Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey
5
Wild Honey Pie
22
Sexie Sadie
6
The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill
23
Helter Skelter
7
While My Guitar Gently Weeps
24
Long, Long, Long
8
Happiness is a Warm Gun
25
Revolution 1
9
Martha My Dear
26
Honey Pie
10
I'm So Tired
27
Savoy Truffle
11
Blackbird
28
Cry Baby Cry
12
Piggies
29
Revolution 9
13
Rocky Raccoon
30
Good Night
14
Don't Pass Me By
15
Why don't we do it in the road?
16
I Will
17
Julia
Reviews
by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
Each song on the sprawling
double album The Beatles is an entity to itself, as the band touches
on anything and everything they can. This makes for a frustratingly
scattershot record or a singularly gripping musical experience,
depending on your view, but what makes the White Album interesting is
its mess. Never before had a rock record been so self-reflective, or
so ironic; the Beach Boys send-up "Back in the USSR" and the British
blooze parody "Yer Blues" are delivered straight-faced, so it's never
clear if these are affectionate tributes or wicked satires. Lennon
turns in two of his best ballads with "Dear Prudence" and "Julia";
scours the Abbey Road vaults for the musique concrete collage
"Revolution 9"; pours on the schmaltz for Ringo's closing number,
"Good Night"; celebrates The Beatles cult with "Glass Onion"; and,
with "Cry Baby Cry," rivals Syd Barrett. McCartney doesn't reach quite
as far, yet his songs are stunning -- the music-hall romp "Honey Pie",
the mock country of "Rocky Raccoon", the ska-inflected "Ob-La-Di,
Ob-La-Da," and the proto-metal roar of "Helter Skelter." Clearly, the
Beatles' two main songwriting forces were no longer on the same page,
but neither were George and Ringo. Harrison still had just two songs
per LP, but it's clear from "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," the canned
soul of "Savoy Truffle," the haunting "Long Long Long," and even the
silly "Piggies" that he had developed into a songwriter who deserved
wider exposure. And Ringo turns in a delight with his first original,
the lumbering country-carnival stomp "Don't Pass Me By." None of it
sounds like it was meant to share album space together, but somehow
The Beatles creates its own style and sound through its mess.
by Chris Nickson, Amazon.com
Better known as the "White
Album," this was meant to be the record that brought them back to
earth after three years of studio experimentation. Instead, it took
them all over the place, continuing to burst the envelope of pop
music. Lennon and McCartney were still at the height of their powers,
with Lennon in particular growing into one of rock's towering figures.
But even McCartney could still rock, and the amazement on "Helter
Skelter" was that he had vocal cords at the end. From Beach Boys
knock-offs to reggae and to the unknown ("Revolution #9"), this has it
all. Some records have legend written all over them; this is one.
by Martin Johnson, Barnes & Noble
A legendary Beatles recording
that defies the very pop music conventions they themselves created,
this album is the longest effort by the Fab Four, clocking in at a
wild and wonderful 93 minutes. By 1968, the Beatles were less a band
than an amalgamation of four rapidly diverging personalities who still
made incredible music together. From the airplane sample in "Back in
the U.S.S.R" to the musique concrčte experimentation of "Revolution
9," The White Album is never less than striking. Despite the presence
of sweet tunes like "Blackbird," "While My Guitar Gently Weeps"
(which, yes, featured Eric Clapton), and "Dear Prudence," this is a
bitter, caustic, and often sardonic recording. "Glass Onion" rips
those who misread their songs, "Back in the U.S.S.R." sends up the
Beach Boys, and many a self-proclaimed freedom fighter was skewered by
"Revolution 1." Even the internal friction is evident: When Harrison,
the most serene of the four, wrote, "We all know Obla-Di-Bla-Da/But
can you show me, where you are?" in the gourmet-savvy "Savoy Truffle,"
it was clear that the party was all but over.
by Daryl Easlea, BBC, 17 April
2007
After the show came the
reality. Fractured, dislocated and expansive, The Beatles, housed in
its legendary, embossed plain white sleeve, came out in November 1968
at a time when both the group and the world had changed irrevocably.
Maybe everything wasn't going to be alright as John Lennon was
suggesting here on "Revolution 1".
After writing dozens of songs while meditating in India in the spring,
the group returned to Abbey Road (and Trident) and recorded over 30
tracks of new material across summer 1968. When you think of how
unrest had begun to simmer within the group's ranks (Yoko Ono arriving
in the studio; Apple forming; Ringo leaving and then returning) and
how broad the album's palette of sounds (bluebeat, heavy metal, folk,
doo-wop to name a few), The Beatles still manages to hang together
like few other works.
