Yes, that song was much more in line with their true outlook on life, despite Lennon's expressed support for a Maoist revolution. The guy lived in a friggin palace across from Central Park!
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TA (interviewer): In a way you were even thinking about politics when you seemed to be knocking revolution?
JL (Lennon): Ah, sure, 'Revolution' . There were two versions of that song but the underground left only picked up on the one that said 'count me out'. The original version which ends up on the LP said 'count me in' too; I put in both because I wasn't sure. There was a third version that was just abstract, musique concrete, kind of loops and that, people screaming. I thought I was painting in sound a picture of revolution--but I made a mistake, you know. The mistake was that it was anti-revolution.
On the version released as a single I said 'when you talk about destruction you can count me out'. I didn't want to get killed. I didn't really know that much about the Maoists, but I just knew that they seemed to be so few and yet they painted themselves green and stood in front of the police waiting to get picked off. I just thought it was unsubtle, you know.
I thought the original Communist revolutionaries coordinated themselves a bit better and didn't go around shouting about it. That was how I felt--I was really asking a question. As someone from the working class I was always interested in Russia and China and everything that related to the working class, even though I was playing the capitalist game.
John Lennon is looked at by society as the ultimate revolutionary and leftist. However, I think he was more confused and easily manipulated politically more than anything else. He didn’t start writing all of these protest songs and speaking this way until after he met Yoko. I think she was the revolutionary. He had nice things to say about Reagan according to his assistant.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2009562/John-Lennon-closet-conservative-fan-Reagan.html
Did he just change his mind? Who knows, I think it was just more political naiveté and confusion amongst other things. In the end, as much as I love John Lennon’s music, if you read about John Lennon the man, he was not someone to be admired.
Still think it should have been Paul but how did he miss yoko?