6:01 JL: "Dogs were dogging, cats were catting. Birds were birding, Fish were fishing. Thence Pwllheli, went swimming" [Pwllheli, pron. "per-thelly", in Northern Wales. An odd little poem!] (from http://www.pootle.demon.co.uk/beatles/rn9.htm)
6:01 "Geoff" starting with Bulge and clarinet JL: The dogs were dogging, the cats were catting, the birds were birding, 6:05 JL: Wounded sounds JL: the fish were fishing, the men were mennning, the when for wimming [sic??]
Surely, a crazy little poem in one non-song (or anti-song), but hard to distinguish what does he relly say in the end.
Quoted from The_End, posted September 28, 2004, 3:03pm at here
Thanks for that Real
I must admit, I've never noticed that before - I'll have to give it another listen.
I didn't notice myself either; I was always thinking that the Revolution #9 is not really a song.... and that there is not much in it except for strange sounds and talking. But, as you can see, there are some interesting things in it!
1:00 JL: "Mrs Welsh wearing a pair of sun brown underpants"
1:10 JL: "about the shortage of grain in Hertfordshire. Everyone one of them knew that as time went by they'd get a little bit older and a little bit slower .... This was on the air force set thing"
1:20 JL: "manufacturing person who was always umpteen types of 'umpty dumpty ???? finders, yep ah diddly ... Peak District was leaving intending to pay for ..."
1:59-2:06 GH: "Who's to know? Who's to know?" JL: "colours for the season. Everybody who knew ..."
2:16 JL: "Pakistan ... also spoken for" GH: "every day through the business terms" JL: "had informed him on the third, and I, that unfortunately he was"
3:07 GH: "Every few days ..." JL: "in a pair of brown under" [edited away, clothes, pants?]
3:26 GH: "local doctors that are ??? this may seem" JL: "I have nobody's ..."
3:46 GH: "on Eaton, with the situation" JL: "They are standing still" GH: "upon a telegram from the"
4:04 GH: "to us played it false as the headmaster reported to" JL: "who could tell what he was saying, his voice was low and his eye was high and his eyes were glowing" GH: " ... Sunday, He really ... became a great deal ... "
4:22 JL: "on fire, his glasses were in t'safe, this was" GH: "into, which enabled him to move his"
5:03 JL: "certain, so the wife told him he'd better go to see a surgeon .... or what with the price .... yellow underclothes". JL: "So, any road, he went to see the dentist instead, who gave him a pair of teeth, which wasn't any good at all. So ... so instead of that he joined the bloody navy and went to sea."
5:37 JL: "in my broken chair, my wings are broken and so is my hair. I am not in the mood for wearing"
6:01 JL: "Dogs were dogging, cats were catting. Birds were birding, Fish were fishing. Thence Pwllheli, went swimming"
[Pwllheli, pron. "per-thelly", in Northern Wales. An odd little poem!]
6:18 GH: "only to find the night watchman" JL: "onion soup" GH: "unaware of his presence in the building"
[Note: JL interjects "onion soup" at the point where GH says "unaware". I think (speculation) that this was some JL wordplay on what GH was about to say. In fact, I think you can hear GH begin to smile, esp. through the "presence" and "building"]
6:34 JL: "Industrial output, financial imbalance" GH: "Thrusting it between his shoulder blades" JL: "The Watusi, The Twist" GH: "Eldorado"
6:54 JL: "Take this brother, may it serve you well"
7:04 YO: "Maybe, it's not that, it's .... maybe, even then, expose yourself ..."
Quoted from real01, posted September 28, 2004, 2:51pm at here
So, in Revolution #9 John says at 6:01
6:01 JL: "Dogs were dogging, cats were catting. Birds were birding, Fish were fishing. Thence Pwllheli, went swimming" [Pwllheli, pron. "per-thelly", in Northern Wales. An odd little poem!] (from http://www.pootle.demon.co.uk/beatles/rn9.htm)
6:01 "Geoff" starting with Bulge and clarinet JL: The dogs were dogging, the cats were catting, the birds were birding, 6:05 JL: Wounded sounds JL: the fish were fishing, the men were mennning, the when for wimming [sic??]
I really like this nonsense poem. I don't agree with the first version.I think the Pwllheli is way off mark. The second version is pretty good. at the end I think he says :
"men were menning went swimming".
Incidentally something you can often hear in Rev 9 is George Martin saying "Geoff, can you put the red light on please?". It may be the only time we hear Martin on a Beatles record. Shame he didn't like the track!
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I actually like this track, not as a musical piece but as a sound collage - it's fascinating. Have you checked out the site that Real01 posted - it's amazingly detailed and well worth a look. I would love to have heard sound-clip illustrations of the points, but that is being VERY picky!
This is an analysis of the Beatles' sound montage, "Revolution #9". I endeavor to show that John would consider it among his best works, and show what I feel are the autobiographical elelments of the piece. From "Lennon Remembers" (1971), pg. 29: Jann Wenner: "Let me ask you again, are you pleased with the new album (PLASTIC ONO BAND)?" John: 'I think it's the best thing I've ever done. I think it's realistic and it's true to me...that has been developing over the years from "In My Life", "I'm a Loser", "Help", "Strawberry Fields." They're all personal records. I always wrote about me when I could. I didn't really enjoy writing third person songs about people who lived in flats and things like that...' 'The only true songs I ever wrote were "Help" and "Strawberry Fields." I can name a few...I can't think of them offhand, that I always considered my best songs.'
