“Revolution” by The Beatles

"Revolution" is John Lennon taking on the barricades of 1968 and declining to cheer for the bomb-throwers, and the Beatles slung it out that August as the B-side of "Hey Jude". This is the fast, fuzzed-up version, cut several weeks after the slower, bluesy "Revolution 1" that turned up on the White Album in November, and it's the Beatles at their most ferocious: Lennon and George Harrison's electric guitars distorted until they scream, Paul McCartney's bass and Ringo Starr's drums slamming underneath, Nicky Hopkins pounding an electric piano, and all four clapping along. George Martin produced it, with Geoff Emerick engineering.

Lennon wrote it after the political protests early in 1968, and the lyric backs the need for change while doubting the violent methods some on the New Left were preaching. His bandmates had reservations; he pushed it through anyway and insisted it go on the next single. The radical left heard a betrayal, proof that the Beatles were out of touch with the counterculture's sharp end. Lennon was stung, swung toward Marxist revolution with "Power to the People" in 1971, and yet in one of his last interviews before his death in 1980 he stood by the peaceful message all over again.

It got to 12 on the Billboard Hot 100, topped the charts in Australia and New Zealand, and in 1987 it became the first Beatles track ever sold to advertisers for a TV spot, a deal that brought a lawsuit from the surviving members.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.