Beyond the Beyond: “Revolution 9” Reversed

Beyond the Beyond: “Revolution 9” Reversed –
Decoding the Most Bizarre Beatles Conspiracies

It’s been almost thirty years since we’ve heard a new Beatles track. The last ones released were “Free as a Bird” and “Real Love” in 1995 and 1996, but through the magic of AI and the dude who made The Lord of the Rings, we’re finally treated to a brand new, semi-psychedelic soft rock ballad that John Lennon originally started to compose almost forty-five years ago. I won’t go into specifics about how the song was made because that’s not what this article is about, but I can tell you that it’s a nice little ditty recorded by the remaining members of one of the greatest rock bands to ever do it.

You can listen to the whole thing here:

This got me thinking about something I saw on the shelf of a bookstore I once worked in as a young man. It was called The Walrus Was Paul: The Great Beatles Death Clues by R. Gary Patterson, and the premise of the book was that the “real” Paul McCartney had actually died in a car crash in 1966 and was replaced with a lookalike. This lookalike essentially took over his life and continued his work, and only his closest friends and family were in on the truth. Oh, and he also played bass left handed.

Some fans claimed to see symbolism in the music and album artwork after Paul’s supposed death.  They claimed that the cover of Sgt. Pepper’s shows a funeral procession, with an open palm above McCartney’s head signifying a priest blessing the dead before internment.  A bloody glove from the car crash lays littered on the ground. A bass guitar made of flowers is shown with a missing fourth string, supposedly symbolizing the missing fourth Beatle.

The cover of Abbey Road shows the fab four crossing the road outside of their studio in London: a gravedigger, a corpse, an undertaker, and a priest, according to some theorists who possibly have way too much time on their hands. Some claimed that McCartney, shown shoeless on the cover, is a nod to the practice of interring dead bodies without shoes. When asked about the cover, McCartney simply replied, “I was walking barefoot because it was a hot day.”

I mean, it’s obvious that Paul is alive, and that he’s the same guy whose been bopping around on stage for the last sixty plus years. Do I think he’s a doppelgänger named Billy Shears, put in place by the powers-that-want-to-be in an attempt to subvert the counterculture movement of the 1960s? Nah. Were the Beatles messing with the heads of gullible fans in their music and album artwork? Probably. Is Tupac still alive? Absolutely.

Another strange item worth noticing is John Lennon’s ties to the number nine.  Obviously, he helped write the songs “One After 909,” “Revolution Number 9,” “#9 Dream,” and he did seem to have a fascination with the number. In 1980, he told Playboy, “I lived at nine Newcastle Road. I was born on the ninth of October, the ninth month [sic]. It’s just a number that follows me around, but, numerologically, apparently, I’m a number six or a three or something, but it’s all part of nine.” Who was going to be the one to correct “the smart Beatle” that October is actually the tenth month?

Still, the number did seem to pop up in his life quite often. The Beatles’ first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show was on February 9th. While in Paris in 1964, John received a death threat via telephone that said “I’m going to shoot you at nine.” He left the Beatles after being in the band for nine years. John met Yoko on November 9th. His son, Sean, was also born on October 9. John was actually born at 6:30 p.m. (6+3 = 9) on October 9 (as stated above). He was murdered at 10:50 p.m. of the evening of December 8th in New York City. The time in Liverpool, however, would have been around 3 a.m. on—you guessed it—December 9th.

Are these strange coincidences, or is the simulation theory real and the very fabric of the universe made up of code, or numbers, and these numbers have much more significance than we could ever imagine or maybe even have the capacity to? If I try to fail and succeed, did I fail or succeed? If I’m talking to myself, is it an existential crisis or a staff meeting? I have so many questions.

Another one I always thought was “just a thing that is known” is that “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” is about the psychedelic drug LSD (Lysergic Acid Diethylamide). It obviously spells the name out when you look at the first letter of each word, and the song does have a dreamy, fantastical nature. I mean, “cellophane flowers,” “kaleidoscope eyes,” and “newspaper taxis.”  C’mon, man!

