White Album as a single disc? | Page 23 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

Mine goes like this. Mind you, I’m obeying the rules. That goes: 14 tracks, two singed by Harrison, one by Ringo. Also, no Hey Jude or Revolution , and no unreleased tracks. Just tracks from the actual White Album . It ended up being 44:43 minutes long so right on time

Side A = 22:12

1) Back In The USSR  = 2:43

2) Dear Prudence = 3:56

3) Glass Onion = 2:18

4) Blackbird = 2:18

5) While My Guitar Gently Weeps = 4:45

6) Sexy Sadie = 3:15

7) Julia = 2:57

Side B = 22:31

8) Savoy Truffle = 2:54

9) Yer Blues = 4:01

10) I’m So Tired = 2:03

11) Helter Skelter = 4:30

12) Happiness Is A Warm Gun = 2:47

13) Cry Baby Cry = 3:02

14) Good Night = 3:14

First off, I know there are 8 tracks by John and just 3 by Paul. There’s a reason for that. And that is… plainly… John’s musicianship on this album shines more. And not because Paul’s melodies aren’t as sharp as always. But because Paul is always going silly on the White Album , whilst John’s version of the White Album is a more serious one, which I appreciate way more, and I think makes for a very seriously thrilling experience. That’s why I can’t include Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da , Honey Pie , Rocky Raccoon  or Martha My Dear . If they are not together, they don’t add to the album. And I can’t put those four tracks inside the single LP, because it takes too much room that should instead be filled by John’s serious writing. Besides, I structured the listing so John doesn’t have more than two spots in a row. So it goes Paul, John, John, Paul, George, John, John, George, John, John, Paul, John, John, Ringo.

Then, the order. The first three tracks I don’t need to change. Back in the U.S.S.R. dissolves perfectly into Dear Prudence , and after Dear Prudence , Glass Onion shakes the listener again for the rest of the album, besides, its lyrics get the listener invested, referencing previous albums. It’s a perfect post-opener. I think those three tracks are the only ones that transitioning from a double album to a single album, they don’t lose their pace.

Then, Blackbird . Which I think comes perfectly after the descending string of Glass Onion . If I put it after Dear Prudence , it goes guitar with guitar, and it sounds monotonous. It already sells the variety of the album, as it is not only hard rock tunes, if Dear Prudence didn’t sell that already. That invests the listener even more, unpredictability.

While My Guitar Gently Weeps has to be on side A, because it’s a classic that everybody loves, including the Eric Clapton feature to get them all excited. While My Guitar Gently Weeps is perfect after Blackbird , because even though it is predominantly en electric song, I don’t know, it just sounds similar. I know it’s in a different key but it kind of sounds like they are connected if you play one after the other. It has the same pace and it starts with a piano added to an acoustic guitar. As if it was a reprise, or a recontinuation of Blackbird , taking it to somewhere different. Seriously, try it out, they go pretty well back to back.

Sexy Sadie is one of the tracks I put in as a deflexer. To me it’s one of the better tracks on the full album, and it works perfectly as a transition to Julia . Also, it sketches what Cry Baby Cry will reprise on side B.

Oh, that. I arranged it in a way so side A and side B mirror each other. For example, the only two tracks that have reprises within them are Blackbird and Helter Skelter . They are also the softer and louder tracks on the album, so they are both on 4th position. Also, Sexy Sadie and Cry Baby Cry sound alike, so they are both the 6th track on their respective sides. Also, Julia and Good Night are both quiet endings, both 7th place. Back in the U.S.S.R. and Savoy Truffle are hard hitting beginnings, both 1st place.

Savoy Truffle to me is the most Beatlesque song on the album, and it is paradoxically written by our boy George. I think it starts up side B better than Birthday does on the double album. Then after it, Yer Blues comes along: a blues tune, with an  entirely new sound, also a jam session, which I think I think confirms the ways this album manages to reinvent itself time and time again. Then, just like in side A the chilling songs make some sort of medley (Blackbird , While My Guitar Gently Weeps , Sexy Sadie , Julia ), in side B the protagonism goes to the hard rock tunes, and they also create a short vignette soup.

