John Lennon: When George and Paul and all of them were on holiday. I made 'Revolution' which is on the LP and 'Revolution #9'. I wanted to put it out as a single, I had it all prepared, but they came by, and said it wasn't good enough. And we put out, what? "Hello, Goodbye" or some shit like that? No, we put out "Hey Jude, which was worth it - I'm sorry - but we could have had both.
I wanted to put what I felt about revolution; I thought it was time we fuckin' spoke about it, the same as I thought it was about time we stopped not answering about the Vietnamese War when we were on tour with Brian Epstein and had to tell him, "We're going to talk about the war this time and we're not going to just waffle". I wanted to say what I thought about revolution.
I had been thinking about it up in the hills in India. I still had this "God will save us" feeling about it, that it's going to be all right (even now I'm saying "Hold on, John, it's going to be all right", otherwise, I won't hold on) but that's why I did it, I wanted to talk, I wanted to say my piece about revolution. I wanted to tell you, or whoever listens, to communicate, to say, "What do you say? This is what I say".
On one version I said, "Count me in" about violence, in or out, because I wasn't sure. But the version we put out said "Count me out" because I don't fancy a violent revolution happening all over. I don't want to die; but I begin to think "What else can happen?", you know, it seems inevitable.
John Lennon (in 1980) - "Completely me. We recorded the song twice. The Beatles were getting real tense with each other. I did the slow version (Revolution 1) and I wanted to put it out as a single: as a statement of the Beatles' position on Vietnam and the Beatles' position on revolution. The first take of 'Revolution' ...well, George and Paul were resentful and said it wasn't fast enough. Now, if you go into the details of what a hit record is and isn't, maybe. But the Beatles could have afforded to put out a slow, understandable version of 'Revolution' as a single, whether it was a gold record or a wooden record."
John Lennon (in 1980) - "The statement in 'Revolution' was mine. The lyrics stand today. It's still my feeling about politics. I want to see the plan. That is what I used to say to Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin. Count me out if it is for violence. Don't expect me to be on the barricades unless it is with flowers. For years, on the Beatles' tours, Brian Epstein had stopped us from saying anything about Vietnam or the war. And he wouldn't allow questions about it. But on one of the last tours, I said, 'I'm going to answer about the war. We can't ignore it.' I absolutely wanted the Beatles to say something about the war."
