The Beatles’ New Revolution

ARTIST: The Beatles TITLE: “Revolution 1 (Take 20)” WEB DEBUT: February 2009

ONE-LISTEN VERDICT: As a Beatles mouthbreather, I’ve heard about the lost bridge between the bluesy single “Revolution” and the experimental “Revolution #9” for years. “Revolution 1 (Take 20)” is probably more casually experimental than most of the so-called “experimental” pop bands out there now. (I like Spoon and Wilco as much as the next guy but removing a rhythm guitar track or ending a song in a noise jam does not make you an experimental band, and yet still I see those terms bandied about in relationship to them and others.)

“Revolution #9” might have been mind-blowing back in the day, but it might have been pretty grating, too. This eases you into its experiments, as the song, complete with awesome doo-wop backing vocals, slower tempo, and a sloppy sitting-around-the-mic vibe, gradually devolves into something more akin to “#9”, although it pulls up the reins right before it loses all sense of its original self. There’s this great buzz of a guitar (?) that leads out of the verse that keeps going and building, and, eventually, a woman (Yoko?) starts talking about…. something under the coaching of Lennon. In the end, it trades more in congeniality than cacophony, and, for that I prefer it (for the time being) to its more famous cousins, perhaps those two songs now seem more like canon than music to me.

Full 10 Minute take of The Beatles’ “Revolution 1″ Leaks [Twelve Major Chords via The Day Jobs]