 As part of their Apple Corps business enterprise, the label was run on counterculture principles and intended to be a form of what McCartney termed "Western communism".The single was one of the four records that were sent in gift-wrapped boxes, marked "Our First Four", to Queen Elizabeth II and other members of the royal family, and to Harold Wilson, the British prime minister.According to music journalist Jim Irvin, the heavily distorted sound of "Revolution" led some record buyers to return their copies, in the belief that "there was bad surface noise" on the disc.