John Lennon Was ‘Pissed Off’ and ‘Exceptionally Moody’ While Recording ‘Revolution’
While recording the White Album, John Lennon rolled his eyes at Paul McCartney’s perfectionism despite being the same way for the song “Revolution.” He wanted a very specific sound out of it and required many, many tries in order to get it right. If this wasn’t frustrating enough for the others in the studio, Lennon was in a foul mood the entire time.
John Lennon was in a terrible mood while recording ‘Revolution’
After many recordings of “Revolution,” Lennon announced that he wanted to give it another try. He wanted to record it at a faster tempo, which audio engineer Geoff Emerick thought was typical of him at the time.
“John wanted the second, up-tempo version of ‘Revolution’ to be even tougher and more biting than the first one,” Emerick wrote in his book Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles. “This was typical of him in those days; that was his vibe: pissed off.”
Lennon wanted a specific sound out of the song and grew increasingly frustrated that they weren’t achieving it. It made him miserable to be around.
“All that week, while we labored over the remake of ‘Revolution,’ John had been exceptionally moody,” Emerick wrote. “‘No, no, I want that guitar to sound dirtier!’ he kept demanding of me, often without even giving me a moment’s space to try something out. By the end of the week, it was really starting to get to me. Friday’s were usually a little more tolerable than the other nights, because I at least had the weekend to look forward to — two days away from the nastiness of the studio. But on this evening, Lennon arrived at the studio looking ready to chew someone’s head off, and I was the nearest target.”
Lennon was even more frustrated while recording a Paul McCartney song
Even though Lennon became a dreaded presence while recording “Revolution,” he was worse while working on McCartney’s song “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da.” The band worked endlessly on both songs, and Lennon despised McCartney’s tune.
“Throughout the preceding weeks, I had noticed that John’s behavior was becoming increasingly erratic — his mood swings were more severe, and they were occurring more frequently,” Emerick wrote. “That was definitely the case with the recording of ‘Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da.'”
Lennon had frequent mood swings while working on the song and often complained about how much he disliked it.
“One moment he’d be into it, acting the fool and doing his fake Jamaican patois, the next minute he’d be sulking and grumbling about how the song was more of Paul’s ‘granny music s***.’ You never knew exactly where you stood with Lennon at any given time, but things were definitely getting worse.”
For his part, McCartney never fully embraced “Revolution.” He reportedly fought hard to keep the song off The White Album.
John Lennon thought the ‘Revolution’ remix sounded awful
John Lennon made the recording sessions for “Revolution” a nightmare and, in the end, he didn’t like the finished result. He believed that the stereo version of the song lost the feeling he wanted the song to have.
“The fast version of ‘Revolution’ was destroyed,” Lennon said in an interview with Dennis Elsas. “It was a heavy record, and they turned it into a piece of ice cream.”
While the original mono version may have been what he wanted, Lennon could hardly listen to the stereo version.