Now, the way I remember it, John had wanted to release "Revolution #9" as a single, but the other guys wouldn't allow it. In this alone, you would think John considered this a "best song". Add this to the fact that the song is very biographical, which by Lennon standards qualifies his best work. You can set a biographical time span on the song by zeroing in on the time Beatlemania makes it appearance in the piece. This is a good place to plot the song's timeline from:
At 4:02, a clip of an actual Beatle audience awaiting the arrival of the group is introduced. The fans are all excited, you can kind of sense a "hey, Beatles!" attitude among the guys, and the female fans are obviously ready to start screaming. At approximate 4:06, you get a tune up, like a group preparing to go on: a tone of an instrument, and a singer warming up like a "mi, mi- mi- mi, mi-mi". This is the Beatles at their moment. What follows at 4:18 is the sound and feel of their tours.
John on touring: "[The Hunter Davies book] was really bullshit...there was nothing about the orgies and the mess that happened on the tour... I mean we had that [innocent] image, but man, our tours were something else...you know, the Beatles tours were like Fellini's SATYRICON." (Ibid. pg. 84)
At 4:18, after you hear the shrill screaming of the female admirers (remember, an actual Beatle sound clip), we are introduced to the sounds of a debauched, orgiastic event, with John "licking his lip's and smecking", so to speak, perhaps the most insidiously powerful moment in the piece. Notice the sound of the crashing cymbal, like a whip cracking over everything. The Beatles on tour. The Beatles marketing phenomenom. The height of Beatlemania! The whip cracks over everything. This mounts until..
4:50. Public acclaim from both (all) sides, sounds like an audience applauding after a show. The boys have done it, they're a universal success. John is on a crazy ride. At 5:00, the "hold that line" tape is introduced. The only thing I can make of this is that in England, you have the "firms" of the football crowd, blokes and birds that go and get crazy over their teams. Drunkenness, fights with rival firms, etc. are common at these bashes. They are known as very violently loyal fans. This could imply intoxication, or something going on in the streets...
5:28. The Sgt. Pepper period is introduced, with the final note of a "Day in the Life" (again, actual Beatle sound clips, LSO recordings from the Pepper sessions). This is repeated three times (5:28, 5:42, 5:4, and once more at 6:24. The war sound effects in this section might be a comment on VietNam; they could refer to "How I Won the War".
At 6:25 the whip starts cracking again. But by 6:30, the song starts moving out of the past, and into the present (at least the present when the song was made). We hear a miltary band (Pepper playing for the fans?), then jump from the past to the present at the immediate "Take this brother, may it serve you well", 6:47. We are present at the moment of artistic creation, so to speak...
6:50. Inside with John and Yoko. We are witness to an true autobiographical moment, getting so close to John and Yoko that it feels like we're in their bedroom. Yoko is expounding, John is waking up, and starts droning something as in the backround, a crooner parody of Paul singing a period-piece song goes on ("Good fishes again in the kettle?" Paul as the Walrus? Just what is he saying?). This part ends with Yoko inviting us to get naked with the Lennons: John's life has been laid bare, so to speak, in an experimental musical piece... This is just an outline; it's a little more difficult plotting the timeline from the begining of the 'song' to the the emergence of Beatlemania, but not impossible. A baby crying - John's youth? "Every one of them knew that as time went by they'd get a little bit older and a little bit slower" - John growing up? How about the honking horns of the first part of the song? Is this a memory of the accident which claimed his mother's life? &c. As you see, there's a good case to consider this one of John Lennon's best pieces, in my and probably in his own opinion. Don't let the experimental nature of the work alienate you.
I have a strong feeling this song will stand the test of time and will someday be considered a Beatles masterpiece, brushstrokes and all... As this piece deserves more credit than it usually gets, it gets my vote for Most Underrated Beatles Song ever.
I've got this on my pc, and the first time i heard it, i was sitting here late at night, it was dark outside (sounds creepy already dont it lol) my pc is in this old Conservatory type room with windows on all sides. And i seriously was scared. I mean the first time i heard that laugh and the car crashing it just completely freaked me out!
Also u all know about the "turn me on dead man" when played backwards right? That really freaked me!
Thanks Mat. I've now listened to the whole thing backwards. It's surprising how similar some passages sound! So there must already be a lot of stuff backward on the original!(The piano and the orchestra for example). But none of the dialogue seems to be backwards. The 'turn me on deadman' is a freak coincidence in my opinion and you have to be looking for it to hear it. One bit I prefer to the original is when Lennon shouts 'All Right' he sounds like a demented cat!
Ha! I've listened to Revolution 9 so many times, it doesn't scare me anymore. Besides, the first time I listened to it was on our computer, and the right speaker's broken.
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real01
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, and once more at 6:24. The war sound effects in this section might be a comment on VietNam; they could refer to "How I Won the War". 
wow nice, i am goin to listen to #9, and pay close attention to all of this 