Beatles White Album | Page 4 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

I also belong the group of people who like every single song on the White Album . As many have already said before, the album works as a whole because the diversity of the different styles the songs are written in gets apparent then. However, I also like every song as an independent song. My least favourite would probably be Obladi Oblada but I still like it because of the saxophone and because they seem to have had so much fun recording it. 

And Honey Pie is an absolutely amazing song! Paul’s voice sounds so charming on it, the clarinets and saxophones add an irresistible flair, and the ‘hot kind of music’ part is simply adorable. 

The White Album is definitely my second favourite album after Revolver !

I listened to this album with headphones in the dark, solely focusing on the music, for the first time in a long time the other night and I was floored at its unbelievable greatness once again.

Here are some of my favourite things about the White Album :

1.) The order of the songs is perfect. One can honestly hear every single second of the many, many they have spend on discussing the album order.

On the macrocosmic level, I love the overall flow of the album: at the beginning, with the take-off of a plane, the listener is taken on a journey into a unknown world – wait, it’s actually a journey back home… but how can it be a journey back home, and one into an unknown world at the same time? This discrepancy between the listener’s experience, the listener’s image of the narrator’s experience, and the narrator’s actual experience is not only a big, cheeky wink, it’s also a first indication of what’s to come: the first disc of the WA is full of little jokes – just look at Obladi Oblada, Bungalow Bill, or the king of jokes, Wild Honey Pie . The second disc is still maintaining the humour but in a more criticising way: with Piggies , Blackbird , and Why Don’t We Do It In The Road? the percentage of socio-critical songs is greatly increased, just as is the number of animal-related songs. The direct connection of animal songs and songs criticising society reminds me of fables in a very strong way. This shows how narrative many songs of the album are. The Beatles have moved far, far away from love lyrics and have reached a point on which they tell whole stories with their songs (Obladi Oblada, Bungalow Bill, Honey Pie …). Disc three shows yet another aspect of humour, with its salty parodies like Birthday and Yer Blues . And then, at the end of disc four, the albums ends as fitting as it started. It seems very appropriate to wish the listener a good night at the end of an album, just as it seems appropriate to take-off at the beginning of an album, but something in the way Ringo conveys his message always leaves me with the thoughts ‘they’re just kidding us listeners all the time.’ Ah, I really love the Beatles’ humour, never fails to cheer me up.

On the microcosmic level, the transitions between the individual songs often are superb as well. The flowing transition between Back In The USSR and Dear Prudence , is kind of obvious, but that doesn’t make it less beautiful. It sounds like swirling vapours slowly fading and enabling a free view of all the beauties of the world (=guitar at the beginning). So, one could say that the song’s beginning already hopefully anticipates the stories outcome: Prudence will be able to clear all the whirling thoughts in her heads and go out to greet the brand new day. Another example is the transition between Martha My Dear and I’m So Tired . The former ends with a descending bassline and the latter starts with an ascending guitar line which starts exactly one half tone higher! (hope my hearing didn’t fool me) When I first noticed that I got goosebumps, that’s just really amazing! Or in I’m So Tired at the end, where one can hear a child’s voice very quietly, if I’m not mistaken, the child’s voice has the same pitch as fourth note in Blackbird and it even sounds a bit bird-like. Small details like that, are what make this album an adventure to explore every time. By the way, I’d be really interested what you all think about the transitions in the White Album . Have you got favourite ones? Do you agree with the ones I presented or do you think I overinterpreted?

2.) The greatest thing about the White Album , though, is arguably its diversity. The White Album is diverse on so, so many different levels. 

First, you have the many genres, of course, rock, folk, country, hard rock, and music hall are only some genres which may be attributed to the White Album . But all these genres don’t pay justice to this incredible selection of songs – from the heaviest, blisters-inducing sounds of Helter Skelter to the softest whispers of Julia . 

Another thing is the number of different guitar sounds. I only realised this the other night when I was listening to it, but the many different guitar sounds used are mindblowing. 

On the electric side, there is Clapton’s wonderfully weeping guitar solo in WMGGW, George’s threatening guitar solo in HIAWG, the frantic guitar in Yer Blues ( I love that one very much, it’s a great parody on its own), the even more frantic and restless guitars in EGSTHEFMAMM, the anthemic guitar in Sexy Sadie which mixes with the piano so well that it’s almost scary (and certainly spine-tingling), and, last but not least, the heavy guitars on Helter Skelter . Disc three generally features lots of heavy electric guitar.

