It began as a poem of despair. We have our elections but they are limited and controlled. We get a limited choice with not much to choose. The candidates are carefully selected. The information controlled.
We are manipulated, controlled and herded. Our protests are orchestrated. The system prevails.
The same few pull the strings and determine the outcome. We elect their choices.
When the dust has settled the same people are in charge; the same people profit.
The Beatles White Album and controversial Revolution No. 9
There is huge controversy over this album among Beatle fans. The sprawling double album with its range of styles, solo efforts, experimental tracks and spontaneous jams, divides opinion, Some rave about it and enjoy the rawness, versatility and daring. For them the variety piques the attention. Others see it as being full of fillers and unhoned numbers and would have preferred a single album of more carefully crafted songs. I’m firmly with the former. For me the album shines precisely because of its range and rawness.
The most controversial number of all was Lennon’s Revolution No.9. Many people wrote this off as a Lennon indulgence, a meaningless pile of junk – and I must admit that I used to feel the same. It was one of a few tracks that I used to skip.
Not anymore. When I came to write the book I had to study each track in detail. Here’s an extract from the book that might help explain:
Revolution 9 (Lennon McCartney)
There is no doubt that Yoko really turned John on. He’d become lost, searching and feeling desperate, as we heard in ‘Yer Blues’. Yoko, with her uncommercial avant garde approach, quirky humour and zany perspective provided a stimulating life-line. It awakened aspects of John that had lain dormant. Suddenly he had a desire to be authentic, say what he thought, and do what he wanted, regardless of the consequences. She’d unshackled him. It was no longer about image and creating commercially successful songs. He wasn’t just a Beatle; he was John.
The other Beatles, press and public, found this new Lennon hard to understand. He wasn’t following the rules. Yoko unleashed a new burst of creativity and it did not always head off in the direction people wanted. Being accessible and commercial were no longer considerations. Being artistically authentic was all that mattered. Nowhere was this more obvious than on this Beatles track and the three experimental albums he released with Yoko in 1968/69 – Unfinished Music No.1 – Two Virgins, Unfinished Music No.2 – Life With The Lyons and Wedding Album.
‘Revolution 9’ and these three albums largely used the same techniques – cut-up, backwards sections, tape loops and spoken word. The two of them were having fun producing soundscapes – painting abstract aural compositions with noise. It might leave the other Beatles, critics and the public bemused but they were enjoying themselves.
Saxonmotherson summed up the situation perfectly: ‘Sigh…where were YOU in 1968? I was 17. MLK & RFK were assassinated, there were race riots, cities burned, Anti-Vietnam demonstrations, all over Europe, there were student demonstrations. When MLK was killed, there were army tanks (ARMY TANKS!) in the field behind our house. There was a police riot in Chicago. First time I heard R #9, it made perfect sense to me. In retrospect, it still does. It is 1968. It is the aural version of Guernica by Picasso.’- comment on Beatles Bible.
At the time, 1968, with the French fighting in the streets, and black riots in a number of US cities, there was much talk of revolution. Violent revolution really seemed a possibility. Speaking to Jan Wenner in his 1971 Rolling Stone interview John articulated his thoughts on violent revolution: ‘At 17 I used to wish a fuckin’ earthquake or revolution would happen so that I could go out and steal and do what the blacks are doing now. If I was black, I’d be all for it; if I were 17 I’d be all for it, too. What have you got to lose? Now I’ve got something to lose. I don’t want to die.’ ‘Revolution’ was a really important song for him. He was breaking out of the straitjacket and saying something from the heart. The Vietnam War and Civil Rights issues were exploding and he was determined to have a voice in it. He had been dismayed by the overcautious reaction of the rest of the band and their rejection of it as a single.
I grew up in an age when music was at the forefront of everything. The lyrics and sounds were studied and analysed, expressed deep feelings and were the instigators of social change. Music meant something.
For my friends and me, music was the very centre of our culture. When we met it was what we talked about, discussed and listened to together. Our music was no background sound, no mere beat to dance to; it wasn’t just about love, relationships and bust-ups. It had great depth. There was philosophy, social change, racism, sexism, war, politics and death. Music led the great changes in society as young people embraced a different vision for the future. (Of course, we did love, dance and have fun too!)
The sixties, for my friends and me, was a time of great optimism and change. We were opposed to the establishment with its warmongering inequality, build-in racism and misogyny and its greedy, money-grabbing elite. We wanted something better, something more meaningful, something with greater moral integrity. These were the days of the anti-war movement, civil rights movement, the burgeoning Green movement, women’s lib and the sexual revolution. We thought we were building a new world based on different values; better values. We really thought we could build a society outside of this mainstream conservative hell. We wanted out of the mad race for money and status. We wanted a happier, more fulfilling all-embracing life. Music was integral.
We were wrong. The establishment had all the power and fought back. They bought Rock Music, bought off our heroes, and sanitised it.
