As of this writ­ing, the Bea­t­les’ “Rev­o­lu­tion 9″ has more than 13,800,000 plays on Spo­ti­fy. This has no doubt gen­er­at­ed decent rev­enue, even giv­en the plat­for­m’s oft-lament­ed pay­out rates. But com­pare that num­ber to the more than half-a-bil­lion streams of “Black­bird,” also on the Bea­t­les’ self-titled 1968 “white album,” and you get an idea of “Rev­o­lu­tion 9”’s place in the band’s oeu­vre. Sim­ply put, even ultra-hard-core Fab Four fans tend to skip it. Regard­less, as Ian Mac­Don­ald writes in Rev­o­lu­tion in the Head: The Bea­t­les’ Records and the Six­ties, “this eight-minute exer­cise in aur­al free asso­ci­a­tion is the world’s most wide­ly dis­trib­uted avant-garde arti­fact.”

Mas­ter­mind­ed by John Lennon, “Rev­o­lu­tion 9” is not exact­ly a song, but rather an elab­o­rate “sound col­lage,” assem­bled in broad adher­ence to an aes­thet­ic devel­oped by such avant-garde cre­ators as William S. Bur­roughs, The Bea­t­les’ graph­ic design­er Richard Hamil­ton, John Cage, and Karl­heinz Stock­hausen. “While the cut-up texts of Bur­roughs, the col­lages of Hamil­ton, and the musique con­crète exper­i­ments of Cage and Stock­hausen have remained the pre­serve of the mod­ernist intel­li­gentsia,” writes Mac­Don­ald, “Lennon’s sor­tie into son­ic chance was pack­aged for a main­stream audi­ence which had nev­er heard of its prog­en­i­tors, let alone been con­front­ed by their work.”

In the new Poly­phon­ic video above, Noah Lefevre takes a dive into those prog­en­i­tors and their work, pro­vid­ing the con­text to under­stand how “the Bea­t­les’ weird­est song” came togeth­er. Points of inter­est on this cul­tur­al-his­tor­i­cal jour­ney include com­pos­er Pierre Scha­ef­fer­’s resis­tance-head­quar­ters-turned-exper­i­men­tal-music-lab Stu­dio d’Es­sai; Nazi Ger­many, where the ear­ly Mag­ne­tophon tape recorder was devel­oped; the BBC Radio­phon­ic Work­shop; avant-garde rock­er Frank Zap­pa’s Stu­dio Z; and the Mil­lion Volt Light and Sound Rave, a 1967 hap­pen­ing that host­ed “Car­ni­val of Light,” a Bea­t­les com­po­si­tion nev­er heard again since.

What did Lennon, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with George Har­ri­son and Yoko Ono (with whom he’d only just got togeth­er), think he was doing with “Rev­o­lu­tion 9”? “To the extent that Lennon con­cep­tu­al­ized the piece at all, it is like­ly to have been as a sen­so­ry attack on the citadel of the intel­lect,” writes Mac­Don­ald, “a rev­o­lu­tion in the head aimed, as he stressed at the time, at each indi­vid­ual lis­ten­er — and not a Maoist incite­ment to social con­fronta­tion, still less a call for gen­er­al anar­chy.” Indeed, as Lefevre points out, it expressed his ambiva­lence about the very con­cept of 1968-style revolt as much as the com­par­a­tive­ly con­ven­tion­al “Rev­o­lu­tion 1,” which comes ear­li­er on the album. The six­ties may be long over, but Lennon’s atti­tude has­n’t lost its rel­e­vance: we still hear an end­less stream of promised solu­tions to soci­ety’s prob­lems, and we’d still all love to see the plan.

Relat­ed con­tent:

How the Bea­t­les Exper­i­ment­ed with Indi­an Music & Pio­neered a New Rock and Roll Sound

The Bea­t­les’ 8 Pio­neer­ing Inno­va­tions: A Video Essay Explor­ing How the Fab Four Changed Pop Music

Hear Paul McCartney’s Exper­i­men­tal Christ­mas Mix­tape: A Rare & For­got­ten Record­ing from 1965

The 10-Minute, Nev­er-Released, Exper­i­men­tal Demo of The Bea­t­les’ “Rev­o­lu­tion” (1968)

How George Mar­tin Defined the Sound of the Bea­t­les: From String Quar­tets to Back­wards Gui­tar Solos

Based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities and the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les. Fol­low him on the social net­work for­mer­ly known as Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