That is: Yer Blues , I’m So Tired , Helter Skelter and Happiness Is A Warm Gun . This four tracks flow like a river on that order. I’m So Tired feels like a melancholic interlude, one of my favourite tracks. This is because Helter Skelter can’t just appear from nothing, and it also feels like a continuation of I’m So Tired , being on the same scale as well. Happiness Is A Warm Gun enters softly after Helter Skelter . So you get ‘I GOT BLISTERS ON ME FINGERRRS … she’s nooot a giiirl‘

Then, finally, Cry Baby Cry and Good Night . Cry Baby Cry feels to me like the Carry That Weight of the White Album , so it should be included as a pre-closer. You know, a catchy refrain, sung by more than one member of the band. To me it’s the final climax before the ending. The lyrics sound like a combination of the irony on Happiness Is A Warm Gun and the sweet lullaby of Good Night . It’s a key transition point in the album. Sadly not one of the most beloved tracks on the original album, but it makes perfect sense to me in here. It slows down the pace of Happiness Is A Warm Gun , it prepares you for the slow beautiful fairy-like ending Good Night . Also, it includes Can’t You Take Me Back, which works as a replacement for Revolution 9 . In fact, it is a better interlude at that, given it only lasts 30 seconds, instead of 8 minutes.

And well, Good Night is a perfect closer, that, alone, turns the album into a beautiful experience that means everything other than if it just abruptly ends with no Ringo voice. Also, Ringo is perfect for closing the album. As, if the White Album (single LP) was a studio concert/jam session of a lot of different genres and unresolved ideas, after Cry Baby Cry , all of the members of the band are tired and want to go to sleep, and while they pack everything up and leave the room and turn off the lights slowly, Ringo sings the last lullaby, orchestrated by George Martin. Beautiful. This is how I’ve always seen this closer, probably one of my favourite closers, along with every other closer on the Beatles discography lol.

—Tracks I didn’t include.—

Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da / Martha My Dear / Rocky Raccoon / Honey Pie

Too corny. Paul being silly, even thought it improves the double album, it harms the single version.

Wild Honey Pie / Why Don’t We Do It in the Road? / I Will / Revolution 9

Interludes, that don’t make sense on a 14 track album. And Revoultion 9 even thought it’s particular and it could give personality to the album, it’s too damn long!

The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Bill / Piggies / Don’t Pass Me By / Everybody’s Got Something To Hide Except Me And My Monkey / Long, Long, Long

Truthfully, not good enough. I mean, I like some of these songs but it’s the White Album and we have to keep it tight.

Birthday : there’s already Back in the U.S.S.R., better, and not in need of a reprise.

Mother Nature’s Son : there’s already Blackbird , better, and not in need of a reprise.

Revolultion 1: speaking in context, with the Revolution single already out, it is a waste of space that could be filled with better, brand new songs. Still a very good version.

I think I covered everything. The album value, the point of the tracks, cohesion, diversity, hit tracks like While My Guitar Gently Weeps , Blackbird and Helter Skelter , which are beautiful tracks on their own. And also, filler songs that work in context such as Glass Onion , Sexy Sadie , I’m So Tired and Good Night . That’s my single LP White Album , tell me what you think of it.

EDIT:

@CakeMaestor said

However I think that either “Yer Blues ” or “Helter Skelter ” should be the opening track to start Side 2, instead of “Savoy Truffle “. I think it will be a better transition to place “Savoy Truffle ” in between the two as a sort of charming interlude too both tracks. But that’s just my opinion.

I thought about it. But in the end I think Savoy Truffle would make a better opener for two reasons:

One of them would be that it’s not as good a song as Yer Blues and Helter Skelter are (purely on their own). What I mean is that making it the opener empowers it enough to be paid enough attention to. I think the chants of “CREEME TANGERINE AND MONTELIMAR” are great pump-up opener lyrics. And the pace of the song is fast enough to mimic Back in the U.S.S.R. on side A.

