Nothing is Real. A Beatles podcast is powered by ACAST.

Welcome to Nothing is Real, a podcast about the Beatles.

My name is Jason Carty.

My name is Stephen Cotcroft.

And we're live on tape from Dublin and Belfast.

Today we are going to look at just one song, the 1968 song, Revolution, which is a track that spins off in a couple of different directions as it takes shape throughout the summer of a 1968. And it's an interesting one, isn't it, Steve? It kind of comes a busy time professionally for them. It is. They've come back from their trip to India. They're launching Apple.

Paul and John have had their May press conference in America announcing that. I think the public are interested to see what's happening, this form of Western communism that they're titing. They're starting to solicit contributions and tapes and scripts from various people. And plus they have to get

round to the business of recording the new album. Yeah, they've, they've had a number one while

they've been in India with Lady Madonna and people are still wanting them to get back

into the studio. And so there's a couple of things we need to think about when we think

about the song, Revolution. And probably the first thing to look at, and we are, we should state

for the record, we are not historians in the broadest sense, but there is a context of activity

in 1968. There's an environment that this song is being written in and that it comes out to.

That is, I suppose, not unlike some of the chaotic times that we're seeing in 2020, but people are waiting for a statement.

And so there's a lot in 68 that people need to keep in the back of their mind, isn't there?

There is.

And I mean, it's perhaps difficult that this removed from

1968 to appreciate just how seriously the sort of fear was of, you know, insurrection, rebellion,

revolution, that there was a sense of that the order, the existing order, was under threat. And, you know,

you have America embroiled in the war in Vietnam. In January, the Viet Cong had launched the

Tet Offensive, which was a sort of push back against American forces. And I think this is the

point at which certainly the American government

...