The Lennon and Paul McCartney stereotypes are at once reinforced, yet
also dismissed – few would have thought "Good Night" would have come
from the pen of Lennon; or "Helter Skelter" from McCartney. Away from
the set-pieces, it's the doodles that delight – George Harrison's
"Savoy Truffle" is a fine counterweight to "While My Guitar Gently
Weeps"; "Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except For Me And My
Monkey" balances the gravitas of "Revolution 1".
Given that it also contains Lennon, Ono and Harrison's nine-minute
noise collage "Revolution 9" and McCartney's genuinely pointless "Wild
Honey Pie", Producer George Martin always opined that it would have
made a splendid single album; mentally compiling your own version has
since become almost a national pastime.
The Beatles: George Harrison
(vocals, acoustic & electric guitars, violin, organ, bass, tambourine,
firebell); John Lennon (vocals, acoustic & electric guitars,
harmonica, saxophone, piano, organ, harmonium, bass, 6-string bass,
maracas, tambourine, tape loops); Paul McCartney (vocals, acoustic &
electric guitars, flute, flugelhorn, piano, Hammond organ, bass,
drums, bongos, timpani, percussion); Ringo Starr (vocals, piano,
drums, bongos, maracas, castanets, tambourine).
Additional personnel includes: Yoko Ono (vocals); Eric Clapton
(electric guitar); Mal Evans (trumpet, tambourine); George Martin
(piano, harmonium); Chris Thomas (harpsichord, Mellotron); Maureen
Starkey, Patti Harrison (background vocals).
Recorded at Abbey Road Studios and Trident Studios, London, England
between May and October 1968.
THE
BEATLES (generally known as "The White Album" because of its cover)
was a sprawling two-record set, highlighting the distinct
personalities in the group as they matured and moved further away from
each other. With the four Beatles playing like session men on each
other's songs, the making of the album was fraught with tension. John
Lennon's songs included a bitter take on people who read too much into
the Beatles' lyrics ("Glass Onion"), reflections on loneliness and
alienation ("Yer Blues," "I'm So Tired"), and the avant garde sound
collage "Revolution 9."
George Harrison's songs offered black humor ("Piggies") and tender
sadness ("While My Guitar Gently Weeps," with Eric Clapton on guitar).
Paul McCartney provided both light, lyric songs ("Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da,"
"Honey Pie"), and rockers ("Back In The U.S.S.R.," the explosive
"Helter Skelter"). Ringo Starr made his solo songwriting debut with
the goofy country/ska lilt of "Don't Pass Me By" and sang the album
closer "Good Night.
by Jesse Fahnestock, Ink Blot
Magazine
George Martin beseeched The
Beatles to trim the plentiful fat from "The White Album" and release
the excellent record at its center. Had he succeeded, we may have been
spared many of the indulgent, tedious double albums released in its
30-year wake. Of course we also would have been cheated out of The
Beatles' greatest indulgence, which is anything but tedious.
Essentially a collection of solo tracks, "The White Album" showcases
the Fabs at their most absurd ("Wild Honey Pie," "Piggies") and their
most incendiary ("Revolution 9," "Why Don't We Do it in the Road?").
You get Lennon's most rousing rocker in "Everybody's Got Something to
Hide Except For Me and My Monkey," and the most tender, emotionally
honest moment of his career in the maternal ode "Julia."
Seemingly bound by no limits of good taste or good sense, Paul tinkers
with 12-bar blues on "Birthday," music hall on "Honey Pie" and
folk/country on "Rocky Raccoon." He leads an enthusiastic if confused
band through the metallic freak-out of "Helter Skelter," and gets in
way over his head on the cod-reggae of "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da."
But this anything-goes spirit also produced some of the high points of
Beatledom, including McCartney's exquisite "Blackbird" and Lennon's
psychotic symphony "Happiness is a Warm Gun." Forgive them their
excesses. They were The Beatles, after all.
New Musical Express, November 7, 1998
IN THE FINE TRADITION OF
FINDING ANY excuse to celebrate the work of the most radical and
loveable outfit in pop history, here we have a repackaged '30 years
ago today' edition of their longest and most diffuse album. The
collector gets all the attractions of the original vinyl issue -
poster/lyric sleeve, individual moody post-meditation Fab portraits -
in scaled-down CD size. And the lover of aural Fabbery will find
nothing has been tampered with, added or taken away.
How could it be otherwise? The record known as 'The White Album'
presents the alpha and omega of Planet Beatles. From the cheery,
teeth-grating pap of Macca's 'Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da' to the frazzled
sound collage of Ono-Lennon's 'Revolution 9'. From the serious concern
for the group's dwindling esprit de corps on George's 'While My Guitar
Gently Weeps' to the lusty debunking of Fab fanaticism on John's
'Glass Onion'. A sweetener for every bitter pill, with even Lennon -
scabrous and nerve-shredding on 'Everybody's Got Something To Hide
Except Me And My Monkey' - providing a final, soft-cushioned landing
on the dreamily orchestrated, Ringo-sung 'Good Night'.