In 1969, Ella Fitzger­ald released Sun­shine of Your Love, a live album record­ed at the Venet­ian Room in The Fair­mont San Fran­cis­co. Record­ed by music pro­duc­er Nor­man Granz, the album fea­tured con­tem­po­rary pop songs that show­cased Fitzger­ald’s abil­i­ty to tran­scend jazz stan­dards. Take, for exam­ple, a ver­sion of the Bea­t­les’ “Hey Jude” and Cream’s “Sun­shine of Your Love.” Below you can hear what the orig­i­nal (record­ed in 1967) sound­ed like in the hands of Jack Bruce, Gin­ger Bak­er and Eric Clap­ton, and then expe­ri­ence Ella’s own unex­pect­ed ver­sion above. It’s quite the jux­ta­po­si­tion.

Relat­ed Con­tent 

Watch Ella Fitzger­ald Put Her Extra­or­di­nary Vocal Agili­ty on Dis­play, in a Live Ren­di­tion of “Sum­mer­time” (1968)

Ella Fitzgerald’s Lost Inter­view about Racism & Seg­re­ga­tion: Record­ed in 1963, It’s Nev­er Been Heard Until Now

Ella Fitzger­ald Imi­tates Louis Armstrong’s Grav­el­ly Voice While Singing “I Can’t Give You Any­thing But Love, Baby”

Who invent­ed rock and roll? Ask Chuck Berry, he’ll tell you. It was Chuck Berry. Or was it Bill Haley, Jer­ry Lee Lewis, Lit­tle Richard? Mud­dy Waters? Robert John­son? Maybe even Lead Bel­ly? You didn’t, but if you asked me, I’d say that rock and roll, like coun­try blues, came not from one lone hero but a matrix of black and white artists in the South—some with big names, some without—trading, steal­ing licks, spot­lights, and hair­dos. Coun­try croon­ers, blues­men, refugees from jazz and gospel. Maybe look­ing to cash in, maybe not. Did the tee­ny-bop­per star sys­tem kill rock and roll’s out­law heart? Or was it Bud­dy Holly’s plane crash? Big Pay­ola? There’s a mil­lion the­o­ries in a mil­lion books, look it up.

Who res­ur­rect­ed rock and roll? The Bea­t­les? The Stones? If you ask me, and you didn’t, it was one man, Jimi Hen­drix. Any­one who ever cried into their beer over Don McLean’s maudlin eulo­gy had only to lis­ten to more Hen­drix.

He had it—the swag­ger, the hair, the trad­ing, steal­ing, licks: from the blues, most­ly, but also from what­ev­er caught his ear. And just as those val­orized giants of the fifties did, Hen­drix cov­ered his com­pe­ti­tion. Today, we bring you Hen­drix play­ing The Bea­t­les. Above, see him, Noel Red­ding, and Mitch Mitchell do “Sgt. Pepper’s Lone­ly Hearts Club Band” in 1967, mere days after the song’s release. As we wrote in a pre­vi­ous post, “The album came out on a Fri­day, and by Sun­day night, Jimi Hen­drix learned the songs and opened his own show with a cov­er of the title track.” And, might we say, he made it his very own. “Watch out for your ears, okay?” says Hen­drix to the crowd. Indeed.

Just above, from ‘round that same time, hear Hen­drix and Expe­ri­ence cov­er “Day Trip­per,” one of many record­ings made for BBC Radio, col­lect­ed on the album BBC Ses­sions. Fuzzed-out, blis­ter­ing, boom­ing rock and roll of the purest grade. And below? Why it’s an extreme­ly drunk Jim Mor­ri­son and a super loose Hen­drix jam­ming out “Tomor­row Nev­er Knows,” or some­thing vague­ly like it. Morrison’s vocal con­tri­bu­tions come to noth­ing more than slurred moan­ing. (He’s very vocal in anoth­er cut from this ses­sion, called alter­nate­ly “Morrison’s Lament” and “F.H.I.T.A”—an acronym you’ll get after a lis­ten to Morrison’s obscene refrain.)

This raw take comes from a jam some­time in 1968 at New York’s The Scene club. Also play­ing were The Scene house band The McCoys, bassist Har­vey Brooks, and Band of Gyp­sys drum­mer Bud­dy Miles. John­ny Win­ter may or may not have been there. Released on bootlegs called Bleed­ing Heart, Sky High, and Woke Up This Morn­ing and Found Myself Dead, these ses­sions are a must-hear for Hen­drix com­pletists and lovers of decon­struct­ed vir­tu­oso blues-rock alike. After what Hen­drix did for, and to, rock and roll, there real­ly was nowhere to go but back to the skele­tal bones of punk or into the out­er lim­its of avant psych-noise and fusion. Don McLean should have writ­ten a song about that.

