Andrew_Hicks's Full Review: The Beatles [White Album] by The Beatles
The Beatles’ self-titled double-LP collection from 1968 – commonly known as the White Album – was the only post-Rubber Soul effort I consciously avoided during my initial immersion into the band’s work. I believe burnout hippie cr+p* was the phrase I used to describe it after checking the album out of the library at the age of 16 or so. Something about overlong bad-acid indulgences like “Revolution 9” and “Everybody’s Got Something To Hide Except Me and My Monkey” left a bad taste in my mouth.
Then I got to college and, I don’t know, maybe I matured a little bit. More likely, I was worn down by my friends’ constant rotations of both discs of the White Album. And certainly those eye-opening first bouts with marijuana didn’t hurt, either.
I warmed to the Paul McCartney songs first. Some of the man’s absolute best guitar ballads appear on this album, including “Blackbird,” an irresistible acoustic number destined for a million outdoor sing-alongs, “I Will,” a 106-second love declaration with a catchy vocal bassline and “Mother Nature’s Son,” a throwaway granola/nature track that no doubt had John Denver creaming his shorts for months. And I’ll always have love his two period pieces, “Rocky Raccoon,” the story of an old-time loser accompanied by an authentic-sounding player piano, and “Honey Pie,” his 1930s-sounding ode to a Hollywood starlet.
Those songs all have the vibrant, inherently likable music qualities of a pop-music maestro, along with varying degrees of production assistance from George Martin. The psychedelic sound of Sgt. Pepper and Magical Mystery Tour is out here – these songs, by and large, stand on their songwriting and performance merit. But many are augmented by overdubs from session musicians, lending help to simpler piano tracks like “Martha My Dear” and the album closer, “Good Night.”
After that, I absorbed the songs into my consciousness one by one, some of the Beatles’ most beautiful and essential tracks. “Dear Prudence,” a John Lennon track written for Mia Farrow’s sister during their trip to the Maharishi’s Etiquette Camp For Upstanding Girls, has an intoxicating bassline that complements a catchy melody. Lennon’s “I’m So Tired,” a thematic sequel to “I’m Only Sleeping” from Revolver, is a bass-lazy blues number capturing one man’s seemingly interminable bout with insomnia.
His frustrated, nihilistic vocals continue to the second disc’s “Yer Blues,” a simple jam that has Lennon wishing for the quick release of death. And, as his magnum opus, “Cry Baby Cry,” a gorgeous acoustic track with accordion and piano overdubs and the kind of elaborate storytelling that was normally McCartney’s stock in trade.
George Harrison’s “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” which features instrumental work from Eric Clapton, is a hazy, heavenly electric trip. His “Long, Long, Long” at times is probably the quietest-ever Beatles song, a guitar ballad with thundering bass and drums tossed in now and again for emphasis. And the horn assault of “Savoy Truffle” is half-Vegas, half-throw-down funk that references gourmet food no doubt brought on by a nasty case of the munchies.
The album’s uptempo tracks aren’t all classics – there are, after all, 27 songs here, so there’s bound to be a little filler. Still, no one person’s list of what he/she considers “filler” will be agreed upon by a consensus of music historians and Beatles fans. If I were to condense the White Album to one disc, “Revolution 9” would be the first to go. It’s an eight-minute collage of sound clips, and I personally can’t make anything of it, sober or otherwise. McCartney’s “Birthday” was probably written on the spot, and his “Wild Honey Pie” interlude is obnoxious as hell (though, like a drunken bar song, kind of endearing at times).
Some of the other tracks I’d include on the list of “endearing but uninspired” are “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da,” “The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill,” “Piggies,” “Why Don’t We Do It in the Road,” “Don’t Pass Me By” (any Ringo original is bound to come off as uninspired) and “Everybody’s Got Something to Hide.” None of these beg to be skipped over, but they’re not on par with the rest of the album, which by and large includes one masterpiece after another.
I haven’t even gotten around to mentioning every song I enjoy on the White Album, but time and my own attention span beg me to stop here, before I cross the 800-word mark. Rest assured, though, that this album is the furthest thing possible from burnout hippie cr_p*.
* = I can't believe they won't let you say C-R-A-P on Epinions.
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