The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

For other uses, see The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (disambiguation).

"The Revolution Will Not Be Televised"
Single by Gil Scott-Heron
from the album Pieces of a Man
A-side	"Home Is Where the Hatred Is"
Released	1971
Format	7" promotional single
Recorded	April 19, 1971 RCA Studios (New York, New York)
Genre	Spoken word soul, funk, proto-rap
Length	3:07
Label	Flying Dutchman FD-26011
Writer(s)	Gil Scott-Heron
Producer	Bob Thiele
Gil Scott-Heron singles chronology
"The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" (1971) "The Bottle" (1974)
Audio sample file info · help

"The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" is a poem and song by Gil Scott-Heron. Scott-Heron first recorded it for his 1970 album Small Talk at 125th and Lenox, on which he recited the lyrics, accompanied by congas and bongo drums. A re-recorded version, with a full band, was the B-side to Scott-Heron's first single, "Home Is Where the Hatred Is", from his album Pieces of a Man (1971). It was also included on his compilation album, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (1974). All these releases were issued on the Flying Dutchman Productions record label.

The song appears in the 1999 Denzel Washington and Norman Jewison film The Hurricane and on its soundtrack.

In 2010, the New Statesman listed it as one of the “Top 20 Political Songs”.

Cultural references

• "Plug in, turn on, and cop out", a reference to Timothy Leary's pro-LSD phrase "Turn on, tune in, drop out."
• "Skag", slang term for heroin
• Xerox, best-known manufacturer (at the time of the poem's writing) of photocopying machines
• Richard Nixon, 37th president of the United States
• John N. Mitchell, U.S. Attorney General under Nixon
• General Creighton Abrams, one of the commanders of military operations in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War
• Mendel Rivers, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee during the period of the Vietnam War
• Spiro Agnew, 39th vice president of the United States under Nixon (this was added to the 1971 version of the song in place of Mendel Rivers, who had died the previous year.)
• "Hog maws", sometimes misheard as "hog moss", soul food made from the lining of the stomach, or maw, of a pig
• Schaefer Award Theater, radio show by Dick Clark
• Natalie Wood, film actress
• Steve McQueen, film actor
• Bullwinkle, cartoon character
• Julia, a TV half-hour sitcom series starring Diahann Carroll, which was seen by many as a very patronizing depiction of then-current race relations.
• "Give your mouth sex appeal", from Ultra Brite toothpaste advertising
• "The revolution will not get rid of the nubs", the nubs being beard stubble, from a Gillette Techmatic razor advertisement of the period
• Either Willie May, a sprinter, or Willie Mays, a baseball player; the context is unclear from the line which has "you" and May(s) "pushing that shopping cart down the block on the dead run."
• "NBC will not be able to predict the winner at 8:32", a reference to television networks predicting the winner of presidential elections shortly after the polls close at 8:00.
• Whitney Young, civil rights leader
• Roy Wilkins, executive director of the NAACP
• Watts, a neighborhood in Los Angeles, referring to the Watts Riots of 1965
• "Red, black, and green", the colors of the Pan-African flag
• Green Acres, a U.S. television sitcom
• The Beverly Hillbillies, a U.S. television sitcom
• "Hooterville Junction" (a corruption of Petticoat Junction)
• The rural purge, which led to the cancellation of the above three shows, is alluded to with the line that the above three series "will no longer be so damned relevant."
• Dick and Jane, white children, a brother and sister, featured in American basal readers
• Search for Tomorrow, a popular U.S. television soap opera
• "Women liberationists", a reference to members of the feminist movement
• Jackie Onassis, the late U.S. President John F. Kennedy's widow, seen during the period in television broadcasts of John F. Kennedy memorials
• Jim Webb, U.S. composer
• Francis Scott Key, author of "The Star-Spangled Banner"
• Glen Campbell, U.S. pop music singer
• Tom Jones, Welsh pop music singer
• Johnny Cash, U.S. country music singer
• Engelbert Humperdinck, British pop music singer
  • All four of the above were hosting variety shows at the time (The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour, This Is Tom Jones, The Johnny Cash Show and The Engelbert Humperdinck Show respectively).
• Rare Earth, all-white U.S. pop music band signed to Motown Records
• "White tornado", advertising slogan for Ajax cleanser, "Ajax cleans like a white tornado"
• "White lightning", a slang term for moonshine, the name of a 1950s country and western song by George Jones, and an American psychedelic rock band. This could also be a reference to the advertising for the Mountain Dew soft drink, which was briefly renamed "White Lightning" in the mid-1960s.
• "Dove in your bedroom", an advertising image associated with Dove anti-perspirant deodorant
• reference to "Put a tiger in your tank", an Exxon advertising slogan created by Chicago copywriter Emery Smith
• "Giant in your toilet bowl", a combination reference to the advertising of Salvo laundry detergent, which promised to "Put a giant in your washer!", and Ty-D-Bowl toilet cleaner, whose commercials featured a diminutive man boating in a toilet tank.
• reference to "Things go better with Coke", a Coca-Cola advertising slogan
• reference to "Fights germs that may cause bad breath", from Listerine advertising
• reference to "Let Hertz put you in the driver's seat", advertising slogan for Hertz car rental

Covers and allusions

The song has been covered, sampled, and parodied extensively.

• Genaside II covered and reworked the song replacing some of the words with British politicians and issues.
• Elvis Costello's song "Invasion Hit Parade" from his 1991 album Mighty Like a Rose contains the lines "Incidentally the revolution will be televised/With one head for business and another for good looks/Until they started arriving with their rubber aprons and their butcher's hooks," an allusion to the song.
• The Sarah Jones song "Your Revolution," a feminist interpretation of the song criticizing misogyny in mainstream hip hop, with the key line "Your revolution will not happen between these thighs"). A radio station that played the song was fined by the FCC.
• In the mid 1990s, hip-hop/rap artist KRS-One recorded a re-imagining of the song using different lyrics, written by Wieden+Kennedy copywriter Stacy Wall, for "Revolution," a Jake Scott-directed Nike commercial featuring Jason Kidd, Jim Jackson, Eddie Jones, Joe Smith, and Kevin Garnett.
• Queen Latifah covered the song at the 2011 BET Awards.
• Molotov (band) covered the song with Spanish lyrics in their 2004 covers album Con Todo Respeto.
• Aesop Rock references this in his song "Coma" from 2001's Labor Days.
• Snoop Dogg references the song in the Gorillaz song "Welcome to the World of the Plastic Beach" from their 2010 record, Plastic Beach.
• Josh Garrels references the song in on his song "The Resistance" when he sings "The liberation will not be televised."
• Vast Aire, Timbo King, Prodigal Sunn & Byata reference the song in the song "Slow Blues",of "Wu-Tang Meets the Indie Culture - Think Differently" produced by Bronze Nazareth
• Talib Kweli references this in his song "Beautiful Struggle"
• Common_(entertainer) References this in his song, "The 6th Sense" on his album, "Like Water for Chocolate".
• Curren$y References this in his song, "Televised" on his album, "Weekend at Burnies".