After the heavily orchestrated and produced Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album, the Beatles return to simpler arrangements, mostly played on house&garden variety instruments.
This change can be explained in several ways.
Personal reasons: the band members needed to break away from the relentless pace and discipline that had made the Beatles so successful, and develop personal lives outside of the band. Obviously this took its toll on the amount of energy spent on the music. As a matter of fact, they found it difficult at times to be in the same recording studio at the same time. Most of the material in this period was done with only 2 or 3 Beatles at once, with other members absent or overdubbing their contributions later.
From a musical viewpoint, the Beatles had probably pushed orchestration and overproduction to its limits. Songs like "Strawberry Fields Forever", "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite", or "A day in the life", exist only on record; they would fall apart if you took them off and tried to perform them live. By contrast, the songs on the White Album can be readily performed in a pub or at a camp-fire.
What this means today, at least for me, is that the world famous Sgt. Pepper turns out to be an interesting, but overpretentious and sometimes unbearably heavy album, while its successor is as fresh as it ever was. It doesn't hurt to be unpretentious when you excel at it.
True mastery is the level of skill where everything seems to come naturally and effortlessly; to me, this is the album where the Beatles reached that stage. They didn't stop trying to improve: the album is full of new and unexpected details, and most of the songs are arranged and played with the usual care.
In the arrangements, for example, you can hear: an airplane (to open and close "Back in the USSR"), an old-fashioned harpsichord (in "Piggies"), a crazy Spanish guitar riff (in front of "Bungalow Bill"), an off-beat riff to confuse the hearer ("Everybody's got something to hide except for me and my monkey" - compare the one on "I don't live today", which actually confused the singer!), a bass part by voice (I will), a "broken piano" and "drunken violin" ("Don't pass me by"), and so on.
Most of the up-tempo "fun" songs are McCartney's. "Back in the USSR" is a Beach Boys parody, although -- I owe this to a wu below -- not the one McCartney wrote as a birthday present for their singer, Mike Love. Ob-la-di ob-la-da and Honey pie are songs in the music hall tradition McCartney grew up with. But there are less annoying "fun" songs all over the album: "Piggies", "Everybody's got something to hide except for me and my monkey", "Wild honey pie", "Bungalow Bill".
The melancholic songs are the ones that stick: "While Eric Clapton's guitar gently weeps", "Sexy Sadie", "I'm so tired", "Don't pass me by", "Blackbird".
And then there is "Helter Skelter".
(I could go on about this music, but there's a great site on it already:) http://www.tacoshell.com/spinalcracker/cgi-bin/search.pl?index
http://www.tacoshell.com/spinalcracker/cgi-bin/search.pl?index
Charles Manson's interpretation of the album
Charles Manson was a Beatles fan (in the truest sense of the word - a fanatic), and played their music frequently. He used songs from the White Album as prophecies, fuelling his fantasies of murder, revolution, white domination and escape from the coming race Armageddon. He saw the album's title as a personal warning of the forthcoming war, and used many of the songs as prophetic references or justification of his actions.
In "Rocky Raccoon", the lyrics
Rocky Racoon checked into his room Only to find Gideon's bible. Rocky had come equipped with a gun To shoot off the legs of his rival.
"Blackbird" was another racial reference for him as well as a sign that Black people were planning a revolution of their own, while "Helter-Skelter" was Armageddon. He saw "Revolution 9" as a clear reference to Revelation 9, the apocalyptic vision from the Bible, and "Happiness is a Warm Gun" was to be applied quite literally. Finally, "Piggies" may have been the inspiration behind the Tate murders - one Manson Family member said "We got five piggies" the following day.
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/rauk/charlie.htm
This album was originally going to be called A Doll's House, after Ibsen's play.
In early 1968, The Beatles set out for Rishikesh, India, to study Trascendental Meditation with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Others along for the ride included Mike Love of The Beach Boys, Mia Farrow, and her sister. For the Maharishi, having the Beatles was a major public relations coup, and he was thrilled. But, after only a little month, Ringo got fed up and went back to England, and Paul followed him within two weeks. George and John stayed quite a bit longer because of their deeper interest in Hindu religion and spirituality. But, even they left after discovering that the Maharishi had made a sexual advance towards one of the students (see "Sexy Sadie").