Their first album released on their own Apple label, 'The White Album'
was conceived in a mood of increasing insularity allied to a 'we can
do anything' confidence. Certainly there are songs where aloofness or
polished technique - George's 'Piggies', Mr Mac's tiresome '20s
pastiche 'Honey Pie' - stand in the way of feeling and substance. But
the sheer abundance of material, particularly that produced by a newly
activated Lennon emerging from his LSD-laced cocoon, ensures it
remains a flawed, funny, mischievous and cranky masterpiece.
As even the twisted brain of Charles Manson found, 'The White Album''s
array of sonic terrorism, pop disposability and finger-plucked
acoustic dreamscapes provides something for everyone. Mac's heavy
metal 'Helter Skelter'; John raging and suicidal on 'Yer Blues',
glacial and confessional on the dead-mother-tribute 'Julia', and
caustic and Maharishi-roasting on 'Sexy Sadie'.
The exuberant, opener, 'Back In The USSR', takes their ability to
transform influences (namely The Beach Boys and Chuck Berry) to a
soaring new level. Though the prevailing mood is towards post-Pepper
studio simplicity, 'Happiness Is A Warm Gun' is the album's
scintillating epic, Lennon at his most musically daring and
emotionally complex.
Making a virtue of the internal dissent which would upend them over
the course of the next 12 months, 'The White Album' is many things.
The work of practised professional craftsmen, musical archivists,
spiritual seekers (Harrison's redemptive 'Long Long Long' one of many
hidden delights) and agit rockers out to capture the tenor of the
times ('Revolution 1' and 'Revolution 9'), it shows that, even
stretched to the limit, The Beatles' riches were manifold. Their
instinctive conceptual genius was unmatched in '68 and remains
unchallenged 30 years later.
by Sarah Zupko,
PopMatters.com, Editor & Publisher
Better known as The White
Album, it’s the 30th anniversary of the seminal 1968 Beatles record
and Capitol Records is celebrating with a limited edition,
individually-numbered re-release that captures the look and feel as
well as postcards and poster of the original vinyl album. After
Revolver, this is one of The Beatles’ best albums, though it was also
the first where the group began working less as a group and started
recording individually with session musicians.
Hints of future solo work are strikingly apparent in John Lennon’s
emotionally bare “Julia,” and Paul McCartney’s rocker “Back In The
U.S.S.R.” (think Wings circa Band On The Run). The White Album is
simply one of the greatest albums in rock history and more than any
other Beatles album, highlights the enormous variety of their
songwriting punch.
by Danny Eccleston,
Q Magazine
Better known as The White
Album, it’s the 30th anniversary of the seminal 1968 Beatles record
and Capitol Records is celebrating with a limited edition,
individually-numbered re-release that captures the look and feel as
well as postcards and poster of the original vinyl album. After
Revolver, this is one of The Beatles’ best albums, though it was also
the first where the group began working less as a group and started
recording individually with session musicians.
Hints of future solo work are strikingly apparent in John Lennon’s
emotionally bare “Julia,” and Paul McCartney’s rocker “Back In The
U.S.S.R.” (think Wings circa Band On The Run). The White Album is
simply one of the greatest albums in rock history and more than any
other Beatles album, highlights the enormous variety of their
songwriting punch.
Rolling Stone, November 1, 2003
"Beyond its stylish
minimalism, the essentially blank cover of The Beatles, better known
as the White Album, served a symbolic purpose. The band could find no
honest way to visually represent itself as a coherent unit. Each of
the three main songwriters was pursuing his own vision, with the other
members, however reluctantly, serving as backup musicians. Once a
whole far greater than the sum of its parts, the Beatles were now a
tense alliance of daunting individual talents. The Beatles became a
double album in part because John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George
Harrison all insisted that their favorite songs be included. "I
remember having three studios operating at the same time," Harrison
said of the sessions. "Paul was doing some overdubs in one, John was
in another and I was recording some horns or something in a third."
Ringo Starr grew so frustrated that he quit the band for a time. The
others festooned his drum set in flowers to celebrate his return. What
didn't suffer in this atmosphere was the music. From the plangent
yearning of Lennon's "Julia" to the exuberance of McCartney's "Back in
the U.S.S.R." and the prayerfulness of Harrison's "While My Guitar
Gently Weeps" (featuring a solo by Eric Clapton), the White Album is
an exhilarating sprawl -- some of the Beatles' most daring and
delicate work. "I think it was a very good album," said McCartney. "It
stood up, but it wasn't a pleasant one to make."