Note: An ear­li­er ver­sion of this post appeared on our site in 2014.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Jimi Hen­drix Arrives in Lon­don in 1966, Asks to Get Onstage with Cream, and Blows Eric Clap­ton Away: “You Nev­er Told Me He Was That F‑ing Good”

In 1969 Telegram, Jimi Hen­drix Invites Paul McCart­ney to Join a Super Group with Miles Davis

Jimi Hen­drix Unplugged: Two Rare Record­ings of Hen­drix Play­ing Acoustic Gui­tar

How Sci­ence Fic­tion Formed Jimi Hen­drix

Jimi Hendrix’s Final Inter­view Ani­mat­ed (1970)

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

NOTE: You can watch the video here.

Not long ago I stum­bled upon this pret­ty won­der­ful video of David Bowie play­ing an acoustic ver­sion of “Heroes,” one of my favorite songs, and I thought I’d quick­ly share it today. Why wait?

Appear­ing at Neil Young’s annu­al Bridge School Ben­e­fit con­cert in Octo­ber 1996, Bowie gives us a stripped-down ver­sion of the mov­ing song he co-wrote with Bri­an Eno in 1977. Flanked by Reeves Gabrels on gui­tar and Gail Ann Dorsey on bass, Bowie strums his acoustic gui­tar. All the while, he taps his foot, let­ting a bot­tle cap, taped to his shoe, assist in cre­at­ing a per­cus­sive beat. It’s all kept ele­gant­ly sim­ple. Hope you enjoy.

Dona­tions to The Bridge School, which helps chil­dren over­come severe speech and phys­i­cal impair­ments through the use of tech­nol­o­gy, can be made here.

Note: An ear­li­er ver­sion of this post appeared on our site in 2016.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Pro­duc­er Tony Vis­con­ti Breaks Down the Mak­ing of David Bowie’s Clas­sic “Heroes,” Track by Track

David Bowie & Bri­an Eno’s Col­lab­o­ra­tion on “Warsza­wa” Reimag­ined in a Com­ic Ani­ma­tion

Watch David Byrne Lead a Mas­sive Choir in Singing David Bowie’s “Heroes”

Lis­ten to Fred­die Mer­cury and David Bowie on the Iso­lat­ed Vocal Track for the Queen Hit ‘Under Pres­sure,’ 1981

David Bowie’s 100 Must Read Books

Through­out the years, we’ve fea­tured per­for­mances of Choir!Choir!Choir!–a large ama­teur choir from Toron­to that meets week­ly and sings their hearts out. You’ve seen them sing Prince’s “When Doves Cry,” Soundgar­den’s “Black Hole Sun” (to hon­or Chris Cor­nell) and Leonard Cohen’s “Hal­lelu­jah.”

If you dig through their Youtube archive, you can also revis­it per­for­mances of two Talk­ing Heads classics–“Psycho Killer” and “Burn­ing Down the House.” (Both below.) Which brings us to the video above. Accord­ing to Con­se­quence of Sound, Talk­ing Heads front­man David Byrne has long been a big fan of Choir!Choir!Choir!. He writes on his web site:

I’ve sat mes­mer­ized watch­ing online videos of the Cana­di­an group Choir! Choir! Choir! They some­how man­age to get hun­dreds of strangers to sing beau­ti­ful­ly together—in tune and full-voiced—with rich har­monies and detailed arrange­ments. With almost no rehearsal—how do they do it??

They man­age to achieve lift off—that feel­ing of sur­ren­der when groups sing together—when we all become part of some­thing larg­er than our­selves.

And back in 2018, Byrne got to expe­ri­ence some of that lift off first­hand. Hear him sing a mov­ing ver­sion of David Bowie’s “Heroes” with Choir!Choir!Choir! Enjoy.

Psy­cho Killer

Burn­ing Down the House

Relat­ed Con­tent:

David Bowie Per­forms an Ethe­re­al Ver­sion of “Heroes,” with a Bot­tle Cap Strapped to His Shoe, Keep­ing the Beat

Pro­duc­er Tony Vis­con­ti Breaks Down the Mak­ing of David Bowie’s Clas­sic “Heroes,” Track by Track

David Bowie’s “Heroes” Delight­ful­ly Per­formed by the Ukulele Orches­tra of Great Britain

Depeche Mode Releas­es a Goose­bump-Induc­ing Cov­er of David Bowie’s “Heroes”