I'm on a Beatles tip this week, so I was wondering what people thought of Revoltution 9



(got that from google images when I typed Revolution 9. It'll do)

I've always enjoyed listening to it, especially as a teenager getting into music, when I used to imagine I was tripping.

"The Watusi...the twist..."

I read somewhere it's the biggest selling piece of avant-garde ambient music, by dint of being on the White Album.

What do you think of it?...

oops wrong forum - can someone move this plse?

It's scary when you don't know much about the Beatles and do know a lot about Charles Manson!

Well, technically, it should be credited to John Lennon and Yoko Ono, with George Harrison (I think) turning up in the mix every now and then.. But like 'Yesterday', which was just McCartney with a string quartet, if it's on a Beatles album, it's 'by' the Beatles.

It has often been much hated over the years by many Beatles fans, but I actually quite like it, and find it interesting if a little overlong. It's just Lennon and Ono 'going Stockhausen' for a bit of experimentation. It doesn't quite outstay its welcome as their two or three late '60s 'experimental' albums of screaming and random chatter do.

I prefer it to a few of the proper songs on the White album, to be honest .
[Edited 8/1/07 11:40am]

I think it's actually much more interesting and musical than a lot of people give it credit for, but I think it's a much less musical (or at least less accesssible) incorporation of stockhausen's influence than previous songs by the Beatles e.g. Tomorrow Never Knows, the bridge part of Getting Better, Strawberry Fields, various segments in Sgt. Pepper and Magical Mystery Tour. Since Paul was mostly responsible for introducing the Stockhausen tape collage elements in Beatles' work in the past (in fact he was more the architect of the backing arrangement in Tomorrow Never Knows than John was, even though it was John's song), he was opposed to putting this song on the White Album because he thought it would cause people to perceive that John was the real innovator.