Hornswaggled

REVOLUTION 9: MINUTE BY MINUTE
© David J. Coyle ( sourced from the web )

Remember, this list applies to “Revolution 9″ as it appears on track 12 of the Capitol “The Beatles” CD (disc 2). It does not include the “Can You Take Me Back?” track or the conversation between [George] Martin and [Derek] Taylor, which are hopefully easy to hear… Some of the sounds recur throughout the piece. I have tried to identify these at their first occurence, and alude to some as reference pointslater in the list. Otherwise, once such bits are depichered they are relatively easy to pick out as they recur. Ellipses (…) are used to mark passages of unintelligible phrases within an otherwise coherent bit of speech.

Revolution 9

Track time 8:13

• 0:00-0:15 Piano intro
• 0:02-0:15 “Number Nine” loop introduced
• 0:15 Sound effects faded in
• 0:21 Backwards mellotron
• 0:28 Orhestral loop (“A Day In The Life” overdubs? Strings going up scale)
• 0:44 Orchestra loop (different, with cymbal crash)
• 0:50 Various reversed orchestra. First audible speech (John, right channel)
• 1:00 Backwards mellotron
• 1:00-1:20 Intelligible speech (John, right): “They found a shortage of grain in Hartfordshire, and every one of them knew that as time went by, they’d get a little bit older and a little bit slower…factory work…five percent in the, in the uh, the district, they were intended to pay for…”
• 1:20 Backwards orchestra loop
• 1:35-1:48 Female laughter (left-to-right channel)
• 1:48 Baby like sounds Choir Intelligible speech (George, right): “Who was to know? Who was to know?”
• 1:58 Backwards Indian instruments (“morphed” from the baby sounds)
• 2:00-2:12 “Number nine” loop
• 2:12-2:20 Orchestra loop (Sibelius, “Symphony No. 7″ final chord)
• 2:14-2:17 Intelligible speech (John, right): “I informed him on the third night, unfortunately he was…”
• 2:22 George Martin: “Geoff [Emerick, Abbey Road engineer]… put the red light on…” (first appearance)
• 2:30-2:54 Miscellaneous crowd sounds (left)
• 2:33-2:50 Shouts by John (“Revolution 1″, take 18?): “Right!” (repeated eight times, last “right” is prolonged)
• 2:55 Glass breaks (right) George: “Foot!” (? or possibly “fook”?)
• 3:00 Audible speech (John/George, left)
• 3:02-3:15 Orchestra loop (Beethoven, “Fantasy for Piano, Orchestra, and Choir: Opus 80″) Car horns, traffic noise
• 3:17-3:20 Intelligible speech (John, right): “…fine(?) hand over his shoulder…”
• 3:25-3:35 Tape spools back
• 3:39-3:45 Intelligible speech (John/George, right): George: “…on heat with the situation…” John: “They are standing still.” George: “I found a telegram (?)”
• 3:50 Noises by John (take 18?) ”Number nine” loop Football loop, first appearance (right): “On the 30…” or ”Number 30…”
• 3:54-4:05 Intelligible speech (John/George, right): George: ”… a bit of farce(?) as the headmaster reported to…” John: “Who could tell what he was saying, his voice was slow and his (?) was high, and his eyes were low…”
• 4:05-4:18 John: “Hold it!”, crowd noises (right)
• 4:13-4:17 Intelligible speech (John): “…on fire, but his glasses were saved…(?)”
• 4:18-4:50 Various effects in a melange
• 4:50 Loud noise across channels
• 4:53-5:14 Intelligible speech (John, right): “So the wife called, and we better go to see a surgeon, but what
• with the prices and all, the prices have snow balled, it’s so absurd, yeah, no wonder they’re closed. So anyhow, he went to see the dentist instead who gave him a pair of teeth, which wasn’t any good at all. So instead of that, he joined the bloody navy and went to sea…”
• 4:56 George, right: “…there were nine of them…”
• 4:59-5:03 Tape spooling back Scream, (John, right)
• 5:04-5:25 Football chant (left-to-right): “Block that kick!” (first appearance)
• 5:30-5:36 Intelligible speech (John, right): “Here I sit in my broken chair, my wings are broken and so is my hair. I am not in the mood for…”
• 5:35-5:42 Crackling paper (fire?) Backwards choir loop
• 5:40-5:50 Orchestra loop (Sibelius) Various noises by John (take 18?)
• 5:46-5:50 Science-fiction effects, gunfire?
• 5:50-5:59 Intelligible speech (john, right): “The dogs were dogging, the cats were catting, the birds were birding, the fish were fishing…”
• 6:00-6:08 Melange of sound effects
• 6:07-6:13 Intelligible speech (George, right): “…only to find the nightwatchman, unaware of his presence in the building…”
• 6:11 John (right): “Onion soup…”
• 6:15-6:23 George Martin loop ”Number nine” loop Orchestra loop (Beethoven, Opus 80) Reversed choir loop
• 6:24-6:40 Intelligible speech (John/George, right): John: “Personality complex…industrial output…financial imbalance…the Watusi…the Twist…” George (left): “Eldorado”
• 6:32 George (right): “…pushing it between his shoulderblades…” Backwards piano loop (intro reversed?)
• 6:42 Marching band (left)
• 6:43-6:44 Intelligible speech (John): “Take this brother, may it serve you well…” Humming by Yoko Ono
• 6:47-7:45 Audible speech by Yoko
• 6:49 John: “What? What? Hmmmm…” (in response to Yoko?)
• 6:50-7:00 Radio static
• 7:00-7:30 Unidentified singing voice (beginning with “good fish in the kettle(?)… “Low mumbling by John
• 7:33-7:42 Backwards piano loop
• 7:43 Intelligible phrase (Yoko): “…if…you become naked.”
• 7:47-8:13 Football chant to fade (left-to-right): “Hold that line… block that kick…” And so, “Good Night”…

[Note: Althought the track is in stereo, it seems that the section between
6:47-7:45 is in mono or center-channel. John's comment at 6:43 seems
to mark this transition, much in the way that "The Wizard of Oz"
changes from black-and-white to color when Dorothy steps out of her house.
All of the sound effects from this section of the piece are audible in
both channels clearly.]

NOTE: This article was written by David J. Coyle.
It first appeared on the news group rec.music.beatles in February 1996 

© David J. Coyle