Recorded: 30 May – 17 October 1968
Producers: George Martin, Chris Thomas, John Lennon, Paul McCartney
Engineers: Geoff Emerick, Peter Bown, Ken Scott, Barry Sheffield, Ken Townsend
Released: 22 November 1968 (UK), 25 November 1968 (US)
Personnel
John Lennon: vocals, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, bass guitar, piano, organ, Hammond organ, harmonium, harmonica, tenor saxophone, drums, timpani, percussion, tape loops, effects, samples, handclaps
Paul McCartney: vocals, bass guitar, six-string bass guitar, piano, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, organ, Hammond organ, electric piano, flügelhorn, recorder, drums, tambourine, bongos, percussion, handclaps
George Harrison: vocals, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, bass guitar, Hammond organ, drums, percussion, samples, handclaps
Ringo Starr: vocals, drums, tambourine, bongos, castanets, sleigh bell, maracas, percussion, effects, handclaps
George Martin: piano, celesta, harmonium
Eric Clapton: lead guitar
Chris Thomas: piano, Mellotron, harpsichord, organ, electric piano
Yoko Ono: vocals, effects, samples, handclaps
Mal Evans: backing vocals, trumpet, handclaps
Pattie Harrison, Jackie Lomax, John McCartney: backing vocals, handclaps
Maureen Starkey, Francie Schwartz, Ingrid Thomas, Pat Whitmore, Val Stockwell, Irene King, Ross Gilmour, Mike Redway, Ken Barrie, Fred Lucas, various others: backing vocals
Jack Fallon, Henry Datyner, Eric Bowie, Norman Lederman, Ronald Thomas, Bernard Miller, Dennis McConnell, Lou Sofier, Les Maddox: violin
John Underwood, Keith Cummings, Leo Birnbaum, Henry Myerscough: viola
Eldon Fox, Reginald Kilbey, Frederick Alexander: cello
Leon Calvert, Stanley Reynolds, Ronnie Hughes, Derek Watkins, Freddy Clayton: trumpet
Leon Calvert: flügelhorn
Tony Tunstall: French horn
Ted Barker, Don Lang, Rex Morris, J Power, Bill Povey: trombone
Alf Reece: tuba
Dennis Walton, Ronald Chamberlain, Jim Chester, Rex Morris, Harry Klein: saxophone
Art Ellefson, Danny Moss, Derek Collins: tenor saxophone
Ronnie Ross, Harry Klein, Bernard George: baritone saxophone
Raymond Newman, David Smith: clarinet
Uncredited: 12 violins, three violas, three cellos, three flutes, clarinet, three saxophones, two trumpets, two trombones, horn, vibraphone, double bass, harp
Tracklisting
Contents
‘Dear Prudence’
‘Glass Onion’
‘Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da’
‘Wild Honey Pie’
‘The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Bill’
‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’
‘Happiness Is A Warm Gun’
‘Martha My Dear’
‘I’m So Tired’
‘Blackbird’
‘Piggies’
‘Rocky Raccoon’
‘Don’t Pass Me By’
‘Why Don’t We Do It In The Road?’
‘I Will’
‘Julia’
The Beatles’ ninth original UK album, and their 15th in the United States, was their first double-length release. Commonly known as the White Album, the self-titled collection of 30 songs stands as a majestic cornucopia of styles, born from one of the group’s most creative periods.
The background
Although financially secure, critically and commercially acclaimed, and assured as figureheads of popular music, by the summer of 1968 The Beatles were in a degree of turmoil. The previous year they’d achieved possibly their crowning glory in Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and suffered their first major artistic failure in the Magical Mystery Tour television film.
By 1968 The Beatles’ world had changed immeasurably from their early days. Having stopped touring in 1966, they were set free to explore the possibilities from inside the studio, and began enjoying the time that their fortunes allowed. Their musical output may have slowed from the mid-1960s, but their creativity was as strong as ever.
After Sgt Pepper changed the world, the world keenly awaited The Beatles’ next step. They had released just the six-track Magical Mystery Tour EP and the ‘Lady Madonna’ single since then, and there was widespread speculation in the press that they were a spent force.
While recording the album, the group was in the process of launching the multimedia business Apple Corps, while coping with various upheavals including drug busts, changing relationships and substance abuse.
The Beatles were old hands at dealing with such pressure. They turned away from the elaborate excesses of Sgt Pepper, recording instead a simple collection of 30 songs under an even simpler name: The Beatles.
