The biggest surprise for me hearing the Anthologies was that the lyric was not in fact "Happy as a rafter in a marketplace" but "Happy ever after in a marketplace." Let's hope the White re-mix holds no similar surprises.
Incidentally -- and this is very instructive vis a vis the internet, and the triangulation of information -- the famous lyric to... Roadhouse Blues? is not "Well, I woke up this morning and I got myself a beer," but "...got myself a beard." Far better lyric.
And from Malvern (malvernthenovel.com): "They're Labradors, not labor dogs."
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Genius is hard work.
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It's unlikely an album as musically diverse as The White Album would be produced today. I guess that's one of the reasons it's so enduring. I'd say Helter Skelter is more proto punk than hard rock though.
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There are the Beatles...and then, everyone else. Still the coolest guys on the planet.
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And of course we hung the included photos of each of them on the wall. LPs were the best for their sleeves and occasional inclusions like those pics.
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@jeff I still have my photos framed and on the wall. My favorite Beatles album.
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In rural Oregon we had to buy it from under the counter in ‘68. Not sure whether they didn’t want us to steal it off the rack, or if it was too revolutionary for management. But it effectively added to the mystique either way.
Very happy I lived through the Beatle era as a young adolescent. There’s truly been nothing like it since.
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Nearly fifty years after the recorded their last LP, when two of the members are long dead, we cannot stop talking about these guys. That's the way it should be.
Forty-four years of biographical hindsight informs us that these were four, humanly flawed, imperfect - and in many respects - troubled men. Oh, but that music. That timeless, perfect and beautiful music. I'm willing to forgive these guys just about anything. I was only four months shy of my twelfth birthday when the Beatles broke up forever in the spring of 1970. When I was a little boy they were the undisputed princes of the Planet Earth. To me they seemed to be invincible. The deaths of John Lennon and George Harrison proved for all time that they were not. Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr are today elderly men for whom eternity now beckons. They were - and are - as vulnerable in their grip on this slender thread as any of us. Imagine.
https://tomdegan.blogspot.com/2010/05/excellent-adventure-at-abbey-road.html
Tom Degan
Goshen,NY
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"Guess I'll have to buy the ''White Album'' again." - Tommy Lee Jones, from Men in Black.
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@Just Me
Hi Tommy, you are a very lucky guy for having such privilege.
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Whenever I listen to this exquisite recording, I think to myself, “I’ll have what they’re having.” Or, as they would put it so much better, “If you want some fun, take Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da”.
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The Esher demos have a freshness the final, overprocessed album lacks; it's a pity the Beatles didn't release them instead of the overlong, often tiresome White Album. Critics contort themselves to justify it as another stroke of Beatles genius, but it's really quite self-indulgent (George Martin contended by this point the Beatles were merely churning out material to fulfill their contract to EMI faster). If only they'd trimmed the fat of such sub-par songs as I'm So Tired, Piggies, Martha My Dear, and Wild Honey Pie, it might've been the strongest post-Pepper album they released, certainly better than the half-baked Let It Be and oversmoothed Abbey Road. Sure, I enjoyed it in my twenties, but now the Stones Beggar's Banquet stands for me as the album of '68: lean, mean, and not taking its audience for granted for a second.
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@steveconn if only you’d been there to tell the Beatles what to do.
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@steveconn
My god, but you’re wrong.
Not just partially; on every count. How many Stones songs were being sung by kids even 10 years after they were recorded? Go listen to Lennon’s vocal on “So Tired,” then beg our forgiveness. We’ll see how we feel.
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I've always classified aesthetic tastes in people by whether they like Revolution #9, or not. For me, it was formative.
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And here's the obligatory criticism of an article by a diehard fan (insert eyeroll.)
It was never sequenced to maximize contrasts, which might be why the writer uses that line then goes completely out of sequence to make his point. The major concerns driving the sequencing were: Start each album side with something bright or rocking; have a George tune on each side; put all the animals together. That's it.
"Yer Blues" is an in-joke about the then-exploding British blues scene, Clapton (who plays on the album) included. Take the blues to its logical conclusion. "I'm lonely. Wanna die."
It's a fine article otherwise. It's hard to say new things when the Beatles have been discussed so much. I didn't buy the Pepper deluxe, but I'll probably buy this one. The new version of Good Night, with all four singing on it along makes it worth the money.