My, how I miss those days, sitting around the record player sharing a new disc and a joint, intensely discussing just what the likes of Bob Dylan, Buffy St Marie, Roy Harper, Captain Beefheart and Phil Ochs meant. Fired up on understanding – studying the lyric sheet, reading the cover, while immersed in the sounds.
Music was unifying, a vehicle of change and dissent. Music was central to life. It informed, permeated and reflected. It magnified ideas, emotions and philosophy. Music was our breath. Music nourished the brain.
Are the young people out there doing what we used to do? Are they fired up on idealism? Are there new Roy Harpers, Bob Dylans and Captain Beefhearts producing deep, meaningful music?
All across the world there was a new vibe. The young were up in arms protesting. They turned their backs on the greediness and warmongering of their establishment thugs. They reached across oceans to unite in the building of a new world. Nations did not matter. Race and colour did not matter. Money was not the be all and end all. We wanted something more meaningful, more tolerant, more compassionate, more real and less hypocritical.
All you needed was love.
When we met up we found we could all get along. Differences melted like summer snow.
There was a vibe of peace and love. There was no need for violence and conflict. We were all people. We all felt the same. We shared, laughed, grew, talked and learnt.
We cared about the planet. We demanded equality. We demanded rights and freedoms. We demanded that we be allowed to enjoy life.
There was a sexual revolution. A drug revolution. A political revolution. A music revolution. A social revolution.
But they bought it off. They took over. They sold us out. They undermined. They misrepresented. They made their profits. They took back control. And our idealistic dream was bought and sold, betrayed and soiled. Now the fascists are in control and it’s like the sixties never happened.
I often think back to the days of my youth when everything seemed so clear. I looked at the way the world was being governed and thought it was completely insane.
I’d met people from a range of cultures and discovered they were people just like me. We could laugh and love without hatred or prejudice. So where did all this fear, violence and paranoia come from?
It had to be the politicians, the media, and the institutions. The world was being run for people to exploit and make money, for power and wealth. It created nations, wars, inequality and led to distrust, paranoia and hatred.
I believed there was a better way. But I was just a kid. I thought it would be easy. All you had to do was explain it well enough and everyone would understand. It isn’t as easy as that. A small minority of people are vicious, deranged, damaged and indoctrinated. They need to feel good about themselves and they do that be placing themselves in positions of power. We are governed by sociopaths and psychopaths. They set the tone for everything that happens. Too many people are traumatised by abuse, war, bereavement, ill-treatment, bad upbringing or bad experiences. They need assistance.
I was young. I believed everyone had a core of humanity and was open to reason. I had faith that I could talk my way out of any bad situation.
I’m not so young any more. I think it isn’t quite so easy. But I still believe that most people are good and that those who aren’t are sick and damaged. That should be our priority; to heal the sad and traumatised. That’ll make things better.
Automation and globalisation, coupled with excessive bonuses and exorbitant pay for entertainers and sportspeople, has created a divided society and that is only going to get worse. We have such inequality that it is creating hatred and hopelessness – not a good combination.
The workforce is no longer needed. Cheap labour can be exploited in the Third World at a fraction of the cost. Their work conditions and health and safety do not have to be of the highest standard.
Automation means that far less people are required. Even the army is best run through drones. War is automated.
We live in a consumer society where goods, services and entertainment is aggressively sold to us and we pay excessive amounts for the privilege.
The end result is that we have more extreme inequality. Society is divided into different bands:
The super-rich
The rich
The doing OK
The poor and struggling
The down and outs
It used to be the case that through education and hard work you could rise up to being either rich or OK. That is no longer the case. Too many people are locked into struggling or going under through no fault of their own. The jobs are going.
The super-rich are becoming increasingly richer. The wealth is being channelled to the top end.
Now I believe that either something is done to address this or there will be great social unrest.
It has already resulted in both Trump and Brexit as exasperated people opt for populist fixes. When these fail, as they will, what next?
To be successful a revolution does not only have to create a mass sense of injustice at the unfairness of the current situation but also a highly organised replacement.
This is what invariably goes wrong. The mass popular uprisings of the communist era were hi-jacked by highly organised groups who stepped into the vacuum, simply took over and proceeded to replace one corrupt system with another that is equally as bad but favoured a new different elite.
A good example of this is the Egyptian uprising. The people rose up and used social media to coordinate protest. It was very effective at gathering people together in large numbers but lacked any structure and organisation. The only two groups with structure and organisation were the Muslim Brotherhood and the military. So Mubarak was displaced but not replaced by a fair, democratic government representing the interests of the people. First we had a thinly veiled theocracy of religious extremism and then by an equally bad military junta.
The difficulty in creating a highly organised replacement is extremely taxing. The media and social machinery of the state convinces most people that there are no alternatives and that it cannot be done. According to them all the alternatives are doomed to failure – as supposedly proved by history. In reality surveillance of revolutionary groups prevents them getting off the ground.
The end result is that most people come to grudgingly accept their lot as minions and paeans in an unjust society, moan and bitch, but believe it is probably the best they can hope for and that the alternatives are worse.
The elite give as little as they can get away with without driving the population into revolt and there is an uneasy stability.
