My sister came back from a holiday in Brisbane bearing even more sophistication than normal and related with typical precision all the things that had happened there, all that she had touched and now possessed as worldliness. Also, she tabled a Darrell Lee Walnut log, mandatory purchase for anyone of us who went to Brisbane as a kind of proof that they'd been there. But she also had a strange story.
She'd heard a record that wasn't music so much as a collage of horror. Car crashes, crackling fires, people laughing at a funeral and a voice surfacing from the chaos repeating the words: number nine number nine number nine. The friend she'd stayed with had played it to her and spent the entire night talking about the codes in the record, how it referred to a death and was used by a family of murderers. What was it called? "Revolution 9", said Nita. I had a sudden image of a grainy black and white picture of a man screaming. That, to my mind, was the record cover. That night, as a way of protecting myself from the thought of it, I slept on the floor in the my sister's room. She was now immune from power of the record and could pass the immunity on. I couldn't sleep. At one point she turned over and in her sleep counted on the fingers of one hand and said something I couldn't make out but must have been a spell. Revolution 9 had been in the room that night. It had broken in and moved around in the dark.
A few years later when I was thirteen my brother Michael came by from one of his mystery treks (mysterious because I never asked and preferred to leave formless and intriguing) and brought a swag of LPs he'd picked up on his travels. Bowie, Zeppelin, Alice Cooper, and lots of Beatles. My own record buying was still almost a year off and the only thing like this collection had moved out with siblings like Michael, Greg and Rina. What was left was a small lineup of compilations and worn grooved classics from the antiquity of a few years back. But here was Sgt Pepper, Magical Mystery Tour, Abbey Road and another one which I had to look at a few times to work out.
It was a double but opened from the top. The gatefold was a shiny laminated carboard of creamy white and there, when you looked properly, the words The Beatles appeared embossed at a careless angle. I wondered if Michael had bought this at a discount because of this fault. The sheaths were black paper. The thick vinyl of the discs bore the Apple label. Opening the gatefold only increased my foreboding. There were pictures of each Beatle but they looked dishevelled and criminal. The songs, too, had weird titles like Back in the USSR, Happiness is a Warm Gun, Cry Baby Cry, Glass Onion, Yer Blues, Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Monkey. In the middle of all that there was Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da. That was the only title I recognised and it was a bouncy little number. It's presence in the list of kooky sounding titles seemed sinister as though we were meant to be lured into this dark place through this tiny morsel of familiarity. It looked like bait. And there, at the bottom of the list of green lettered words was Revolution 9. I almost threw the the record across the room. The chirpy Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da was the stranger with the lolly that let the intruder whose friends were killers and the dead waiting in the dark of the black shrouds around the discs. I put the album back in the pile and even left the room.
But the album was still there, compacted darkness in the light, giving the spirit of murder space in my house. It was like having a snake in the walls.
And I was angry. They were The Beatles. They did fun songs about firemen and yellow submarines. this album seemed like an unmasking of an evil that had fooled the world for years. Later, during those Christmas holidays I went down to the rumpus room and played through the album in tiny sampling touches with the stylus. There were no visible gaps between the tracks. This was the only way to do it safely. I must have inadvertantly missed every single hook on the first side. What I was getting sounded bland and anti-commercial. One night I set up a tape dub with the big TEAC deck and got about the first five or so of the second side. Michael left for university that week and took everything with him. I was robbed of my moment of courage.
The songs I had on tape (Martha My Dear to Piggies) were a lot better than my sampling had made out but they still creeped me out. Martha was a great song with a catchy piano part but went wrong in the middle eight. I'm So Tired seemed pointless but suspicious for all that. Blackbird sounded lonely and nocturnal. Piggies sounded sweet. The words were clearly satirical and the last line about the pigs eating their bacon sent shivers through me. I know it flowed from the satire but the thought felt violent and hating. I listened to the tape to work out the Martha My Dear intro but left the rest silent on the tape.
