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Lyrics

This aspect of the Beatles' music (and music of other bands from the late 60s & 70s) is probably over-analyzed

 

Listen to the Beatles innovative use of lyrics & audio reversal

Examples of the "Paul is Dead" hoax ...

phrase at the end of "Strawberry Fields Forever" (late 1966); following the fake fade-out (3:56), John can be heard saying "I buried Paul"

Strawberry Fields Forever

 

backwards messages contained on the White Album (1968)

I'm So Tired/Blackbird - extended excerpt

transition between songs - sounds like "Paul is dead; miss him, miss him" when played backwards

brief excerpt ...

forward | backwards

 

Revolution 9 - extended excerpt |
same excerpt backwards (listen to BOTH)

John Lennon on creating "Revolution 9" for the White Album:

"It has the basic rhythm of the original 'Revolution' going on with some 20 loops we put on, things form the archives of EMI. We were cutting up classical music and making different-size loops and then I got an engineer tape on which some test engineer was saying 'Number nine, number nine, number nine." All those defferent bits of sound and noises are all compiled. There were about 10 machines with people holding pencils on the loops--some only inches long and some a yard long. I fed them all in and mixed them live." (excerpt from Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now by Barry Miles, p. 484. NY Owl books, 1997)

The phrase "Number 9" from "Revolution 9" sounds like "Turn me on, dead man" when played backwards

brief excerpts ...

Revolution 9 (complete)

misinterpretation of ambiguous or nonsense lyrics:

just recall Charles Manson's "inspiration" for a series of murders - "Helter Skelter"

Here is an interesting essay about this technique known as "Audio Reversal."

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