A Detailed Analysis of The Beatles' Song 'Revolution' and its Impact

This essay provides a comprehensive analysis of The Beatles' song 'Revolution,' delving into its musical structure, lyrical content, and historical context. The paper examines the song's composition, including its chord progressions, instrumentation, and genre classification as classic rock and rock and roll with blues influences. It explores the political and social climate of 1968, the year of the song's release, and how these factors influenced John Lennon's songwriting and the band's creative process. The essay also discusses the controversies surrounding the song's political references, the recording process, and the reactions from the band members and the public. Furthermore, the analysis highlights the song's impact on music and its lasting legacy as one of The Beatles' most iconic and influential tracks, showcasing Lennon's creative freedom and the band's ability to reflect and shape cultural narratives. The essay also includes references from various scholars and resources to support the analysis.

Running head: REVOLUTION BY THE BEATLES
REVOLUTION BY THE BEATLES
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1REVOLUTION BY THE BEATLES
The Beatles was an English rock band which was formed in the year, 1960 in Liverpool.
The band consisted of four members who were Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Ringo Starr and
George Harrison (Yagi, 2015). The Beatles is one of the most popular bands of all time and are
still listened and love by rock lovers all over the world. The band just did not record and produce
music but have always been vocal about the things they feel are not justified. The Beatles is one
of the most influential bands of all time. All their songs have been blockbusters and have topped
the charts. This paper will analyze the song “Revolution” by the Beatles and will give an insight
about the though process behind the song.
The revolution song was released in the year 1968 in November 22. The song was written
by John Lennon himself and he had voiced out his opinion through this song. The revolution is
known to be one of the controversial songs because of the political reference in the song. It is
said to be one of the most ambitious projects of the band which had garnered a huge appreciation
among the people all across the globe and had influenced many people. The song was written
down by John Lennon himself and had been penned down during the transcendental meditation
retreat in the beautiful Rishikesh, India in the year 1968. This album where the song revolution
was featured in, White Album was considered to be one of the most ambitious projects of the
band. This album had featured various songs which were both abstract and conventional and
which had a various genres presented in this one single album. However, this album also marked
the end of the Fab Four because the recording sessions of the band were fraught with conflicts in
terms of creativity and also because of the tension that was provoked by Yoko Ono’s
contribution who was the partner of John Lennon at that time.
The song, Revolution can be said to fall under the genre classic rock as well as the rock
and roll genre. In the beginning of the song, we can see an element of blues because of the subtle

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and smooth beginning. Then the song goes on to the genre of classic rock and rock and roll. This
song can also be called pop music as it has many few different elements. According to scholars,
pop music is basically a genre of music that is popular which originated in their modern forms in
the United Kingdom and the United States during the mid 1950s (Vulliamy, 2017). Pop music
basically means music that has been recognized and has become popular and also includes
various diverse styles in their music. The song is very catchy because of the genre and the
approach of the genre blues in some sections of the songs which makes the song very soothing to
the ear as well.
The first verse of the song has a I, IV and V approach which is considered to be a basic
approach however the notes go higher with the progression of the song and it can be seen that in
the bridge section the song has a II,V, VIIb and VI approach (Hinshaw, 2015). The song has a
general A major blues pentatonic scale, it consists of the notes A B C# B and F#. The verse has
A/ D A/D and an Emaj7 chords with a small prechorus that starts on a minor Bminor chord
hitting G as an accidental and then rolling back to A and F# and then back to the verse chorsds
which is A and D which is the fourth interval. The E maj 7 is used in the song brilliantly to give
the song classic blues rocks feel to the song. The G major chord has been used uniquely as one
usually does not expect that chord or that kind of structure in a song. This song feels unique and
nice all the more because it does not fall in the A major pentatonic scale. The instruments played
in the song have a huge role to play in making the song a huge success because of the sound it
has produced which has attracted millions of people all across the globe. The instruments that
have been used in the song are the guitar, bass, drums and organ. It is the bass instruments that
have helped in producing the low pitched ranges in the songs. People and

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The year, 1968 was said to be a turbulent time. The Vietnam War was said to be raging
and it had also been seen during this time the assassination of Martin Luther King was witnessed
and there was a huge rage in the country with anti-war protest movements. People called for a
revolution in the United States of America and also abroad which was common. This
environment gave birth to the song, Revolution. In the year 1968, John Lennon had recorded the
first version of the song without the inputs or intervention of the other members of the band, Paul
McCartney and George Harrison.
Both Harrison and McCartney were very skeptical about the recording by Lennon
because of many reasons. The band had always been clear from any kind of politics and
Revolution was a track which was openly a political soundtrack which presented the feelings that
Lennon had during the turmoil during the late 60s. They fellow band members though that this
track would give rise to controversies and this could have a negative impact on the reputation of
the band and they could also lose their fans. Initially the first recording of the song was not very
upbeat and was too slow and did not have the elements that would make the song a perfect hit.
Thus, Lennon recorded the song again and made the song more upbeat and made the version
more rock-driven which then came to be known as Revolution in order to appease his band mates
McCartney and Harrison (Roessner, 2016).
John Lennon always wanted to express his feeling about anti-war before the release of the
song, Revolution however; he was discouraged to do so because of the longtime manager of the
band, Brian Epstein. After he passed away, John Lennon thought of taking the direction of
creativity in his own hands and got inspired by the time he has spent in India and also because of
his then spouse, Yoko Ono.

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John Lennon wrote this song because of the burning political environment and because of
the chaos that it had been creating and had been affecting the innocent people. The lyrics of the
first verse by Lennon are the following (Youtube.com, 2015):
“You say you want a revolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
You tell me that it's evolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world”
This song states that John Lennon here demands for a revolution and a positive change in
order to make the world peaceful and a better place and from the lyrics it can be seen that he
highly against violence and war. This song was released during the time where there were violent
attacks by the police on the demonstrators at the Chicago Democratic Convention, these attacks
during that time suggested that peaceful protests were not possible anymore. This song was
viewed in both negative and positive way by various people and had also been applauded and
criticized at the same time by the people. The song does criticize the government however stands
for justice and right of the people and the world.
This song, revolution was indeed revolutionary and showed the influence of the band on
their fans. Many fans applauded the song for the views that were presented through the song
however the song got a lot of backlash for the political views that was presented through the
song. Nonetheless, this song is considered to be one of the most iconic songs by the Beatle and
one of the songs which gave John Lennon the creative freedom to make more meaningful and
influential songs at that time.

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Reference
Hinshaw, C. (2015). Beatles Song Analysis.
Roessner, J. (2016). Revolution 2.0: Beatles Fan Scholarship in the Digital Age. In New Critical
Perspectives on the Beatles (pp. 221-240). Palgrave Macmillan, London.
Vulliamy, G. (2017). Music and the Mass Culture Debate 1. In Whose Music? (pp. 179-200).
Routledge.
Yagi, T. (2015). Nonlinear effects of superstar collaboration: Why the beatles succeeded but
broke up. Applied Economics and Finance, 2(2), 103-111.
Youtube.com. (2015). YouTube. Retrieved 15 January 2020, from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGLGzRXY5Bw