There were too many gaps in my guessing at the piano part for Martha and I gave up trying it. There was a lot of other music to get into in the meantime. There was the mighty and awesome Queen as well as anything new by Split Enz and the great tide of mid 70s pop that could laze like the worst of the previous decade on worn-through riffs and nothing lyrics (youtube The Bump by Kenny; yes a song about a particular dance but check it!) or a goldilocks mix of rock edge and pure sugary icing like Sailor's Glass of Champagne, any single by TMG or Steve Harley's Make Me Smile. But the Beatles weren't going away.
Someone, maybe in Allen Klein's office, maybe Klein himself if he still had any power over the back catalogue, realised that enough time had past to address a whole new pocket-moneyed generation of potential Beatle fans and began releasing old stock not seen in the shops for half a decade or more. A few pre Pepper albums appeared including early compilations but the big one that year was a double called The Beatles Rock and Roll Music. It had a gatefold and typically 70s cover art in that it was a realistic painting of the band in the early 60s on the front and the title looked like a neon sign. On the back was a rear view including a reversed neon sign. In the gatefold was a grab of imagery from the American 50s: a big car, a glass of Coke and maybe a hot dog. I think the idea was that the Beatles brought the 60s to the 50s but it was more likely to be the fifties nostalgia tide that was rising at the time with Happy Days and American Graffiti etc., all that boomer beware stuff. Win bought the first copy of this and lent it around for taping which we all did.
The first disc is early rockers including a lot of cover versions. Fantastic on the first few listens as it filled in the origins episodes on a lot of the music on the air even then. Hearing these Chuck Berry and Little Richard numbers through the ears of The Beatles meant I knew both without needing to hear the originals but also hearing them in ACDC, Hush, Sherbert, Skyhooks, Slade etc etc. But I couldn't relate to this for very long even if it was still around. It seemed as distant to me as Elvis whose early hits were the aural equivalent to op shop kitsch (which had to wait for decades for redemption).
The second disc ground on its first side in much the same way but ended on the single version of Revolution. This was built on old stuff but had typical Beatle intrusions (like the "an-y-how" chords which are classical in movement) and a berserk beginning of insanely distorted guitars and a scream I thought was a baby's (which made it weird and scary to me). Side four...
When I got to side four I was still in my school clothes because I'd been going over the first disc again and again. The rest of the present clan were watching tv after dinner and I was kneeling at the stereo with a pair of German headphones clamped on my head. Back in the USSR was fun but again so oldie that it fatigued rather than delighted. And then it changed.
A sudden scratchy insistent snarl on a distorted guitar, not the controlled fuzz tone of a T Rex but something wilder like a puma screech. The voice (Paul's) came in with a voice that sounded like he was on a rack, the high strings chord stretching below him, down as he went higher. When I get to the bottom I go back to the top of the slide when I turn and I go for a RIDE and I get to the bottom and I see you AGAAAAAAAAAIN YEAH YEAH YEAH! Suddenly there's a panzer division charging up from the lower depths, clanking, smashing, grinding. Paul keeps screaming beserker. I can't believe the force of it. My mouth is open and my eyes are wide. I hide behind my hands as it charges into my ears. HELTER SKELTER (sharp descending scale on the guitar) HELTER SKELTER (the falling figure again). Paul keeps screaming about breaking you and coming down fast. The noise rages on. Weirdly shimmery Beatle harmonies start up they don't fit well which just makes it worse. Squeals, screams, a big chunky bass, sounds of metal being stressed and breaking, chaos. The ending falls slowly apart but COMES BACK AGAIN with the sound of more twisting steel beams and heavy things falling. Finally the last screeching fall before Ringo screams, "I'VE GOT BLISTERS ON MY FINGERS!"
The next song starts but I reach into the player and lift the needle to get some silence. I can't speak or communicate what I have just experienced. My father is watching some UK comedy or cop show and Mum is in the next chair doing the same. Nita who might have had a word, is busy with some homework. Stephen? Never. I put the needle back to the start of the track and live through it again. I have a notion about this.
