The Beatles recorded three songs with "Revolution" in the title. All three were written by John Lennon and attributed to Lennon/McCartney.

The first, "Revolution", was on the flip side of the "Hey Jude" single and featured fuzzed-up guitars and a piano solo by session musician Nicky Hopkins. There is also a very noticeable tape edit as John Lennon first sings "well, you know."

"Revolution" was the first Beatles recording used commercially. Ford Motor Company used "Help!" in 1985 and paid $100,000 for a cover artist to record it. Nike used the actual Beatles recording for a television commercial in 1987, paying $250,000 for the rights to Capital Records and Michael Jackson, who owns the publishing rights. This caused a huge backlash among Beatles fans, who felt John Lennon would have objected to this usage, especially in the face of Nike's sweatshop controversy. Nike had plans to use several other Beatles songs, but dropped their marketing campaign in the face of outcry.

The second, "Revolution 1" on the White Album is the same song as "Revolution" only in a more easy listening style. It was actually recorded before "Revolution" but released after it. Lennon wanted "Revolution 1" to be a single, but the other band members said it wasn't "single speed," so Lennon insisted they record the faster "Revolution."

The third, "Revolution 9", also on the White Album, is one of Lennon's experiments in musique concrète. It is not exactly a song as it is a tape collage of sound effects thrown together by John Lennon featuring the voices of John and George Harrison, engineer Geoff Emerick, and Yoko Ono at various speeds with some symphonic music, the words "number nine" repeated at various points, and what sounds like fan chatter from a soccer game thrown in. "Revolution 9" is an integral part of the Paul Is Dead hoax theory.

External links

• Revolution Lyrics
• Alan W. Pollack's Notes On Revolution and Revolution 1
• Alan W. Pollack's Notes On Revolution 9