the greatest rock and roll album of all time was released on november 22, 1968. the beatles by the beatles, (or the white album as it is known in pop culture vernacular), is a sprawling, chaotic two record masterpiece that can't be pinned down to any fixed conception of what a rock album should be. even today musicians are trying to emulate the breadth and scope that the white album delivers; it is truly one of the few records that has a little something for everyone. from the beach boys/chuck berry send-up of 'back in the ussr' to the grandeur of the closing track 'goodnight' it has an enduring, appealing magic that even today seems to grow with every listen. when taken as a whole it's like a three course dinner, very satisfying, while still leaving room for dessert ...
this was the album that really changed my life. 1968 was a very weird year, things were changing very fast all over the world (i remember my aunt claiming it was the end of the world during the riots after martin luther king, jr was shot). but i was only 12 so to me that was just the way it was supposed to be. nothing had been normal in my life to that point and that was a time where it felt as if anything goes. it was the year i found sex, drugs and rock and roll. my aunt gave me her old guitar for my birthday in January and i was off to the races. constantly listening to songs on the radio and trying to pick them apart for chords or watching shindig and hullabaloo hoping to see the fingers on the frets, (i woulda learned a lot faster if they had an early emp-tv back then). and, the music seemed to be getting cooler as i got older, like it was following my lead (altho now i know it was the other way around). i started reading and listening to anything and everything ... and i kinda sucked up as much as i could, as fast as i could, from that year on.
it's now known that the beatles were also going through a lot of changes that year. at the time no one had any idea of the turmoil within the greatest band in the world, the output had slowed but the music was so much better. they were no longer those lovable mop-tops. the fab four had found new loves and interests that made the whole concept of stardom a bit less attractive. in february of '68 all the beatles and their friends and lovers went on a sabbatical to india to study meditation under the maharishi yogi. while there the beatles collectively wrote over 35 working songs. they left separately after it was found that his exhaultedness was chasing the young women in the group like a drunken harpo marx, (john became very bitter in the aftermath and wrote a scathing song about the guru that evolved into 'sexy sadie'), and oh yeah, ringo hated the food. it would be the last time they would gather as a group for anything other than making records. and they only had that to keep them together from that point on ...
the white album sessions began on may 30th with the initial sessions focused on john's 'revolution' (which was morphed into to three radically different released versions) and ended on the 21st of october 1968. in between the band had many rows, with even the mild mannered ringo quitting the band for 2 weeks because of the squabbling. of course no word of anything rotten in beateland got out, but the feel of their music on the white album had definitely gotten edgier, and in john's case, more personal. gone were the frilly promises of a psychedelic wonderland envisioned only a year ago. this was no mystery tour, it was more like a misery tour. john even reported later that it was really a solo record by the band, each one using the rest to highlight their songs.
yet the white album, even with its fractured quirkiness, is more a beatle record in feeling than 'sgt. pepper', which relied more on studio wizardry over songwriting prowess. each song on the white one is like a celebration of life itself; the loose studio feeling of songs like 'birthday' and 'yer blues' with hooping and hollering all throughout, the little snippets of songs that float in and out, the heartfelt ballads wedged in between the raucous rockers, the sense that every song did not fit with the last, all made for a roller coaster of a ride. even the dreaded 'revolution 9' is a snapshot of the times the beatles were living in, with it's aural description of the wars, riots, and chaos of 1968. in fact the whole l.p. encapsulates it's surroundings of its time more than any other rock-n-roll record, while still sounding relevant and mysterious, even after 40 years of repeated listenings. the album is like life, obla-di obla-da, it goes on...
i still have my my first vinyl white album. i got it on xmas of '68 and it is #0307809, (i haven't found one with a number lower, yet , but i'm not done looking). the worn l.p. still resides in my archives, along with about another few hundred other beatle albums, (8 of those being copies of the white one because i kept playing them til they were unplayable... plus 4 on cd, because i keep finding lower numbers, daggnnabbitt!)
i have tried to collect as much of the white album outtakes over the years as is possible, and have amassed all that is unknown that i know is possibly out and about... except for a vinyl mono copy of the white one, (if ya got one for sale i am in the market), the 'take 3' of 'helter skelter', and the 20 something minute version of 'revolution 1'...
but i am afraid if i ever do find them my hunger for music will finally be filled and then i'll just wither and fade away. or i may just find another album to dwell upon... but i don't think so.
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go, be gone, never sully my door again.....
...go, and never darken my towels again!
(i too am a devout artsy bohemian, as well as a card carrying, confirmed marxist... a groucho, harpo and chico marxist that is.)