I don't tape the album but return it to Win the next day with thanks. Win has older siblings who are as much music fans as mine. I ask him if there's a copy of the Beatles double album at his place, the one with the white cover. He says he'll check. That night I actually dream I have a copy of it. There are no copies in the local shops. It wouldn't be particularly expensive it's just not around.
The next day Win tells me he found his sister's copy and played it over dinner. Did he, did he get to Revolution 9? No, just the first side. What was that like? Every song was good.
Same dream more or less. I had a copy of the album. It was in a dark wooden box. The wood was stained like an antique. This wasn't a copy but a single artefact. If someone else had it then it meant that I couldn't. I went down to the rumpus room which was filled with yellow light and took the album out of the box and moved the discs in a circular motion before putting each on. The music sounded preclassical, Gregorian but played on clarinets and oboes. When I wake and remember that I don't have a copy of the album I feel a genuine pain, an aching lack.
Win tells me the whole family had the album on while dinner was on and they were setting the table. He laughed as he described Revolution 9, pronouncing it noine. Number noine, number noine? The upward inflection at the end making it sound goofy and Australian. The more he and Peter Broadbent giggle over it the more I know that it got to them, too, and they are just playing at pretending it didn't. I also feel envy. They have lived through it and I have not. I need my own copy.
For the next few weeks I go into town with Mum and try the record shops. Chandlers, Palings, others I've forgotten. Everyone has the Red and Blue albums, the old compilations that were somehow supposed to fulfil the need when every song on them is out of context. The White Album, even though I have never heard it in full, is a single artefact dangerous to break up. Look what happened when Helter Skelter got free on Rock and Roll Music. I would have to have the whole thing with me.
Meantime there were the new ones Sailor, Kenny, Ted Mulry Gang, Queen released the stupid Best Friend song off Opera, and Countdown's every precious second stumbled and screamed onward at the weekend. Then, towards the August holidays it was there in Chandlers, encased in a sleeve protector, white and shiny with the name embossed. $7.99 Mine. It was murder waiting for Mum to return to the car and the sun even then in the alleged late winter was pitiless. The record did, in fact warp a little while I waited.
Home! I put it on side one and felt the approaching jet engine take me up. Slam! Been away so long I hardly knew the place... Back in the USSR sounded routine on the compilation but here it was like being in the middle of the engine room. But - and - It skipped. It started skipping and kept skipping. Dad noticed, came in and examined the disc. He showed me the side on view, how it was warped and how that was that. I realised this had pretty much been my doing when I'd leaned it against the car. It was shady but Townsville shady. Dad went back out to his expert futility in the yard. I put the record back on the platter and adjusted the counterweight on the stylus. Heavy for heavy. Then it behaved, Back in the USSR played flawlessly. If Dad heard that he probably frowned and shrugged.
Dear Prudence was purely beautiful. Sunny days and daisy chains with a big chunky bassline skipping down like a giant woodsprite and an intriguing guitar line with an insistence on a high string. Glass Onion shatters the gentle fade of Prudence with a tight chunky crunch. The words other song titles in them and then there's a sudden change at the end from rock to a shivery string section. It sounded like code. Ob-La-Di in this context adds to the tension because its cheer feels like a ploy. Wild Honey Pie after it sounds insane with its big loopy twangs and screaming. Bungalow Bill starts with classical guitar and then a football chorus and then a psychedelic verse in another time signature that seems both nursery rhyme and sinister. Gently Weeps comes on big with space and sadness. The lead guitar really does cry. A slight high George vocal shimmers over the solid band playing. There is nothing innocent, chirpy or fun about Happiness is a Warm Gun. The guitar arpeggio at the start is from a mystery movie and the vocals have a troubling coldness. Then the fuzz guitar frank Zappa section about the mother superior and the doowop fade out with the sexual innuendo and snare/gunshot at the end brought it to the end. That was only side one.
