‘Revolution’: The Beatles’ least revolutionary song?
When The Beatles flew to America in 1964, most of the band was excited about touching down on the tarmac and playing to a new audience. One member was a bit more hesitant, though. Sharing in the band’s glee, John Lennon was also a bit reserved, as he was worried that the Americans might react poorly to recent comments he made that could be deemed pro-communist.
Of course, the American people weren’t overly critical of Lennon’s comments. The band were welcomed into the country with whatever one up from open arms is, as people cheered and swooned at the site of the four Liverpudlians. During their stay, as they went around the country and performed on The Ed Sullivan Show, The Beatles became the biggest thing in the country and were hailed as one of the best bands on the planet.
The point is that despite what many people say about Yoko Ono, John Lennon had always been incredibly political and opinionated, to the extent that it had him worried about entering the United States at risk of persecution. It never trickled into the music he made with The Beatles, as the band had such a defined sound that going overtly political seemed like a bad move.
When you look back on that first American visit, remember that the track they played on The Ed Sullivan Show that audiences reacted to was ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’. It perfectly personified the Lennon and McCartney sound, and from then on, people wanted to see more of The Beatles’ fun-loving and emotional side, not their political stance.
This, in essence, was against John Lennon’s ethos (but so did a lot of what The Beatles did). While many listeners enjoyed the happy pop nature of their songs, and Lennon was great at writing those songs, he most enjoyed penning lyrics that were honest, no matter how hard the truth may be. Lennon made this point when he was talking about his favourite Beatles songs.
“Because I meant it, it’s real,” said Lennon, when talking about the song ‘Help’. “The lyric is as good now as it was then, it’s no different, you know. It makes me feel secure to know that I was that sensible or whatever—well, not sensible, but aware of myself. That’s with no acid, no nothing… well, pot or whatever. It was just me singing ‘help’, and I meant it, you know.”
With that mindset, it’s a surprise that Lennon never tried to release something political before 1968, but the first Beatles song with an overtly political meaning was the track ‘Revolution’. The song was about the war in Vietnam, and Lennon wrote it when he was in India. Maybe it was the distance between Lennon and the protests happening on the ground about Vietnam, but there is something about ‘Revolution’, which feels… how to put it… anti-revolutionary.
The song feels slightly more passive than Lennon might have liked, so the title feels somewhat displaced. There were moments in The Beatles’ history, be it in interviews or with other tracks, that felt much more revolutionary than the song ‘Revolution’ does. This is especially the case when you consider protest songs that other bands were making at the time. For instance, The Rolling Stones released the highly controversial concept-heavy ‘Sympathy for the Devil’.
Yoko Ono spoke about the song, and it seems that having a much more passive-revolutionary song is in keeping with his view on the subject. As such, while the track might fall flat for some, it was probably a good fit for where Lennon stood.
“John’s idea of revolution was that he did not want to create the situation where when you destroy statues, you become a statue. And also what he means is that there’s too much repercussion in the usual form of revolution,” she concluded. “He preferred evolution. So you have to take a peaceful method to get peace rather than you don’t care what method you take to get peace, and he was very, very adamant about that.”
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