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)
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
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.
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
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- Photo: Tony Bramwell
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.
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!