I went through side two impatiently. It was a group of songs I was largely familiar with and they went from strong to formless and bland. Julia had a jump in it which I didn't care about. Strange for me to think that now but I did then. I just wanted to get to side 3. When you don't want to hear Blackbird it seems to go for hours.
A big thunderous tom roll and hot dual guitar riff and we're into Birthday. Not much to it but it's fun and thickly rocking. Someone in the distance counts in Yer Blues and the darkness of the album returns. A snarling riff and dry and desperate vocal. He feels so lonely he could die. I knew that from the Elvis song. There it still sounded dark but here it came from the depths. Mother Nature's Son is lovely. Over twanged acoustic guitar (must be Paul) and subtle brass section. Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except Me and My Monkey. Slamming rock song with silly lyrics and a great little bass hook in the outro. Sexy Sadie opens with a piano progression made brittle by slapback echo. Cool vocal from John in front of sweet fabs harmonies. Somone done him wrong. Probably a groupie. (Supposedly changed from Maharishi, learnt much later.) Fade out with a beautiful falsetto improv by John. Then there's a few spiky notes on the distorted guitar. Snarl and seethe. I know what this is. Refer to the description above. No difference except this time it's louder and through the speakers. HELTER SKELTER! dununununun HELTER SKELTER! dununununununun and then straight after Ringo screams about his blisters the gentlest song on the album starts with a sad finger style figure on the acousitc. George and probably Paul almost whispering the harmonies. He's lost someone. It feels like about four in the morning. Whoever it is is gone forever and all he can do is pretend he can see her. A big middle eight just sounds like more pain. Something like a tree creaking and falling, a swelling organ chord and weird almost eastern falsetto. If it was late night before now it will never be day again. Has he hanged himself? Something has happened.
A cold Milo. Quickly!
Side 4 begins with the druggy sleeptalking version of Revolution which had been so manic on the compilation album. Bedroom acoustic playing a blues figure. "Take two." Lazy bright distorted Chuck Berry intro on the electric and we're in the middle of a big and spacy room with the voices and sounds tired but happy. Even then I imagined it filled with pot smoke. I like it but it's weird and assume it was the second version because I heard the fast one first. Honey Pie plods along but I like the clarinet-like guitar that I was surprised to find out John played. It reminded me of the way Brian May used his guitar tone to suggest other instruments. In fact (again, heard it first) Honey Pie reminded me of the ragtime songs on Night at the Opera. Savoy Truffle starts snipey and mean and ends that way. Never outstays its welcome and is welcome after Honey Pie. Cry Baby Cry smooths along like Sexy Sadie but gets bigger and spacier as it goes. Nursery nonsense could be code.
Then we get one of the creepiest moments on the record. A steady fingerstyle minor chord on an acoustic, like the rawhide riff. Paul sings in falsetto. Can you take me back where I come from? Can you take me back? It sounds like someone's ghost. It walks off without finishing the thought but seems ready to wail in the darkness. Fade.
Before I know it a restless swell of sounds rises and Number nine, number nine? Sounds like a BBC announcer. Whoa! I leap to the stereo and lift the needle. I can't do it, yet. It's daylight but there's no one around like there was with Helter Skelter the first time. I have to work my way. It was months before I heard Goodnight, the final song because there were no track divisions and I couldn't risk hearing any sound from the intruder.
Familiarity ironed out most of the dark spots and I got a Beatles songbook for my birthday which let me inside the songs. Nothing demystifies music more than playing it. We grew close, that album and I. Also, it had weathered its eight years of life far better than other albums considered milestones like Sgt Pepper or Led Zeppelin IV. The White Album sounded as normal and current as A Night at the Opera; the rock was hard edged, the campy ragtime as campy and even the jokes sounded natural and un-showbiz. To this day, despite the sharper innovations of Revolver or Magical Mystery Tour, the White Album feels fresher than the music that surrounded my first hearing it. English pop was still very goofy, coming out of glam (which I am still glad I missed) but hovering in a kind of novelty stasis. American music was unthinkable with its Eagles and Doobie Brothers blandness. The White Album had not been surpassed with its one side of tight packed songs, second of looser tries, third of consolidated adventure and fourth of looking at the universe through the horror of its atoms. That's how I thought of it and have had no need of replacing it as a standard for how a matured artist's album should present itself.