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- Photo: Tony Bramwell
George Martin later claimed he had wanted the group to omit the album’s weaker songs and focused instead on producing a solid single-disc release.
I thought we should probably have made a very, very good single album rather than a double. But they insisted. I think it could have been made fantastically good if it had been compressed a bit and condensed. A lot of people I know think it’s still the best album they made. I later learnt that by recording all those songs they were getting rid of their contract with EMI more quickly.
Anthology
Ringo Starr agreed with the sentiment.
There was a lot of information on the double album, but I agree that we should have put it out as two separate albums: the ‘White’ and the ‘Whiter’ albums.
Anthology
Despite its faults as a collection, Paul McCartney stood by the album, saying that the wide variety of songs was a major part of its appeal.
I think it was a very good album. It stood up, but it wasn’t a pleasant one to make. Then again, sometimes those things work for your art. The fact that it’s got so much on it is one of the things that’s cool about it. The songs are very varied. I think it’s a fine album.I don’t remember the reaction. Now I release records and I watch to see who likes it and how it does. But with The Beatles, I can’t ever remember scouring the charts to see what number it had come in at. I assume we hoped that people would like it. We just put it out and got on with life. A lot of our friends liked it and that was mainly what we were concerned with. If your mates liked it, the boutiques played it and it was played wherever you went – that was a sign of success for us.
Anthology
One day until: Thanksgiving 2018, 50th anniversary of The White Album, and 55 years since John Fitzgerald Kennedy was gunned down in the streets of Dallas, Texas, USA. It’s also 55 years to the day since the Beatles’ second album (actually their first properly produced album), With the Beatles, came out. That was just a coincidence, those last two happening 11/22/63.
TWA coming out 11/22/68 is NOT a coincidence. TWA is all about the assassinations of the Sixties and the general murderousness of Amerika.
From the first song “Back in the USSR” (you don’t know how lucky you arrrr, boy): “Flew in from Miami Beach, BOAC/ Didddn’t get to bed last night.” What a coincidence; JFK flew in to Texas (Houston first) from Miami Beach. But the hero of our song is much luckier than our last real President, for HE is back in the USSR, not the US of A. You know, the USA that squandered trillions of dollars of blood, sweat, and tears for absolutely nothing, The Cold War, the non-existent boogyman who had all the Bungalow Bill gun-fetishizers shaking in their knickers. And the morbid irony is that that boogyman USSR was much safer for the goodly creatures, let alone the First Citizen. And they had health care for all their people although most of their land was in the tundra, not the luxuriant temperate and sub-tropical zones. THEY had it hard and WE had it easy, yet they didn’t find it necessary to be Gun-Happy, dumb as dirt, Rocky Raccoon-type Piggies.
Then, if that didn’t break your heart enough, there’s Prudence, that achingly beautiful AMERICAN girl in a wonderfully beautiful world, but she won’t come out and play and take advantage of miraculous nature. Why? Medgar Evers, JFK, MLK, RFK, and about two million Southeast Asians came out to play and look what happened to them. It ain’t safe around those not-see Americans. And just the fear, loathing, and hatefulness in the air is enough to make you want to stay inside.
And on and on. It’s all too much.
When the Beatles hit the States early 1964, it was like flipping a light switch after what was happening around Tgiving 1963. I was there, Western Mass., in Mrs. (Rose) Fitzgerald’s fourth grade class. Scant weeks and months after JFKA, the Fabs hit like lightning. And late 1968 when TWA came out, the record stores couldn’t keep it in stock. The kids STUDIED that album. Even if we didn’t consciously see all the clues in this magna opera, we got the right idea. It was the beginning of the end of the Vietnam War. The Boom Generation (actually the Beast of Burden Generation) had the number of the so-called Greatest and Silent Generations. Actually the Greediest and Sneering/Smirking Generations.
Oooookkkkaaayyyy……………
Yes, that’s quite an essay you wrote, Roy.
I laughed. I cried. I felt.
charles manson had extravagant theories about the white album, too.
just saying.
If you’re writing about the White Album being about ’60s turmoil and not mentioning “Helter Skelter” then you’re missing the boat big-time.
Despite the flaws and a few obvious clunkers, this is still the best display of the Beatles’ abilities and talents.
Rock, vaudeville, ballads……..it’s all there. Will always remain my favorite album by anyone.
That is fascinating, that it was originally going to be called “A Doll’s House.”