Even if The Beatles didn't find God on their trip to India, they did find a wealth of new material. They forswore LSD for the trip, and smoked only an evening joint. This lack of drugs is thought to have helped in their creation of so much new material. Many of the songs, especially the simpler ones, were written while in Rishikesh, and then perfected back at Abbey Road.
"Wild Honey Pie", for example, was based on a sing-along that they did at the Maharishi's retreat. "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill" was based on a tiger-hunting American who stayed at the retreat for a few days. Revolution in the Head says that "Blackbird" was inspired by a blackbird flying into Paul's window one morning, although during his recent concert tour of America, Paul claimed that it was written as a metaphor for the civil rights movement (note that this is offered as a possibility in the book), and that in England, they call girls "birds."
By the time that they got back, they had about 23 songs written, most of which made it to the album. Those that didn't make it were released on Anthology 3 and on various solo albums. Most of the songs written while in India are acoustic songs, which makes sense because the only guitars that they were able to bring were their acoustic guitars. It is an oft-pointed-out fact that during the recording of this album, each Beatle was essentially acting as a solo artist while the others played as a back-up band. Even this is somewhat inaccurate, because the members of the band often weren't even in the studio at the same time.
As is mentioned above, Paul would sometimes replace Ringo's drum parts with his own after Ringo left the studio. Most agree that Ringo knew this, but just kept quiet. At one point during the recording, he actually quit the band for a few days before returning to the studio to find his drum kit draped in flowers.
Also, randomness played a major part in the creation of this album. By this point in their careers, the Beatles had come to see all accidents as containing meaning (from Revolution in the Head), and all meaning as being accidental. This caused them to play around with a wide variety of different techniques on the album, many of which are mentioned in rp's writeup. "Revolution 9" is the most obvious example of this, being the longest track that the Beatles recorded, as well as the strangest.
Basically, this album has something for nearly every musical taste. Even if you don't think that you have, you've probably heard a song or two from this album. I advise everyone to give it a listen, because it's truly smashing, and deserved to be a lot higher on VH1's list.
The Beatles' 1968 self-titled double album has one of the most famous and simplest album covers in the history of popular music. The album's plain white cover belies the complexity of the lyrical and musical content; this is one of the most diverse albums ever recorded. At first glance, the white cover of The Beatles seems to indicate nothing about the album. This is especially true when it is compared to the far more complex covers of other records of the time such as Tommy, Revolver, and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. But despite the cover's outward appearance, this plain white cover actually speaks volumes about the music and the men who wrote it.
Because of its cover, The Beatles is more popularly known as "The White Album." On the right side of the cover, the words "The BEATLES" are printed, slightly askew. On an original vinyl copy, there is a lithographed number below the title, which indicates which copy of the album it is. Opening the album reveals an unnumbered track-list and four famous, small, and simple black-and-white pictures of John, Paul, George, and Ringo. But as soon as the needle touches to the white vinyl of side one, this apparent simplicity washes away.
In some ways, the album really is simple. Compared with the grandiose orchestral arrangements on the band's other releases of the latter half of the 1960s, the acoustic sounds on many of the songs might seem plain. Such a characterization of this album would be shortsighted. By this point in their careers, The Beatles had come to believe that true meaning was derived from accidents. As such, this LP's primary trait is variety: "Blackbird" is a simple acoustic only song and "Helter Skelter is an extended electric jam session. "Don't Pass Me By" is a bluegrass-style number, while "Back in the U.S.S.R." is a standard rock 'n' roll piece. "Ob La Di, Ob La Da" is a reggae song, and "Revolution 9" is an eight minute collection of sound clips. The album begins with a jet engine and ends with the whispered words "Goodnight everybody, everybody everywhere, goodnight," and has a thousand other seemingly random pieces in between. With such a diverse group of songs, a plain white cover is the only way to truly indicate the scope of the album. The cover is perfect in its simplicity.
I really love Revolution in the Head, and get lots of information from there. You should buy it.
Back in the U.S.S.R., the opening track, is not (as was once claimed in a now-edited w/u above) the song written for Mike Love's birthday - that song was in fact 'Happy Birthday Michael Love/Thank You Guru dev' (aka Spiritual Regeneration), a simple Beach Boys pastiche mostly by Paul McCartney which has never had an official release. Love was involved in this song's genesis however, suggesting the lyrical idea for the middle eight (the Ukraine girls and Moscow girls parodying the Beach Boys' California Girls.)