If you open up with Helter Skelter or Yer Blues you’re giving to heavy a material to soon. Savoy Truffle is a great way to not only give protagonism to George (instead of “just a transition”) but also save the best for later.

The other reason has to do with the structuring of side B regarding side A. I clarified that I was trying to mirror both sides. Helter Skelter fits the mirroring of Blackbird better because it has a reprise. Savoy Truffle sounds more like Back in the U.S.S.R. in that regard. And I already clarified that putting the songs in side B fulfill a specific purpose.

Although if I were to make the change you proposed I’d go for Helter Skelter . Because if you’re gonna go unapologetically hard, go all the way. But I’d stick with Savoy Truffle for now.

Btw:

I loved your reply @meanmistermustard specifically because it was more elaborate than @Dingle Lad ‘s

I totally agree with most of what you’re saying here, and the clip you put along was something I’ve seen before but I forgot about it. And maybe I agree with Paul too.

Here’s the thing. I don’t think the White Album should be changed or literally re-released as a single album, that’s not my opinion, that would be stupid. The White Album has come to be so perfect for so many people because most just listen all the way through because they like a couple of tracks, and in the end they end up loving every single one, good or bad, just for the sheer heavy value it either has to you personally, or to the music industry as a whole.

I personally have sit and enjoyed the entire album without skipping tracks a number of times to really get a grip of the sensation the album caused on rock history, and personally I found it to be an enriching experience.

The same has happened to me with a number of albums, like Velvet Underground & Nico. You start liking just two tracks, then you like the experience as a whole. I get how most people would feel weird not listening to Wild Honey Pie after Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da or, for that matter, With A Little Help From My Friends without the Billy Sheers before it.

That’s the same reason people think Let It Be Naked was such a failure. Maybe it was a better album, it had the ‘better’ versions of Across The Universe and The Long And Winding Road , Don’t Let Me Down , and there was no Dig It or Maggie Mae : but after 30 years of putting on the record and listening to “‘I Dig a Pygmy‘, by Charles Hawtrey and the Deaf Aids” before Two of Us started, loosing that feels like loosing a part of yourself, wether it’s good or bad, it just doesn’t feel right. “It’s great, it sold, it’s the bloody Beatles’ White Album , shut up”. He’s probably right, but then why did he changed LIB so much? Where is Doris and her oats?

A couple of things besides:

Yes, I would kill you for putting Long, Long, Long over Savoy Truffle , bruh you killing me (I don’t care, man taste is subjective)

I love the Abbey Road Medley how it is way more than I love the tracklist on the White Album , so I would disagree to change it way more strongly. The point of the Medley was that every song summed to it because they where connected and on the same scale. I definitely feel more reluctant about the White Album ‘s progression. But I agree with you on this quote: “start looking too deep and wanting to change it will only screw it up and take away that which makes it ultimately so good”, which I particularly think is an awesome quote and I loved the way you phrased it. You’re a great writer you know. This is because what makes it so good is no longer the fact that the music is consistently good, is because you have consistently heard the album that way, and any other way would just feel like a brand new album that it would take the same amount of time to get into as it took with the original album.

And finally, to close my point and answer to @Dingle Lad and everyone who thanked him [who none of them thanked me ;(]. I wouldn’t agree the White Album is fine. It isn’t fine. This is the album that has Happiness Is A Warm Gun in it, after While My Guitar Gently Weeps , followed by Martha My Dear . This album is awesome. And as you can see in my entire track-count, I love or at least appreciate most of it. My point isn’t that is fine, my point is (and the point of my comparison to Revolver , the best album ever made) that there’s a possibility it could’ve been better.