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I remember laying awake in my bed on Christmas Eve hoping to find the White Album beneath the tree the next morning. A well established Beatles fan by the age of 8 years old, I couldn’t imagine life without the latest record (today known as vinyl). The next morning, I was thrilled to discover the album tucked in behind a guitar, my first, that also arrived on a day that changed my life forever. So happy to read the reflections offered by others who are reminded of their encounter with this marvelous piece of work. Enjoy!
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I remember finding the white album buried amongst a pile destined for the trash heap. I was 12 years young, living on my reservation in North Dakota. Believe it or not, I did not even know who the Beatles were at the time! Boy oh boy, was I forever transformed when I dropped the needle. I thought Rocky Raccoon was written just for me, Julia was a song written for my mother, and Obla-Di was all about our Norwegian neighbors. And so it goes that a year later when I attended Exeter Academy, this North Dakota hick kid from the ‘rez at least had some musical chops to hang in with the rest of the crowd. Thanks Beatles! Your music is timeless.
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@Cp This comment made my day. But man, a kid from the rez at Exeter? It'd take a tough, smart dude to pull that off. Well done.
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"Helter Skelter" has always been a fave of mine from the dbl album "The Beatles" (White Album)… But I still get a flash of memory from the horrible Charles Manson connection with the song... Maybe I should go find his grave and stomp and dance on it while I play (very loudly) Helter Skelter"... "When I get to the bottom, I go back to the top..." "I GOT BLISTERS ON MY FINGERS!"
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Now that you-know-what is virtually legal listen to this on headphones under the influence, which is how this was created. You will get much more out of it.
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I listened to The White Album for the first time in 2002 (I was 17 back then). My dad, being a Beatles fan, would always play their records at our house, and especially on road trips. So, as children, my sister and I were fairly acquainted with Sgt. Pepper's, Revolver, Magical Mystery Tour, Abbey Road and Let It Be. But I didn't listen to The White Album until my late teenage years, and boy did it stick with me forever! I read some of the comments here, about people listening to this album when it first came out, and I can't imagine how it must felt! But I do share some of that feeling.
As you may or may not know, 2002 was not good for music, not just because it didn't know what to do with massive file sharing, but because mainstream music was probably at one of its worst eras, releasing garbage after garbage (a notable exception is Radiohead, of course, which were in one of their best epochs, during the Kid A/Amnesiac releases).
Anyways, I don't have any idea as to why my father never played The White Album during my childhood. I guess it's because he never bought it (I'm from a very small town in northern Mexico, so it used to be HARD to get good records, believe me). But then came 2002. In the midst of a deep teenage depression, as I was going through the works of Henry Miller and 20th century modernists, as I was very much near to dropping out of high school, a faint, shimmering light started with The Beatles doing their best Beach Boys impression.
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I got the White album for Christmas and clearly remember my mother's face when Why Don't We Do It in the Road played. :-)
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@DLP Paul said he got the inspiration for that one when they were in India... And he observed monkeys going at it in the road...
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@john murdick and I thought this was in reference to Keith Richards getting caught urinating on a road-side..
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@DLP I was 8 when it came out and I thought it meant taking a "poop", as I called it then. It still makes me laugh.
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John Pareles has mastered the art (the thing about Aretha Franklin is she was a great singer) of saying nothing.
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@rubbernecking But you got to hand it to him... He got somebody to pay him for doing it...
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@rubbernecking
Spoken like a frustrated music critic. Let me guess: the world has yet to recognize your genius?
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@NA I have no personal axe to grind other than the enjoyment I receive from reading critical biographies and essays by the likes of Jack Lindsay, Naomi Stein and Maurice Tuchman. Although I've known a few rock writers in my day, I have nothing against Mr. Pareles other than his recent work. His presence at music events in my past days I've had a part in was always a welcome sight.
When the White Album was released in 1968, someone brought a copy into our school one day, and snuck it onto the PA system for our lunch room. Amazingly, we were all listening to "Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da" and "Back to the U.S.S.R." on school loudspeakers.
One elderly teacher (a school founder from 1928, as I recall) went apoplectic, and eventually the rock 'n' roll was turned off.
It was such a transgressive event, though, in the mind of a young 8th grader that it is etched into my mind to the point that I can remember exactly where I was standing in that lunchroom when I heard those tracks from the White Album.