The song is obviously an affectionate parody of the Beach Boys (especially with the 'bow bow bow' backing vocals in the middle eight), but is at least as inspired by Chuck Berry. According to McCartney, the lyrics started out as a parody of the 'I'm Backing Britain' campaign that was current at the time, as 'I'm Backing the UK'. This then mutated into 'I'm Backing the USSR', before, inspired by Berry's Back In The USA it was put into its final form. (This process - moving from political satire to nonsense comedy lyric - was repeated the next year in McCartney's simillar Get Back).
This was one of the few songs on the album completed during Ringo Starr's temporary absence from the band (he quit briefly, feeling underappreciated). The drum track is a composite - McCartney holding down the basic beat while both John Lennon and George Harrison add drum overdubs. Ironically, Starr would frequently guest with the Beach Boys in the 1980s playing this song live.
Dear Prudence, the second song, is the polar opposite of the previous track's uptempo rock style. During the band's sojourn in Rishikesh, the three songwriters had spent a lot of time with folk/pop singer Donovan, who taught them all simple finger picking techniques, which came in useful as they were all writing on acoustic guitars at the time. Lennon was a particularly assiduous student, and the few patterns Donovan taught him appear all over his songs on the White album.
This song was written for Prudence Farrow, sister of the actress Mia Farrow, who was also along on the retreat (for a supposed religious retreat to learn to teach meditation, this seems a peculiarly star-studded affair - the four Beatles, Harrison's model wife, Donovan, a Beach Boy, and a film star who also happened to be Frank Sinatra's ex wife, a collection which somehow doesn't suggest the 'simple life'). Farrow was far more comitted to meditation than many of the others on the retreat, whose attitudes ranged from dilletantism (McCartney), to sincere interest (Harrison and Love). Farrow by contrast spent several days locked in her room refusing to come out and refusing to communicate with anyone. As a response, Lennon wrote this simple, charming ditty to sing outside her window and try to persuade her to come out.
A charming, beautiful song, the chord progression is one that has been used many times since (probably best by Paul Weller with Wild Wood) but never to such effect. One of Lennon's minor masterpieces.
Glass Onion, another Lennon song, is worlds apart in effect. This far more uptempo song is pure nonsense, with the lyrics mostly made up of snatches of other Beatles songs, but with a sinister undertone that is hard to explain.
Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da is a song that nearly broke up the Beatles. McCartney wrote this trite piece of semi-reggae nonsense (the title comes from a Jamaican expression apparently meaning 'life goes on', and was the name of a band McCartney was acquainted with - the leader of the band in question later threatened to sue for credit, and was given an out of court settlement) and was convinced it was a potentially massive hit single, forcing the band into multiple retakes. Lennon on the other hand hated the song and resented the time and effort spent on it. However, Lennon eventually saved the song, with his uptempo piano part born out of frustration. In the end both Lennon and McCartney were proved right - the song was a number one hit for the band Marmalade who did a note-for-note cover version, but it was also one of the worst tracks the Beatles ever did.
Wild Honey Pie A piece written and performed entirely by McCartney, this is just a little throwaway piece done during the session for Why Don't We Do It In The Road?. You've probably spent longer reading this paragraph than the song takes to listen to.
The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill Another joke song, but with a little more substance than the previous two. A Lennon song with an anti-hunting message, based on an American who spent a few days at Rishikesh seeking enlightenment in between tiger hunting expeditions, this has some genuinely great pieces of Lennon nastiness - 'he's an all-American bullet-headed Saxon mother's son', and holds together far better than the preceding two tracks, but still at this point the album is curiously filler-heavy. This song also features the first appearance of a female vocal on a Beatles record (other than the massed chorus on All You Need Is Love), with Yoko Ono singing along on the chorus and having the solo line 'not when he looks so fierce'.
While my Guitar Gently Weeps On the other hand could never be called filler. Easily George Harrison's best composition to this point, the song (like almost every song by anyone in the 60s it seems) was inspired by the I Ching, Harrison taking the phrase 'gently weeps' as the first phrase his eye caught when opening the book at random. As good as the released version is (and it is excellent, with Eric Clapton doing