Meanwhile there was still IT. The monster of the fourth side. It lived, coiled in the stack in the rumpus room ready to rise and strike.
My sister Marina visited from Brisbane, bringing her hard won sophistication with her. Over mint tea we talked about the Beatles and she filled me in on as many of the creepy Paul-is-dead clues on the later albums. This cover (we spent a long time with Sgt Pepper), that song and then finally we had to get to the great cavern of Revolution 9. Well, I at least had a guide.
After Paul's ghost song an inaudible conversation and a few piano notes comes the chorus: number nine number nine number nine... looping and then folding itself back into the mix. A rough cut collage of patches of orchestral music. Some very sinister sounding speech which sounds like John. More looped orchestras, backwards guitar, breath, shouting, a baby, a screamed "right", a choir, more creepy scouse talking, car horns,piano yoko's voice, arabic chanting, random spoken phrases, screamingcreepyvoicecrashingbackwardsmusicnumberninenumberninenumbernineaahahhhahaahhhhcrashnoisecreepyvoicenumberninenumberninegunfirechoir Yoko's voice. "if you become naked" protesters, "hold the line hold the line!" soccer fans? "block that kick, block that kick!"
Syrupy strings slop out of the speakers before Ringo sings Goodnight which has no presence at all. I'm wide eyed and open mouthed but it's not the same as the first listen to Helter Skelter. We had a history of World War II in our home library which had a picture I had to struggle to look at. It was taken in the Buchenwald concentration camp. One of the stripe-clad inmates with a skull like starved face was kneeling over another, lying on the ground dying. The hard black and white of the image accentuated each crag and hollow of suffering on their faces. There was no hope in the situation. The photo had been taken by one of the liberating soldiers but liberty could not stop the flow of needless death right away. There had to be more leaking out of the light into darkness until it could be fixed. The sight of the photo was like being slapped in the eyes. Rightly or wrongly, the sensation of hearing Revolution 9 for the first time was the same.
There was nothing I could control about it, nothing that made sense to me. It felt like having a nightmare replayed. I needed to address it but Rina was on a roll in spooking me so just kept on with the secret signs of death and the great unravelled order that lay just beneath the surface of this record. Also, the darkness that was imported into its grooves by fans. She told me about Charles Manson and his murder hippies. The killings and the trial. I got out into the air of the August holidays and rode around on my bike for a while. Flashez would be on soon and Mike Meade would make me smile.
The album is still one of my favourites and when new formats or presentations of The Beatles come up it's always the first one I'll get. (Of the 2009 remasters I bought the usb stick in the little green apple for the stereo set and the box set of the mono which had the White Album exact down to the poster and the black disc sheaths.) It's a collection that I've since learned was the result of deep divisions in the band and at best was each with the others as a backing band. But while John sings Julia with himself it's a poignant song that blends the influences of his mother and Yoko. While the big boonjy country for kids' tv rhythm track of Don't Pass Me By still sounds like the others insulting Ringo it still sounds like a band. And at its tightest and toughest it's what rock music can sound like when it doesn't care when it's played or for whom.
The rest of the August holidays turned a few things. I had been tuning my guitar to open E minor (add one fingertip to get a major on every barre) and started learning how rock music was put together by listening and playing along. Wings released a massive double album and the 1966 Got To Get You Into My Life was released in the US and became a top 40 hit. All music I heard now had a standard for measurement and I became aware of how attracted I was to the things that I feared, how imagination will spring to life when gaps in knowledge prove troublesome, how music alone can do what it does.
By the end of the year when the world provided me with the next step (the Weekend Magazine soft news story on punk rock) I was eager for it and not too long after when the more audacious campaigns into undiscovered sound appeared from the realm of post punk I went back to the White Album and Revolution 9 became a favourite. No, an inspiration.
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