The White Album - Everybody Has A Different Set Of Favorites

The most amazing aspect of The White Album is that, while everyone seems to love it, no one can agree on their favorite songs. Each track is completely committed to its own specific genre as both a sincere pastiche and a satire that it is bound to push a few people away. That is why "Revolution 9" is loathed by many but hailed as a masterwork by some, same with "Honey Pie".

 

I love individual songs, it's very eclectic but I also love it as an eclectic whole. I think everything works for what it is. It's the magical Beatles touch.

 

I've always been drawn to diversity on albums, and The White Album takes it to a whole new level.

 

I have my favorites, but I love it as a whole. Never skip anything.

 

Absolutely. And well said.

I've always felt that its polarizing nature or the ability that the album has to "frustrate" some listeners, even many fans of the Beatles, is precisely why it's great. In fact, if the album neatly arranged things and came off focused in the way that, say, Revolver or Abbey Road tends to do, then the album would not be as memorable (to me). In my view, it wasn't attempting to be an "easy to love" kind of record where all the dots line up and the ride is smooth. In my opinion, many worthwhile albums are like that - they aren't meant for everyone. I think "The White Album" is one of the most addicting albums ever made, but that doesn't mean everyone is drawn to those seemingly random and fractured flavors.

 

There's not much on there I don't like:

Ob Li Di Ob Li Da
Wild Honey Pie
Don't Pass Me By
Honey Pie
Good Night

Those are songs that I unfailingly skip.

 

To quote a line from Monty Python's Meaning of Life, "I'll have the lot."

 

I tend to agree, though Don't Pass Me By has grown on me.

 

Good Night is actually my very favorite song on the whole album! And, arguably, one of the most important tracks, due to its sublime send-off that serves as a lush contrast to the preceeding chaotic collage of Revolution 9. I can't fathom skipping it. Any more than I would want to play Led Zeppelin III and not listen to Tangerine or That's The Way.

But I know we all have favorites. Which is a good thing of course.

 

Revolution #9 is really the only track I don't care for.

 

I like about half of it I suppose. I think Dear Prudence is the finest song on it.
I'm baffled when I hear someone say this is their favorite Beatles album,
but,
to each their own...

 

I can't help but wonder if people who stay away from Rev 9 fail to understand the effect it has on the overall album-listening experience. A great number of some of the greatest albums of all time have tracks which don't "do anything" when taken out of context with the album. This can be said for albums by Pink Floyd, The Who...anything where each individual track relies on those around it to make it purposeful.

In this sense, I think Rev 9 is indisposable. people have suggested replacing it with Hey Jude to make for a stronger album side. I couldn't disagree more. For starters, putting Hey Jude among the sequencing of those White Album tracks would not only interrupt and rob side 4 of its' "trippiness" (a White Album adjective I credit a friend with), it would diminish Hey Jude itself of it's grandness; if there was ever a stand-alone song (i.e., as a single), it's Hey Jude.

The White Album-totally as is-is the most enigmatic piece of recorded work The Beatles ever did. It's almost calmingly nightmarish in it's beauty....while most songs can, indeed, stand on their own, they are that much more head turning within context of one another.

As a whole, the album conjures images and emotions like no other Beatle album; it does this melodically, texturally and in it's sequencing. They fought George martin on this one and I'm glad they won. Making it into a single, "more solid" album would make it, simply, a collection of good songs. As it is, it's a whole world unto itself.

 

To fit it on a single CD-R, I omit "Rocky Raccoon", "Don't Pass Me By", "Revolution 9". No editorial commentary intended.

 

Definitely my fab fav. So much diversity on it, especially being a double LP.

Me too. I skipped Rev 9, Good Night, Honey Pie, Wild Honey Pie & (unfortunately) Long, Long, Long.

 

I wholeheartedly agree with you about both The White Album and the pivotal track "Revolution 9".

The various opinions are as diverse as the tracks:
Love it, Like it, Ambivalent, Hate it, Always skip a lot of songs, It's too self indulgent, It's too ambitious, not focused, Genius, etc
is further testament to The Beatles' talents and varied musical tastes on record.
Plus the incredible decision to put their most accomplished sonic experiment from tape to vinyl.

