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No Spotify playlist for this Musical Close-Up, since all excerpts are linked directly below, and "Revolution 9" is already included in the Recommended Listening playlist.
This aspect of the Beatles' music (and music of other bands from the late 60s & 70s) is probably over-analyzed
Examples of the "Paul is Dead" hoax ...
phrase at the end of "Strawberry Fields Forever" (late 1966); following the fake fade-out (3:56 in the original recording), John can be heard saying "I buried Paul"
Strawberry Fields Forever
released as a single (Strawberry Fields Forever / Penny Lane) on Feb. 17, 1967
backwards messages contained on the White Album (1968)
I'm So Tired/Blackbird - extended excerpt
transition between songs - sounds like "Paul is dead, man; miss him, miss him, miss him" when played backwards; from the White album (1968)
brief excerpt ...
forward
backwards
Revolution 9 - extended excerpt
from the White album (1968)same excerpt backwards (listen to BOTH)
John Lennon on creating "Revolution 9" for the White Album:
"It has the basic rhythm of the original 'Revolution' going on with some 20 loops we put on, things form the archives of EMI. We were cutting up classical music and making different-size loops and then I got an engineer tape on which some test engineer was saying 'Number nine, number nine, number nine." All those defferent bits of sound and noises are all compiled. There were about 10 machines with people holding pencils on the loops--some only inches long and some a yard long. I fed them all in and mixed them live." (excerpt from Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now by Barry Miles, p. 484. NY Owl books, 1997)
The phrase "Number 9" from "Revolution 9" sounds like "Turn me on, dead man" when played backwards.
brief excerpts ...
one time only
forward
backwards
repeated
forward
backwards
Revolution 9 (complete recording)
from the White album (1968)misinterpretation of ambiguous or nonsense lyrics:
just recall Charles Manson's "inspiration" for a series of murders (e.g., "Helter Skelter" from the White album, 1968)
Here is an interesting essay about this technique known as "Audio Reversal."
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