White Album: As Is? Or Should It Have Been Shorter?

Can you take me back where I came from can you take me...

Wouldn't change a thing. (Just don't listen to "Revolution 9" after sundown.)

Actually, would like to sometime see a Deluxe Edition with the "Not Guiltys", the "What's The New Mary Janes", ac "While My Guitar...", etc. added on a bonus disc.

 

In another forum a question was put forth much like this one. Someone asked about reducing the White album to a single disc. Here was the scenario I offered.

August 26, 1968 - Hey Jude b/w Revolution (45)

November 22, 1968 - Ob-La-Di, Ob-La Da b/w Not Guilty (45)

November 22, 1968 - The Beatles (LP)

Side One -

Back In The U.S.S.R.
Dear Prudence
Glass Onion
While My Guitar Gently Weeps
I'm So Tired
Blackbird
Sexy Sadie

Side Two -

I Will
Julia
Birthday
Yer Blues
Mother Nature's Son
Cry Baby Cry
Good Night

November 29, 1968 - What A Shame Mary Jane Had A Pain At The Party b/w Helter Skelter (45)


That being said - I am glad things happened the way they did

Greg

 

Didn't even have to think about this!

As is!!!!

 

I went for the "single disc" but with a caveat: The second side of YELLOW SUBMARINE should have been used as the second sides of A HARD DAY'S NIGHT and HELP!, with a side's worth of Beatle tunes included. Pull the third side intact and make it the second side of YELLOW SUBMARINE, and you make that disc worthwhile. Then after "donating" "Rev. 9" to Lennon/Ono for one of their albums (making at least part of one of them interesting), the paring down for the balance of the White Album wouldn't be as hard as one might think. Issue another freestanding single a la "Hey Jude/Revolution" and send a few to Anthology heaven 37 years later, and presto! You have a solid single disc.

JcS

 

Well, seeing that anything would have been an improvement over what was put onto TWO VIRGINS, "Rev 9" and "Mary Jane" would have certainly been highlights of a sort...

 

Good choices Ron. I would have added Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da.

 

Fascinating discussion...

Bluesbro and others are looking to cut some of my favorite songs, while others want to add " What's the New Mary Jane," which I personally dislike more than "Revolution 9."

Oh well...

That's what makes the world go round, y'know?

A little OT, but check this out if you're interested...

Fried Glass Onions: Memphis meets the Beatles
(Inside Sounds ISC-0522)

14 blues and soul covers of Beatles' tunes, with three cuts from the white album, including very cool versions of "Blackbird" and "Yer Blues"...

peace to all,

 

Of course it's passed into history now, I can't imagine changing or deleting a note of this album or of the entire Beatles canon. Having said that, the Magical Mystery Tour/White Album-era is my least favorite period of Beatles music. (IMO, even the Get Back/Let It Be sessions are more thematically coherent and consistent, if problematic in performance -- although, if I assemble my favorite takes, GB/LIB is among my favorite Beatles periods.) I wouldn't want to armchair psychoanalyze the circumstances, but their usual well focused aesthetic for each project seems all over the map here, to the detriment of the work as a whole. And their usual high standard of quality control seems at a low ebb. But it IS the Beatles, it's part of the story, and I wouldn't do without it. Of their work, I just tend to listen to MMT/WA the least.

Nothing that hasn't been said better before by others, just thinking out loud...

 

Well, the White Album is long enough, at least.

-BZync

 

But in our alternative universe, we'd not KNOW it was part of the story, because it would have been released differently to begin with (assuming one opts for something different, that is).

JcS

 

I share McCartney's point of view that it was "The Bloody Beatles." and that it was fine the way it was as a double album, however I would have scrapped both Revolutions especially 9 and at least added George's Not Guilty.

 

Called me on a technicality. Despite George Martin's assessment, I don't think the problem with the album is that it's too long. Unlike the other Beatles albums (even the early ones), I think it lacks a unifying aesthetic (putting all the animal songs on side two doesn't quite do the trick). If you take its eclecticism to be the underlying aesthetic, fair enough, but I don't think it works too well. In my alternate universe, maybe Martin and Emerick wouldn't have bailed out halfway through and that would've helped. But who am I to second guess?

 

The album is fine as is

......and that's a gross understatement.

 

Ah, "The Whitest Album."

 

Here's my single White album, or the ones I'd keep out of the 30:

Back in the USSR
Dear Prudence
While My Guitar Gently Weeps
Happiness Is a Warm Gun
Martha My Dear
I'm So Tired
Blackbird
Rocky Racoon
Don't Pass Me By
I Will
julia
Sexy Sadie
Long Long Long
Savoy Truffle
Cry Baby Cry
And make George do his own version of Sour Milk Sea

The rockers are too strained, the silly songs are just that. Since it came out it's one album I've skipped through except for the second side. I'd cut the texture down to a simpler level, like the acoustic demos of all these.

I mean, Good Night? Come on! It may be the bloody White album but it was not as good as a lot else that they did.

 

Best. Reply. Ever.

 

Fine as it is...but would have liked to have Not Guilty, George going solo with While My Guitar Gently Weeps (I prefer this to the album version and with the extra verse) put this on side 5, the full-length version of Can You Take me Back, What's The New Maryjane and use the version of Goodnight with spoken prelude also add the single at the beginning Hey Jude / Revolution and make it 5 sides triple LP in (white vinyl like the Beatles wanted) I took years for me to get use to rev#9 but I don't skip it anymore.


sean

 

So it's fine as it is, but then you dismember the whole thing?

 

It should have been longer! At least another LPs worth.

Side 5
Helter Skelter (the super long version, 27 minutes, I think)

Side 6
What's the New Mary Jane
Not Guilty
Across The Universe
Hey Jude

 

I would have preferred Rev #9 being included as a bonus 45rpm with the original album (didn't someone suggest this at the time?). Or, the song being much, much shorter (1 min or less would have been plenty!) Anyway, I'm fine with the album as it is I guess.

 

I, too, have spent a lot of time with a CD burner trying to create a 14 song White Album, and have finally come to the conclusion that it cannot be done. The problem here is that there is enough stone-cold classic material for three sides of vinyl, but not for four.

If I had been George Martin, or God, I would have deleted the following tracks:

Paul: Wild Honey Pie, Why Don't We Do It in the Road - I find these songs to be perhaps the nadir of Paul's work with the Beatles, and the beginning of the "any thought that pops into my head is worthy of recording" attitude that plagues his solo career.

Ringo: Don't Pass Me By - Sorry, Richie, I know you spent five years writing this track, but I just can't get into the screeching violin and general tunelessness of this number, although you do receive partial credit for the line "you were in a car crash and you lost your hair."

And replaced them with:

George: Sour Milk Sea, While My Guitar Gently Weeps (the acoustic version, but also keeping the Eric Clapton version of the song on the l.p.) - Everyone knows that George got screwed by John, Paul, and George Martin during the latter years of the Beatles' career. Imho, the White Album would have been much stronger if George had gotten his fair share of the action. In my fantasy world, George would have received two songs per l.p. side on the White Album, dipping into his pool of then unrecorded tracks such as Dera Dhun and Art of Dying.

 

but then you dismember the whole thing?

not at all.... I'm just adding to it...thats all...more Beatles is just more Beatles

sean

 

Dump "Revolution #9" and its perfect. Just needs a good remaster.

JEFF!

 

I agree. It is what it is, and I love it for it...