Latest posts by Ed Park (see all)
- Bring on the Lucie by Hallelujah the Hills - October 9, 2015
- Experiment: Two Words - July 27, 2013
- POV - July 19, 2013
I love it when the sleeves can’t keep up with the group.— MG
ED PARK • Dullblog scout Eric brought this find to our attention—from EW’s Popwatch:
Over the past couple of days, Beatles fanatics have been chattering about an amazing outtake that recently leaked onto the Internet. The 10-minute-plus recording of “Revolution” (embedded below) offers a fascinating look at the wildly ambitious plans the band originally had for the song, eventually included in much shorter form on The White Album. “As someone who’s heard, I’d say, 99.8 percent of the Beatles music that has leaked onto bootleg, this is really interesting,” says Richie Unterberger, author of the book The Unreleased Beatles….
(Listen below…I’m getting the chills….??!)
There are parts of this that bother me and throw a small question mark onto some of it. Especially towards the end, where there appears, to my ears, to be a bit of bad Lennon imitation.
I agree with da Prof; feels like an outfake to me. When Lennon talks–at the beginning and the end–there’s something off about his voice. Also: I couldn’t figure out who was singing the “Mama/Dada” part. It’s obviously supposed to be Paul and George, but it didn’t sound like them to me; nor did it sound like Yoko and Patty, or whoever sang on “Birthday.”
The thing that really makes me suspicious is that the “new” bits seem either laid on top of the original track in places where the original track gets quiet, or inspired by easily identifiable parts of Revolution #9, or both.
My guess is that somebody with ProTools took the original track, then put a bit of studio chatter on the front and back ends; then recorded a jam to extend the song after it originally fades; then took bits of Rev #9 and laid those in; and finally recorded a few bits (“dada/mama”), and laid that on top.
I could be wrong, though. My ears aren’t great. I wanna hear what Lewisohn has to say! Doesn’t “From Kinfauns to Chaos have a lot of these very sessions on it? Devin, what say you?
[…] I’ve been wrong before, but I would be willing to wager $100 right now that this letter is a fake. It misquotes song titles, misnames Julian as “John,” claims that Lennon was kiting checks (not really possible when you’re a millionaire, right? “Dear Bank: Please do not honor this check, even though there is money in my account”) and is incredibly ill-written and incoherent. It doesn’t sound anything like John Lennon, in prose or speech. It does, however, sound exactly like what a cheesy TV preacher, unhip on a cellular level, might think John Lennon the famous druggie rock-n-roller would sound like. […]