Originally Posted by
Steven43
Okay, it’s time for The “White Album” discussion. I guess I should start from the beginning. Obviously, while growing up I had hundreds of times heard on the radio “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”, “Happiness Is a Warm Gun”, “Blackbird”, Rocky Raccoon”, “Birthday”, “Back in the USSR”, “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da”, and “Helter Skelter” — all songs from “The White Album”. But I had never heard any of the other songs until I was a freshman attending college in Munich, Germany, and checked out “The White Album” double-CD from the school library.
I listened to that album daily for weeks and weeks. It was the only one I had in Europe since I hadn’t brought any music with me. I probably had heard it 25 times all the way through by the time I finally returned it to the library. And that’s how I came to cherish such songs as “Dear Prudence” (simply gorgeous), “Glass Onion”, “Martha My Dear”, “I’m So Tired”, “I Will” (a really sweet song), “Julia” (one of the most heartbreaking and beautiful songs ever written), “Yer Blues” (John plays an inspired version of this with Eric Clapton and Keith Richards during The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus show), “Mother Nature’s Son” (Jack White does a very cool rendition of this in front of Paul McCartney and President Obama at a White House event), “Sexy Sadie”, “Long, Long, Long” (I’m obsessed with this song), “Cry Baby Cry”, and John Lennon’s beautiful lullaby “Good Night” (which I later would play and sing along with for my kids while I would rock them to sleep).
And honestly, the songs that aren’t as stellar on here such as “Don’t Pass Me By”, “Piggies”, “Wild Honey Pie”, and a few others actually kind of round out the album by adding a layer of depth, creativity, experimentation, charm, and genuineness.
“The White Album” was made up largely of songs written by The Beatles while they were living in India taking part in a Transcendental Meditation training course at the ashram of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. But that whole India experiment is a story unto itself, and I don’t want to get into all of that here because it would take days. There have literally been books written about The Beatles in India.
There’s a podcast called “Screw it, We’re Just Gonna Talk About The Beatles” wherein they discuss The White Album during episodes 10 and 11. It’s interesting and fun stuff for any fan of The Beatles. In fact, I recommend starting with episode 1 and going through episode 14, where they discuss in detail every Beatles studio album. Great stuff.
But yeah, “The White Album” is my favorite album of all time. It’s very very special to me.