The White Album has something to me like a fetish value: you don’t love it for what it is anymore, but you love it for what it has been for so damn long. An album that has passed generations and decades of artists and still has some of the best songs ever made in it, and most devoted musicians can name you the entire tracklist of the top of their head. People have seen that tracklist so many times, and they know what songs go where and what role plays in the album, even if it doesn’t play any role, over the year you just accept is there and learn to love the whole package, even if you have to ignore a few things. That’s the thing about albums like Magical Mystery Tour and Revolver , or, I don’t know, In a Silent Way, Illmatic, The Dark Side of the Moon / Animals, Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, Thriller, Sticky Fingers, Ziggy Stardust, is that, I don’t have to make that effort. I love every track in every album I just mentioned. I just wish I could say the same about the White Album because there is the potential. And it would probably be the best one on the list if I’m being honest, and it feels like such a waste sometimes. I don’t have to put up with anything until I like them. Think of a White Album that worked that way. I would be willing to sacrifice the value of random bloated albums inspired by the real White Album , just to get another 40-minute masterpiece like Revolver , MMt, Sgt. Pepper and Abbey Road (even though I have my issues with Pepper but the tracklist is way more reachable than the White Album ).

What I’m posing is the following:

Imagine you had a time machine and a neuralyzer (the things from Men in Black that erase your memory). And be honest, put aside the love you hold for the current tracklist. You have two options: The White Album , a 44-minute album with 14 tracks, all of them originals, no interludes, all of them classics, this might be the second coming of Sgt. Pepper , you love every single f*cking track on it, it just doesn’t get better, it’s an explotion of music, even if some of your favourites ended up as singles (Hey Jude was a single, so who cares). On the other hand, you have the White Album , a 70-minute experience that contains all of those tracks, but also some whacky interludes that aren’t that creative, at least five more songs you don’t like, other three you think are okay, and other five songs that you don’t like yet but with time you will learn to appreciate once you’ve heard the record fifty times or so, plus an eight-minute cacophony at the end for no particular reason. This is what I think about constantly when I listen to the White Album .

Don’t you think a 14 track White Album would fit The Beatles discography like a cherry on top of a massive cake of pure music genius just a little bit? Like a 45-minute album of pure quality, just pure quality. I don’t think the White Album should be changed by any means, I just can’t shake this feeling off my head that, if we’re allowed to fantasize, I think then the White Album would undoubtedly be my favourite Beatles album. Just the idea that there could be a better Beatles album than Revolver , Abbey Road or Magical Mystery Tour blows my mind. Doesn’t it blow yours? I sometimes listen to my Single Version Playlist on Spotify and get the chills, but is not the same. And that sometimes makes me feel like I’m stuck with the 70-minute White Album instead. Not that I can’t appreciate how beautiful the album is already, I wanna leave that clear.

Anyway thank you for taking the time to answer. Peace and love and keep the replies coming if possible, loving your insight.

@meanmistermustard I don’t appreciate LIBN either, I hope I made that clear, but it isn’t because of the takes or the music itself in general, I personally love Don’t Let Me Down on that album, for example. I don’t like the idea of re-releasing an album 30 years later, that’s why I totally don’t want another White Album , the same way I know Let It Be Naked is a stupid idea.

As to Revolver , I think we can disagree. I think it’s perfect. I don’t have to do any effort going into that album, I love every single track from top to bottom, and I could tell you why in a very detailed way, and I’m not joking, but I’m guessing I’d do that some other day on a Revolver thread or something. Same with MMT and Abbey Road , and probably most of Pepper (Within You Without You is the mood killer for me). I’m not saying everyone likes Revolver from top to bottom, there’s people that honestly only like half of the tracks, or every track, but only half of each one, and I get it. I’m talking about my vision, and what I envisioned as the non-existent White Album .

Anyway, I still really appreciate your time answering and I mostly agree with everything you just said, my 44-minute White Album is just a freaky idea I get sometimes, and when I really get into it I can’t stop wondering, I’m sure you’ll forgive me for that. Whenever you wanna discuss anything else about the subject or any other subject for that matter on this forum I’m your man, you are really my type of Beatles fan @meanmistermustard , a pleasure.