But John Lennon, the writer of said song, denied this connection on many different occasions. He said the inspiration for the track came from a drawing his son made about a classmate. According to Lennon, Julian was a preschooler at the time, and brought home a watercolor painting he had made about his friend Lucy O’Donnell.  The diamonds were in fact little stars he had painted in the night sky, and he titled it “Lucy – in the Sky with Diamonds.”

Now, you might be thinking that Lennon is being aloof here, but I think that if the song was inspired by that particular drug, Lennon would have said so. If you’ve ever heard his interviews, you know he was never one to mince words. When talking about a song with co-wrote, “She Said She Said,” he stated, “The guitars are great on it… Peter Fonda came in when we were on acid and he kept coming up to me and sitting next to me and whispering, ‘I know what it’s like to be dead.'”

Speaking of Lennon, did you know that the FBI kept detailed files on his life in New York City? This happened in the 1970s, and he first came on their radar due to his political outspokenness and anti-war rhetoric. These files eventually became public through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and offer some insight into the government’s monitoring of his activities.

An article about Beatles conspiracy theories would not be complete unless I talked about some of the bizarre messaging in their tracks. During the song “Revolution Number 9,” when a man’s voice comes on and says “Number nine…” over and over again, if you play that same segment backwards, the words “Turn me on, dead man” can be a heard.

You can listen to it here:

Other voices on that same track, when reversed, sound like “Satan, look at me,” “She helped me out a little, but now she’s evil,” and “The noise we had, was, is, magic.” Is this merely coincidence, the Beatles having a go at some darker humor (not out of the ordinary), or was it indeed some type of a spell being cast on the audience? Magic.

Some people claim another satanic reference in the song “Helter Skelter.” In fact, Charles Manson, the famed lunatic who directed the Tate-LaBianca murders, claimed the song foretold an apocalyptic race war, and used the lyrics to fit his strange and delusional beliefs. Of course, there are allegations that Manson also had ties to the CIA, MK Ultra, and other psychological warfare programs, but that’s an article for another time.

Ah, what the hell. There’s no time like the present. The CIA created an illegal program in 1953 to use drugs and hypnotism to create mind controlled assassins. Look up Project Bluebird and Project Artichoke. They used drugs like LSD, isolation and other nefarious techniques to put a subject into a subdued state where they could be easily controlled and manipulated. This much is all well-documented.

The CIA’s program, MK Ultra, allegedly used nightmarish experiments on subjects James Bulger, Ted Kaczynski, Charles Manson and many, many others. Unfortunately, those files, along with thousands of others, were destroyed shortly after the program was exposed.  What’s more is that experiments were often conducted without the knowledge of the individual.

How did I get here? I was talking about the Beatles, right?

One more strange theory is that John Lennon’s assassin, Mark David Chapman, was an unwitting agent of MK Ultra. Whether or not Chapman was merely a pawn in some larger game, or just a lone nut, remains unclear. There is little evidence to support the former. However, the larger concern should be that a program like this existed in the first place. Supposedly it was halted some time in the 1970s, and as stated before, much of the information surrounding the program was either moved or destroyed. While there is no indication that MK Ultra is still alive, one does have to wonder if programs like this are ever discontinued completely.

Now excuse me, I’m about ready to put on my remastered, 180g red vinyl exclusive Sgt. Pepper’s LP, snack on some Mahogany Meats black peppered elk jerky, and spend the rest of the afternoon looking for more clues that Paul was, indeed, The Walrus.

Coo Coo Ca Choo.

Have you had a sighting? Text 702-875-1848 or message @beyondthebeyond1 on Instagram.

Tanner Rush

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Eastern Sierra Now. Readers are encouraged to conduct further research and consult with relevant experts or professionals before making any decisions or taking any actions based on the information provided in this article.

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Tanner Rush