FRUITS OF A SPIRITUAL RETREAT

After their Sgt Pepper period, the Beatles wanted to get away from it all. So, they took a trip to become students at a transcendental meditation course in India with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Although it was a spiritual retreat, they did bring their acoustic guitars with them and they would sneak off to write songs. Although they returned home semi-disillusioned from the trip, they had almost forty songs written between them. Many of those songs made it to the White Album.

ECLECTIC ACOUSTIC

With the creative shackles of being a pop rock quartet busted off them in their Sgt Pepper period, the Beatles were free to experiment with unlikely musical styles such as the 1930s dance hall style of Honey Pie, the classical chamber music style of Piggies, the avante garde tape experimentation of Revolution 9, and the Country and Western style of Rocky Raccoon.

Since the songs were originally conceived on Acoustic Guitar, many of the songs remained sparse Acoustic Guitar arrangements such as Blackbird, I Will, and Mother Natures Son. John Lennon commented that he preferred a lot of his songs on the White Album because they were simple and basic compared to the heavy arrangements of Sgt Pepper.

UNIFIED INDIVIDUALISM

George Harrison felt that after all the outside musicians playing on Sgt Pepper, the new album felt more like a band recording together again. There were a lot of tracks where the Beatles just played together live in the studio. But, there were a lot of tracks, that they had each recorded separately, that would later be finished up with the help of the other three.

There was also a lot more individual stuff and, for the first time, people were accepting that it was individual. At one time there might be three separate studios operating. Paul was doing some overdubs in one studio, John was in another and George was recording something else in a third. This divide-and-conquer approach may have been because the record company had set a release date, and time was running out. But, the end result was two album’s worth of eclectic material.

WHAT D’YA CALL IT?

The album was officially self-titled simply “The Beatles”. But, the confused fans thought that was the name of the artist printed on the cover, and that there was no real album name. So, it was commonly referred to as “The White Album” because of it’s blank white cover art and no visible title. The stark white cover art was in complete contrast to the colorful cover of Sgt Pepper. The White Album cover was designed by pop artist Richard Hamilton as a bit of conceptual art. How do you like that for a job? Hand in a blank white piece of paper and say, “Here’s your artwork Mr. Beatle, can I get my check now?”

FOURTH FLOOR COMING DOWN

The White Album is unlike any other Beatles Album. It’s a partial coming down after a psychedelic high with one foot in the surreal and one in the more grounded music of Let It Be. Music Critics throughout history have debated if the experiment was a failure or a success. But, it has stood the test of time as one of the best selling and one of the most interesting outpourings of creativity in the Beatles career. Listening to the album in it’s entirety will take you on a trip much like the Beatles trip that inspired it decades ago.

You can get your copy of the Beatles White Album on Amazon.

- Beatles Geek Pete