John Lennon on "Revolution 1"

"When George and Paul and all them were on holiday, I made 'Revolution,' which is on the LP, and 'Revolution 9.' I wanted to put it out as a single, but they said it wasn't good enough. They came home, I had it all prepared and they came back and said it wasn't good enough and we put out, what, 'Hello Goodbye' or some shit. No, we put--'Hey Jude,' sorry, which was worthy. But we could have had both. I wanted to put out what I felt about revolution, I thought it was about time we fuckin' spoke about it, the same as I thought it was about time we stopped not answering about the Vietnamese war, on tour with Brian. We had to tell him, 'We're going to talk about the war this time, we're not going to just waffle.' And I wanted to say what I thought about revolution. I'd been thinking about it up in the hills in India. And I still had this 'God will save us' feeling about it. 'It's going to be alright.' But even now I'm saying, 'Hold on, John, it's going to be alright.' Otherwise, I won't hold on. But that's why I did it, I wanted to say my piece about revolution. I wanted to tell you or whoever listens and communicate and say, 'What do you say? This is what I say.' And that's why I say on one version, about violence, 'in or out?' because I wasn't sure. But the version we put out said, 'Count me out,' I think. Because I don't fancy a violent revolution happening all over. I don't want to die. But I'm beginning to think that what else can happen. It seems inevitable."