On the acoustic side, the variety is equally big. There’s beautiful and gentle finger picking in sogs like Blackbird , Mother Nature’s Son , or Julia , there’s the introduction of Bungalow Bill which reminds one of Spanish classical guitar masters, there’s the slightly out of tune but incredibly beautiful intro of Dear Prudence , the quirky part in Wild Honey Pie , the Bluesy rhythm guitar in Revolution 1 , and the pastoral Long, Long, Long where the charm comes from the subtle buzzing side noises the guitar makes when being strummed or picked.

What’s also great is the how many self references there are in the WA. Not only lyrical ones (most obvious in Glass Onion ) also on a musical level. One example is drum/ guitar noises which sound almost as if they were left in the mix by accident. One can hear this at the end of Long, Long, Long , at the beginning of Mother Nature’s Son or at the ending of Helter Skelter . Or another one is the playing of seemingly random notes on the piano (beginning of Don’t Pass Me By and Cry Baby Cry right before the first chorus starts)

All in all, given how diverse the album is, it seems very logical to me that the White Album is plain white. After all, if one adds up all the colours of the visible light spectrum, what colour does one get?

Billy Rhythm said

It’s my favourite Beatles’ album, but I don’t feel the same sense of “perfect” here as you…  the “finished” product, for me, probably ought to have been labelled ‘Unfinished Music Vol. 0000001 – The BEATLES’…  there’s songs missing from those sessions and alternate versions which have come to light since its initial release that make it very difficult for me to listen to as is anymore…  I don’t stray far from the original order but there are key additions/replacements that make for a much better listen, in my opinion…  ‘A Beginning’ makes ‘Back In The U.S.S.R.’s fantastic intro even more effective when slotted in first while the ‘Anthology 3 ‘s ‘Good Night ‘ works for a way better closer, having the same orchestra start and end the proceedings…  I can’t go back to ‘Revolution #1′ now that I’ve heard ‘Take 20’, something’s missing there…  ‘Not Guilty ‘, the list goes on…

Yay, it’s my favourite Beatles album too! 🙂 Anyway, that’s a very interesting take on it. I find it always very fascinating when people say they would rather replace certain songs on an album with alternative versions of the song. Because , rationally thinking, I tend to agree. For example, I think that Across The Universe would have fit really good on disc 1 or 3 of the White Album , it would have been so great if they had decided to put it on the White Album . On the other hand, however, my brain just can’t accept changes like that on an emotional level. It’s just that I have first discovered all the albums, I would listen to them at night again and again until I knew every song by heart, I would treat them like something holy, and let them comfort me when I was down. That way, I kind of started to see them as people, and every person has its flaws and things one could improve about them. Only after I have had absorbed the albums, I started to listen to all the alternative takes and then, because of the time that had passed by in between, my brain didn’t put it in the same category as the album it belonged to. So the White Album is the White Album , as I learned to love it and the alternative takes are a fascinating listen of which I also create playlists sometimes but which I never use to replace album tracks. I can totally understand, though, why many people think of ways to improve their favourite album with alternative takes – it’s probably the healthier and more reasonable approach to the music than mine, oh well, isn’t it fascinating how differently music is perceived by different people.

On to your specific suggestions: A Beginning as the opener would be okay but I find it a little bit too corny, it would work well in connection with Good Night , though, you’re right. As to Good Night , even though I generally prefer the Anthology 3 version, I would still go for the album version because Ringo says ‘Good Night everybody, everywhere’ at the end, that’s so sweet and peaceful! (And I have complained about A Begining being to corny…). I agree, take 20 is unbelievable, one had to put it a bit farther away from Rev 9 though, otherwise, it would be too much craziness concentrated on one spot.

Totally agree on the greatness of Sexy Sadie !

Billy Rhythm said

To further expand on this…  There’s a certain darkness to the music inside which mirrors the white jacket…  Yes, to the presence of all colour, but without the darkness there would be no light…:-)  

Thank you so much for this thought, I love it! As an analogy-nut, I’ve always wondered how one could expand the analogy of colours to point out the difference between Sgt. Pepper ‘s and the White Album and you have given the perfect explanation: Sgt Pepper ‘s is very colourful, but it’s like colours on a painting, or in a field of flowers: they don’t mix to white, they stay as they are and form a colourful overall image. However, the White Album has its colours out of different spectrums of the visible light, only the darkness in songs like HIAWG make the light visible, and so the light adds up to white. Thanks for the great idea!

*Wow, it’s ridiculous how happy I’m now only because of this analogy*