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@Doug McKenna
That reminds me of gym class in high school at one point -- every now and then we would have a day of exercises instead of playing sports, and music was allowed. The music? The Rolling Stones' first album! I never knew whether the gym teacher was amazingly cool or amazingly unaware. But I am pretty sure the parents didn't know about it.
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@Doug McKenna
Ten years later, in 1978, we were singing Ob-la-di in our Catholic High School chorus. We even recorded it on a fund raising album.
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I was a 15 year-old high school sophomore at a military academy in East Tennessee when the White Album was released in November 1968. I wasn’t political at the time, nor was I looking for a career in the armed forces. But I did need some positive structure in my life, and boarding school was a means of getting away from my feuding parents; it was the safest place for me. The Vietnam War was in full swing, and Richard Nixon had just been elected president, and while I didn’t understand what all of that meant at the time, I did know I needed a mental and emotional escape to go along with my physical one. Sgt. Pepper marked the beginning of that escape, Magical Mystery Tour a little less so, but the White Album became full throttle for me. To the extent I had some creative juices percolating inside me, the music and lyrics on these two LPs opened a vein that I still draw from today. Thank you, Beatles. I look forward to purchasing this new offering of a classic.
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A minor point, but worth noting: when Pareles refers to the "1968 mix," he seems to mean the stereo version of the original album. Like all Beatles all albums to that point, the White Album was mixed by the Beatles and George Martin in mono and only later given a stereo mix that the band did not participate in. In fact, the stereo mix is often strikingly different than the one the Beatles helped to produce. At this point, I suppose there's nothing wrong with remixing the music, moving the vocals around and upping the bass, but I'm surprised the producers of this box set did not include the actual "1968 mix," which was in mono.
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The white album is actually the first Beatles release where they spent any time doing a legitimate stereo mix. The mono version of the album wasn’t even released in the us.
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@JDM Those early stereo mixes always bothered me, with isolated instruments in each channel. I like the more natural soundstage that you get with mono, but I'm hoping that this will be achieved ever better with the new mixes.
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I remember often listening to only one track and hearing subtleties you never normally hear.
I learned a lot and enjoyed it much more knowing how it broke down!
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The White Album as a title strikes me as ironic, a play on the denial of depth that many attributed (my parents!) to rock and roll. My family was barred from listening to any rocker except Bob Dylan; The White Album and Sgt Pepper were contraband.
For me both albums were "trips" that I syncretized with psychedelia. Once taken in, they opened the doors of perception.
Tripping is also the (psychological) posture associated with Dionysus, he is the off-balance god (see Titian's "Bacchus and Ariadne"). The late Beatles works are always similarly "off-balance," and encourage a destabilized consciousness.
Any artwork promoting that state of mind is contraband, and the very embodiment of heresy. Freedom is always destabilizing, (see Frederick Douglass.)
What a gift the White Album is for those seeking paths out of "white consciousness."
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@smokepainter
I thought the official title of the album is "The Beatles".
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@BenR - clearly you are a literal thinker! tune in and drop out my friend.
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I am listening to this right now on my computer. The Beatle lyrics "your are going to carry that weight al long time." come to mind. This lads knew the workmen's job they did as young men would never be equaled in their later lives. Their short brilliant creative burst will live forever.
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No they didn't.
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Boy, do we ever need John Lennon now.
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She's well acquainted with the touch of the velvet hand like a lizard on a window pane.
The man in the crowd with the multi-colored mirrors on his hobnail boots.
Lying with his eyes while his hands are busy working overtime.
A soap impression of his wife which he ate and donated to the National Trust.
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@Baba: if still alive, John Lennon would today be 78 years old! (b. 10/9/1940).
Though of course it was sad he died so young...one thing is we all still think of him as no older than his late 30s. We can't picture an OLD John Lennon!
I remember them so well, from my youth in the 1960s -- yes, even their Ed Sullivan appearance -- so it is hard to wrap my mind around the idea the two left alive are pushing 80.
6
I am who I am, in part, because, due to, thanks to what I listened on The White Album, Abbey Road and Let it Be. Every word, compass,accord and sound effect on The White was like a part of a complex encrypted message, that in my early teenager life, sounded like coded lessons to me: Expand your Thinking, Spread your Wings, Be a Rebel, Question Everything coming from the older generation, Be You and You Alone. Every song deserved countless evenings and nights of ample discussion with my friends, we all had different takeouts over the same song, even over the sequence they were put on the vinyl. It was pure magic to me... and still is.
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