Producer: George Martin
Track listing: Back in the U.S.S.R. / Dear Prudence / Glass Onion / Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da / Wild Honey Pie / The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill / While My Guitar Gently Weeps / Happiness Is a Warm Gun / Martha My Dear / I’m So Tired / Blackbird / Piggies Rocky Raccoon / Don’t Pass Me By Why Don’t We Do It in the Road? I Will /Julia / Birthday / Yer Blues / Mother Nature’s Son / Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Monkey / Sexy Sadie / Helter Skelter / Long, Long, Long / Revolution 1 / Honey Pie / Savoy Truffle Cry Baby Cry / Revolution 9 / Good Night
December 28, 1968
9 weeks (nonconsecutive)
The simple title The Beatles suggests a group effort, but that suggestion couldn’t have been further from the truth. The two-record set, more than any other Beatles album before it, was more like a collection of solo songs than a group effort. Tension in the group was reaching a new high. The fact that the album came with four individual portraits of the Beatles, rather than a group picture, was fitting.
In a sharp contrast to the covers of Sgt. Pepper’s and Magical Mystery Tour, The Beatles was packaged in a plain white sleeve with the group’s name tastefully embossed on it. Because of this Spartan cover design, most refer to the LP, the band’s first on its own Apple label, as The White Album.
“In the beginning of 1968 we went to India,” says George Harrison. “We went to see the Maharishi, so a lot of the songs on The White Album were written in the Himalayas. Donovan was up there and he showed John [Lennon] how to play with this style of finger-picking. A lot of the songs, like ‘Goodnight,’ ‘Julia,’ and ‘Dear Prudence’ — they all basically have that same acoustic, picking background.”
Paul McCartney’s solo contributions included “Wild Honey Pie,” “Blackbird,” and “Why Don’t We Do It in the Road.” Also featured was “Don’t Pass Me By,” the first Beatles song written by Ringo Starr.
Harrison’s “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” was nearly rejected by the other members of the band. “I ran through the song and it wasn’t exactly happening, so there wasn’t much interest in it,” he says. “I felt a little bit pissed off because we really never got into the song.”
That evening, Harrison spent the night with his friend Eric Clapton. “The next morning we were driving into London and I asked Eric if he would come to the studio and play on the tune.” Clapton was hesitant to accept the offer. “He said, ‘No, I can’t do that. The Beatles never let anyone else play on their records.”‘ Yet Harrison insisted. “I said, ‘It’s my tune and I’d like to you play on it.’ So I took him into the session and it was a good move, because then everyone started paying a little more attention.”
With Clapton sitting in on electric guitar, the Beatles had to rethink their instrumental approach. ‘I just played acoustic and sang,” Harrison says. “John never played on the record and Paul played piano with Ringo on drums.” Later, McCartney overdubbed bass onto the track.
Yet Clapton wasn’t satisfied with the cut. “He said, ‘Hang on, it doesn’t sound Beatle-y enough.”‘ To get the trademark finishing touch, a phaser was used on the double-track portions of the song. “That’s why the guitar sounds the way it does,” Harrison explains. Although Clapton played lead, Harrison’s use of “My Guitar” in the song’s title was appropriate: “Eric played my cherry-red Les Paul, which he had actually given me as a present,” says Harrison.
Two of the album’s tracks, “Piggies” and “Helter Skelter,” took on an eerie added meaning following the Manson family’s Tate-LaBianca slayings. At murder sites, Manson family members scrawled the words “POLITICAL PIGGY” and “HELTER SKEETER.”
Says Harrison, “It was mentioned as if we were sending him messages. It’s just sick. It just shows that everyone is on their own trip, but they can attribute their actions to someone else. The famous one is God told ’em to do it. But it’s such a lot of bullshit. The Beatles never told anyone to do anything, and I don’t suppose God told anyone to do anything either.”
THE TOP FIVE
Week of December 28, 1968
- The Beatles, The Beatles
- Wichita Lineman, Glen Campbell
- Cheap Thrills, Big Brother and the Holding Company
- The Second, Steppenwolf
- Wild Flowers, Judy Collins