48 years later, such varied and strong responses about any topic is noteworthy.
Perhaps the ultimate compliment that Revolution 9 evokes is that one person can think it's unmitigated genius while another thinks it's pure rubbish that should have been scrapped.
I believe that's one definition of "Art".

Cleverly cloaked in a vinyl Trojan horse, purchased by the masses in 1968 at their local department store, perhaps because they like the bouncy cheerful "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da".

To think that teenagers lovingly taped the glossy head shots of the post-Fab Four on their bedroom walls, while listening to unimaginable "musique concrete" experimentation and tape loops is amazing.

 

"Rocky Raccoon," "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da," and "Martha My Dear" are great tracks. "Revolution #9" is odd... a bit creepy, actually. That baby crying just makes me shudder.

 

Great post! I very much agree.

 

I think you have captured very well why this is my favorite album of all time.

I first bought a copy when I was 11 years old, in November 1978 (ten years to the day of its original release in the US). I had been buying Beatles records since the previous spring, and the mystery of this album was heightened by its inscrutable cover (which, because it was sealed in the shop, gave no hint to the neophyte Beatles fan what its contents were). A few months into my journey I found a paperback book in the drugstore called Beatle Madness. It wasn't a great book, but it had a full discography, so I at least got to find out what was on this album. Also around the same time, a friend of mine moved house when his mother married his stepfather, and I discovered in the basement of their new house a complete collection of original Beatles US albums, so I got to have a much closer look. But no listening, yet.

That fall I started junior high school, which was an unmitigated disaster for me. I was having a really hard time keeping going, and by the time Thanksgiving was about to roll around I was just hoping for a few days peace from the hell that was school. The day before Thanksgiving I decided to treat myself and I finally took the plunge, brought my wad of cash to KMart, purchased the album, and brought it home.

What a strange listening experience this was. It bordered on creepy in some ways, but was entirely compelling, and I kept putting it on again and again in the days and weeks that followed. You're absolutely right, it seemed to hang together with some kind of unstated logic, the whole much greater than the sum of its parts, and yet the parts seeming to be fully necessary. Having said that, I did tend to skip "Revolution 9", because it frightened me (I was well into my 30s before I stopped skipping it, and I never skip it now!). But during a time when I was going through some really awful experiences, this album insinuated itself into my life and became my friend and confidant. I'm really grateful to the Beatles that they made this album.


Beatle Madness: Beatle Madness: Martin A. Grove: 9780532191797: Amazon.com: Books

 

I don't skip anything of this (double) album. It has most of the music genres combined that I like so much.

 

Yes, I always viewed the strong reactions this album stirs, or the frustrating feelings it often stirs, as proof of just how magnetic it is as a wandering whole. Which is not to say that the album is inherently "good" or created with everyone neatly in sync, but there is evidently something that was successfully captured and conveyed by the album (even if one doesn't like half the tracks).

 

Actually all the background noises (and backwards stuff) behind the baby make the track so creepy. But it's Aventgarde, and I like it.

 

I can still remember bringing it home around Christmas 1968 on a windy and snowy day, and throwing it on the record player. Over 48 years ago!

Here's my favourite tracks (about two-thirds of them) approximately in order, descending:

While My Guitar Gently Weeps
Long Long Long
Martha My Dear
Good Night
I Will
Savoy Truffle
Sexy Sadie
Birthday
Happiness is a Warm Gun
Obladi-Oblada
Revolution 1
Dear Prudence
Back in the USSR
Julia
Bungalow Bill
Don't Pass Me By
Cry Baby Cry
Rocky Raccoon
Piggies

I've said this before, but the other LP I bought that day was Let's Live for Today by the Grass Roots, which I played consecutively after The Beatles. So Good Night was followed by Wake Up Wake Up! Which is an excellent song by the way.

 

I like the whole album. Is it perfect? Nope but even in its imperfection there's something interesting in every track.

 

"... Except For Me and My Monkey!

 

I like:

Dear Prudence
The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill
Happiness Is a Warm Gun
everything on Side Two
Yer Blues
Mother Nature's Son
Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey
Long, Long, Long
Honey Pie
Savoy Truffle
Revolution 9
Good Night

The rest of it's decent. Least favorite: Glass Onion