One Track Mind: The Beatles, "Revolution No. 9" (1968)

NICK DERISO: The complete realization of tape-loop experimentation that began on several earlier songs - including "Tomorrow Never Knows," from 1966's "Revolver"; and (more famously) in the outros for "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "I am The Walrus."

John Lennon never gave any complete explanation for orchestrating an extended composition with noises and loops. He also dabbled extensively with ambient sounds in a trio of solo recordings -- famously calling back and forth with Yoko over a range of emotions (and their own pulses) during the entirety of side one of 1969's "The Wedding Album."

But it is here that we find the high-water mark in a period for Lennon lasting until 1972 in which he staged, along with wife Yoko, a series of outsider art exhibits, books, recordings and stunts.

Each sound on the convoluted, but fascinating "Revolution No. 9" appears to represent an instrument or group of instruments. The rising emotions have a power that suggests the dying of a life, or the end of time.

Throughout, a recurring theme is found in the words "number nine," and no small amount of mythology has built up around it. Lennon considered 9 to be of great significance. And, perhaps it was.

He was born on the 9th of October, as was second son Sean. He lived at 9 Newcastle Road in Liverpool, then later lived at the Dakota in New York City. That's on 72nd Street; the digits add up to ... 9.

One of his earliest compositions was a train song "One After 909" - which later appeared in a live version on "Let It Be." He also had a hit in the 1970s with a tune called "No. 9 Dream."

He was shot, too, on 72nd Street, and declared dead at 11:07 (again, digits add up to 9) in the Roosevelt Hospital on 9th Avenue. Although, this all took place in New York on Dec. 8, in Lennon's birthplace Liverpool (five hours ahead), it was the morning of ... the 9th.

Maybe all that means something, maybe not. It's weirdly interesting, though. Like "Revolution No. 9."

Lennon spent weeks on this recording, which was originally written as an extended coda to what would become the song called "Revolution 1" on "The White Album."

He wasn't finished with the concept, and continued fiddling with it for years. But the Beatles' core fanbase never really connected with Lennon's experiment. His first, most famous, attempt remains the most realized, anyway.

Still, seen as avant-garde then, it can now be hailed as the first flowerings of punk. Husker Du, here we come.

Lennon stumbled upon some other things that were frighteningly prescient along the way. "Every one of them knew," a voice intones on this track, "that as time went by they'd get a little bit older and a little bit slower."

The remaining Beatles certainly did. (After all, we later learned that McCartney was capable of a series of too-precious disasters like "Spies Like Us" or, say, "Say, Say, Say.")

But "Revolution No. 9" -- not necessarily listenable, yet a still-powerful argument for his frisky genius -- ensures that Lennon never will.