You Tell Me That It's Evolution- The Beatles Revolutions 1-9

Chapter Six - Count Me Out

Pattie Harrison with her doe eyes, clear skin, blonde hair, and gap toothed grin was regarded at the time as one of the world's great beauties. When she married George, thought of as the handsome Beatle, in 1966 they became the most glamourous young couple of the era.  Their union did much to raise George's own stock amongst his peers and their fans.  George brought the influence of Indian music to the Beatles and by association the whole contemporary music scene.  However it was Pattie who had played a fundamental role in introducing the Beatles to the Maharishi.

Following her trip to India with husband in late 1966, Pattie had developed an interest in the religions and culture of the intriguing sub-continent.  Her marriage having curtailed her career at such a young age, Pattie was looking for some spiritual pursuit to provide her with more fulfilment than she could get from just being a rich rockstar's wife.  It was Pattie who spotted the advert for the Spiritual Regeneration Movement lectures in The Times while catching up with the newspapers after her return from an ill-fated visit with George to San Francisco.  She contacted the number in the advert and subsequently attended a lecture at Caxton Hall, in London where she became the first person in the Beatles inner circle to be given a mantra.

Pattie and her sister Jenny became enthusiastic followers of Maharishi and through them the Beatles and many of their associates fell under the spell of the famous giggling guru.  However, here in Rishikesh, dressed elegantly in Sari's and sporting a bright red Bindi in the centre of their foreheads both women gave the impression of little girls playing in a dressing up box.  The Beatle wives and girlfriends had taken advantage of the local markets during their stay and had adopted traditional dress in order to fully absorb the culture, but they couldn't help but feel inauthentic.  They knew that they were unlikely to give up their western comforts for this life, but they hoped they could learn enough from the experience to bring them some comfort.

And so it was with these tall, poised, impossibly slim but engaging women that Prudence made conversation this evening.  Prudence spoke with such enlightened wisdom that the sisters couldn't fail but be impressed.  Prudence was so much further on in her understanding of the mechanics of the meditation process and had reached such heightened states of euphoria and Pattie found her as beguiling as John had.  She spoke of how she could almost see the glow coming off of Maharishi because of his incredible inner peace and how she longed to attain that same state for herself.  As the evening turned to dusk she was invited by Pattie to join them on the roof of her Bungalow, to sit with them, listen to music and talk some more.

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With fingers blackened from the seldom changed guitar strings, John drew heavily on the remnants of the joint he had been sharing with George and Alex then stubbed the tiny butt out on the clay roof.  Alexis had returned with the missing capo so John began his search for a suitable key for his new song.  Through trial and error he settled on the key of C and ran through the structure of the verse and bridge with George following the chord changes by watching John's hands closely.  George could do this so well that any observers could be forgiven for thinking that he already knew the song.  It was what he did best and after 11 years of working with John he could almost read his mind.

John used place-holder words and scat syllables to fill the lyrical spaces he still had.  Unsatisfied with the results he pulled his fountain pen from his pocket and called out to the rest of the gathering for words to rhyme with Revolution.

Answers came rapidly as Alexis, Jenny and Pattie fired off suggestions, excited at the thought of contributing to the song-writing process.  John struggled to keep up but managed to jot down far more rhymes than he needed:

Contribution
Institution
Devolution
Pollution
Dissolution
Confusion
Intrusion
Disillusion
Constitution

John pondered the list and then thought of one more.  Resolution seemed a great choice, closely matching the sound and rhythm of the title.  John toyed with finding a use for this word in his song but found that it didn't suit the mood he was trying to create.  The purpose of his lyric was to show conflict, John the protagonist providing an alternative view to the unseen antagonist.  Rolling the word "resolution" around as he played the C chord over and over his tongue mutated the words into "real solution" it seemed a little clumsy but John quite liked the audacity of picking a rhyme that was less obvious.  Searching for a response along the lines of his previous, Maharishi inspired line "we're all doing what we can," John quickly added the sardonic "we'd all love to see the plan."