hours, but it is 27 min in length, not really the same as a 7 hour one, but 27 min would still be really cool.
@Bodo Eggert
You’re full of crap. LAME is good, but it’s not that good.
Home Taping Is Killing Music
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4747770/The_Beatles_-_Revolution__1_(Take_20)
FIX UR CAPTCHA
To Listen and Download the mp3 File Click on the Link Below-
http://sharecash.org/download.php?id=5369
Not a scam, its legit. Enjoy!
You guys are really blaming Yoko Ono for being on a track they never intended on releasing? Ridiculous, it’s time to get over it, I don’t care for her “art” but I think we all know the last couple years of the Beatles and John Lennon’s entire solo career would have been completely different if not for her being around, there’s always a silver lining!
Actually, there aren’t a lot of snippets from the released version of “Revolution 9″ on this. It’s an extended jam/exploration of “melody” until about the last minute or two. Quite brilliant, actually. If you’re a fan of The Flaming Lips or any other electro-experimental-noise bands, you can instantly appreciate that — yet again — the Beatles and Lennon were far, far, far ahead of the curve. They could have released an LP side of Revolution and made it interesting; the outtake here reminds me of how they sustained interest in the “Hey Jude” fade out. To me, quite an enjoyable listen.
GG in NJ
I got this thing at 320kbps! Sounds awesome. I say its the real mofo thing. If its not, Lennon would be proud. Orgasm producing 27-minute Helter Skelter? I think we’re going to be disappointed when it does come out. Ever hear the full version of 12-bar instrumental (not the Anthology version)? Just peters out. I have a feeling H.S. will be the same. But this truly inspires and ear follicles, nervous system and just plain ‘ol kicks ass! I’m gonna go nail my woman now with my Revolution #9 inch.