I still haven’t listened to the whole album from beginning to end; I’ve never owned it. I feel I can listen to it now with more understanding of the chaotic and angry and confused state they were in. And that the whole world, including my parents, were in at the time!
THE WHITE ALBUM, recorded over 50 years ago, still sounds amazing and relevant on every level. The sheer diversity never fails to impress- it’s got traditional 1930’s style jazz, delicate, impressionistic acoustic folk, searing, abrasive electric rock, frightening experimental collage, thumping country and western, surrealism, semi-classical baroque-influenced satire, hard blues, sentimental Hollywood orchestral-type schmaltz/lullabye, comedy, west-indian style calypso/reggae, some shuffle-boogie and a few songs which defy categorising- what other album offers such an entertaining range ?
In another 50 years people will still be listening (and learning) from it. It transcends its own time and is for the ages.
We should all be very very grateful for this band and this album- not to mention their other work….
It seems like most fans break down into one of two camps on this album. There is the George Martin view that it could have been edited down to a great single record. Then there is the other side which sees the sheer volume and variety of the material, warts and all, as one of its great charms. Paul summed this idea up best when he said in the Anthology, “Leave it alone. Its the White Album.” While I tend to side with Martin on this one, I have to admit that I have a very hard time when I try to imagine what songs would actually have made it onto that single disc. When I try to whittle this collection down in my head from the original 30 songs, I always get stuck at about the 20 – 21 song mark. This would have been at least 3 -5 songs too many for a single record at that time. But I thought I’d give it a try here anyway just for fun.
In this reimagining of the album as a single disc, I based my choices largely on my own personal preferences. But not entirely. There are some pretty clear indicators as to what the song allotment would have been and which songs would definitely have made the cut. During the second half of the band’s existence, Paul tended to have a bit more input into their albums than John. Starting with Help!, George had averaged one song per side on each record. Ringo had been given one vocal on every album except A Hard Day’s Night. Based on this, I believe that the allotment would have been 8 or 7 songs for Paul, 7 or 6 for John, 2 for George and 1 for Ringo. The exact numbers would have depended on the songs chosen and their running time. Their longest running single disc album was Abbey Road at 47 minutes so I used that as a guideline for the total album length. I also tried to take into account some of what we know about how important individual songs were to the various members of the group. Since Paul ran the band through dozens of takes of Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da and I Will, its hard to imagine the album going forward without them. Likewise, George made quite a statement by bringing Eric Clapton in for While My Guitar Gently Weeps and he wasn’t going to walk away from that. Its also not hard to imagine that Ringo would have preferred to sing a composition of his own rather than croon yet another Lennon/McCartney number. Ironically, the piece that John appears to have felt the most strongly about would likely have ended up on the cutting room floor. The other 3 all hated Revolution #9 but that alone would not have been reason enough to keep it off the album given the dynamics of the group at this point. Instead, it would have been more a matter of time. It was simply too long to fit into the single disc format. If it were included at all, it would likely have had to be cut by more than half. This would greatly have reduced the impact John was looking for with his audio montage and at that point I think he would have decided to pull it. Most likely, it would have ended up as part of one of his solo projects with Yoko.
I’ve tried as best I can to arrange the songs in a way as to honor the original flow of the album. The biggest challenge was to find a suitable replacement ending for the original Revolution #9/Good Night combo. I decided upon Helter Skelter. McCartney has said that he was trying with that song to create “musical chaos” as a reflection of what was going on around them at the time. Lennon used much the same language to describe #9. The Beatles usually ended their albums with either something a bit different or a powerhouse rocker. (Sometimes doing both simultaneously as with Tomorrow Never Knows). This certainly checks both those boxes. With its fade in/ “I’ve got blisters on my fingers!” conclusion it also puts a quirky exclamation point on the whole album in much the same way as the gibberish at the end of Pepper or Her Majesty at end of Abbey Road do for those albums. With these considerations in mind, here we go. :
Side 1:
Back in the USSR
Dear Prudence
Blackbird
Glass Onion
Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da
While My Guitar Gently Weeps
I Will
Happiness Is a Warm Gun
Side 2:
Martha My Dear
I’m So Tired
Don’t Pass Me By
Yer Blues
Mother Nature’s Son
Savoy Truffle
Julia
Helter Skelter
I’d love to see other alternative arrangements/versions of the album. Be kind please. We are all Beatles fans here. 🙂