Revolution 9

I guess I thought I'd stop blogging. But just had to vent out at Alfian's sacking. I guess there will always be stuff to talk about. Plus I may need a new blog to publicise some new stuff.

Blogging's still not as fun as it used to be, so the posts here will be irregular. I want to start out on a clean slate. I don't expect to be blogging as much as I used to.

The title of my blog comes from the strangest song the Beatles ever recorded, the infamous "Revolution 9". You can find it on the White album, which explains why I picked this design for the backdrop.

Actually since I'm on this I might as well blog about "Revolution 9". Many people hate it, but for me it's one of the most intriguing Beatles songs of all. It's not even a song, but a sound collage, a scrapbook of various sound bits that John and Yoko pieced together.

In its own way it's a summary of the White Album, which is everything but the kitchen sink. A lot of people think that Sergeant Pepper is the quintessential Beatles album, although Revolver gets more critical acclaim. But for me it's the White Album, and also the official name is The Beatles. It's almost a career overview for the Beatles, everything they've ever done can be traced back to something on that album. It's also one of the most inconsistent Beatles album, I can actually name 10 songs that I don't like, but that's the spirit in which it was conceived.

And inside the album lies the secret to the appeal of the Beatles: they're everybody's band. That's because they've done everything, covered all bases. Blues*1? Check. Country*2? Check. Hard rock*3? Check. Psychedelia*4? Check. Folk*5? Check. Beach Boys*6? Check. Ballad*7? Check. Overblown late night radio*8? Check. Tin Pan Alley*9? Check.

To be sure, the albums that preceded and followed this, Sergeant Pepper and Abbey Road, both contained a great variety of music, but both had the discipline of being song cycles. The White Album is simply nothing but rojak, but what a glorious rojak.

1968, the year that the White Album came out, is the year of the revolution. All over the world, from Mexico City to Berkeley, Columbia U, Paris, Prague, Chicago, there were student riots. Nobody really knew what they were all about. Maybe they were raging against conformity? But it was electrifying, and nobody ever saw anything like that ever since, except maybe 1989 in Europe. The Beatles wrote "Revolution". The Rolling Stones wrote "Street Fighting Man".

But John and Yoko also produced "Revolution 9", which made a few reference to the riots. It was probably also the sound of a fractured mind, because there were parts that were positively schizophrenic. Some familiar snippets from old Beatles songs, like the orchestra crescendo from "A Day in the Life".

It also reminds me of "Mrs Dalloway", Virginia Woolf's stream of consciousness novel, which nevertheless uses the technique of having a signpost in the middle of all the chaos to reorientate the audience. The repeated refrain "number 9, number 9, number 9" serves the same purpose as Big Ben in the Woolf book. I think when you are putting together large unwieldy things discipline becomes very important.

It's no wonder that John Lennon said that he spent more time working on "Revolution 9" than any other Beatles work. I can see how, because a lot of thought has gone into it. This is one of the most hated Beatles songs of all because everybody expects something else from them, but for me it's very bold and daring, and a great piece of work because it could so easily have been an unlistenable mess. As it is, it has the logic, the utter compelling logic of a nightmare. It's noisy here, quiet there, but utterly unsettling. It's modern, probably ahead of its time although this recording technique probably borrows more than a few ideas from French avant garde music.

Is my blog going to be conceived in the same spirit? Like a rojak mishmash of plenty of ideas? I don't know. I will not be posting frequently enough for there to be a meaningful answer to that.

*1: "Yer Blues"
*2: "Rocky Racoon"
*3: "Helter Skelter"
*4: "Glass Onion"
*5: "Blackbird"
*6: "Back in the USSR"
*7: "While My Guitar Gently Weeps"
*8: "Good Night"
*9: "Honey Pie"