let's make our way through it my brothers. this is weird biz my friends and that means anything goes.
1. BIRTHDAY
first note. Yes i am HIGH. Yes I mean (oh, no I cannot say here, for this is a place of business.) Secondly yes I am pro legalization of (YES.) hell yeah my brothers, will this be political? no. We're going to have a good time. And yes I hate getting assfucked by the man but does it help me to have a brain biscuit every fucking time? I guess I just have to make more money, right?
What about the song? Ah yes. The vocals are mixed very loud I am noticing. I love the messed up edit there. With the daaaance-daaaaa-aaaaa-aaaance whatever the hell it is. Manny... Swiss cheese.
Also I really enjoy Yoko's singing of "birthday" in the background as well. I don't know how high I am, but I don't think I ever noticed that before.
2. Yer Blues
Have I told you often that the White Album is my favorite album of all time by anyone? For most of my life I have been a stern biscuit in favor of the first LP over the second. Not that I didn't like the second LP just that the first was always my favorite. And that's still the case today. So why am I listening to LP 2 tonight? It just seemed like time my brethren. That's one of the greatest things about the White Album - there's just so much to discover in it. And the second LP sounds fresher to me these days (probably because I've listened to the first one so many times... but also because the second seems to have a rougher more loose feeling to it overall.) Yes I often (a definite majority in fact) listen to just one LP or the other when it comes to the White Album. But that being said I never really consider them two separate albums. I feel like it's this one big buffet somehow and it all feels connected in my mind even when it's separated. The fact that it's not really connected seems to make it more so. It's bleeding ZEN I tell you. The damn Beatles. True genius my friends.
I love YER BLUES by the way. Such a rough dirty tune. It's just perfect in it's extreme imperfection. More of that dirty two talking insanity.
3. MOTHER NATURE'S SON
Talk about a mood change. I mean we go from happy as a clam (birthday) to a deep depression (yer blues) to this sort of peaceful ode to nature. While Mother Nature's Son has never been one of my favorites on the album and the strings may be a bit over done it's still a rather beautiful song and the strings work for me. It does sound very majestic - like a march through the forest. I'll tell you one thing for sure bub, the cat agrees.
---> End The War On Drugs <--- 4. Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except For Me And My Monkey
Such an awesome unique rock song. What else really sounds like this? Listen to the drums on the left. And I love that wild bendy lead guitar. Ah yeash. That is the sweet stuff. Damn this song kicks my ass. I mean it's tracks like this that really make this album so great to come back to over over. These may not be the ones that kick you in right away but there's so much to them that over time it just keeps unveiling like a beautiful flower in my leg or whatever. Dig?
5. SEXY SADIE
I think my favorite thing about this song is all of the stuff going on in the background. All of the layers of backing vocals. I also really dig the phase effect used. The whole song just has this sort of wobbly off kilter sound that's very endearing. "You Gave Her Everything You Own Just To Sit At Her Table" - That's the part that just kicks in and says ah yes this is the motherfookin' Beatles yer gonna get yer ears all tuned and shiznit. Dig?...
6. Helter SkelterEvery song on this album sounds better to me now than when I first heard them it seems. This is such a strange song really. It's so raw. That's really the point of this song. People get confused by that. It's not the "heavy" - it's not the playing fast riffs man (see the 80s) it's goddamn RAW. It just feels like a sort of insane dirty bar somewhere with this sort of blues band but things get really weird man... REALLY GODDAMN ___WEIRD___ - man. Listening to this and then hearing Motley Crue's version to me is like ... It's like ok here's everything awesome about music (The Beatles) and here's that awesome thing in the hands of some fookin' douche bag morons. Aye. Man there's some really crazy stuff going on in this track man. LISTEN MAN, LISTEN. Use yer ears bub. It'll be good for the both of us.
7. Long Long Long
This really one of the greatest song transitions ever. From the ferocious insane ending of Helter Skelter into this very understated calm song. Long Long Long is often overlooked but it's really beautiful. Again it's incredibly unique and it's like nothing else on this album. I love the wobbly organ and the big drum fills. Just such an interesting unique mix. The Beatles were never happy just crapping out the same old thing. Within each song you got a unique experience. Each song was it's own piece of art. It's own jksdlafjasdk!!! It just drives me insane even thinking about it. I may have just now gone mad!
(so what is this all about? what am i trying to get across here? i'm not sure exactly, perhaps a journey in to the reflections of an album, man)
The ending on this one is quite mad, too, innit?
8. REVOLUTION 1
When I was a youngster I always thought the single version was far superior to this one but now I'm not so sure. While that one was great as a single - this one works better on the album I think and I'm very glad they included it now. It's a neat song with a lot of different things going on.
Shooby Doo Wop. The sort of more askew approach fits the album much better than the more straightforward single version. I also love how you can hear the "alllllriight" and later you can hear the manipulated version of it in Revolution #9.
9. Honey Pie
I like how this connects to LP1's "Wild Honey Pie" even if just by music... but there seems to be a spiritual connection. That one truly is the wild honey pie. Dig it? Anyway this one is Paul doing his music hall thing which often gets derided by folks but I think it's bloody genius. In a lot of ways I think it's this sort of track that's most influential on bands like Ween. You know this is a weird ass pastiche of another style of music. It's really quite trippy to me. It's like wait a second... where are we now? We just had a revolution ... now it's the 1920s? ... er? You know they just really keep you guessing on this album. That's the real joy of it.
10. Savoy Truffle
I think I'm really noticing how cool the rhythm guitar is on this track for the first time. This is a song I didn't really like a whole lot for a long while but it's grown on me. It's still probably one of the lesser songs on the album but it's got a really cool sound going on between the stabbing guitars and the horns. That's the thing with the Beatles even when the songs are really great - the ideas put them over the top. There's still lots of delicious ear candy and they go interesting ways. I mean the back and forth between the guitar and the horn - delicious man. Delicious.
11. cry baby cry
Always one of my favorites. It's still great. An otherworldy other time sound. You know like it could be 1472 or 39498432. It's all the same my brothers. The bass is fantastic as well. Sweet delicious. My friends, let us join together and make a spiritual hoop. That may be hard to do as moments come and go...
The "Can you take me back..." thing at the end is great too. Really just another song segment they just stitched onto there. But it works great inbetween Cry Baby Cry and into Revolution #9... I also love the little bit of studio chatter right before Revolution #9... It's evocative of like... the controllers sticking the cartridge in your head. You know... of something. They supply the paint - you just have to stick it.
12. Revolution #9
I've always loved Revolution #9. Sure I don't listen to it as much as the rest of the album (I often end the album before Revolution #9 and skip it and "Good Night" (not one of my favorites) but I have always loved it. When I do listen to it I always hear some new bit I never noticed before. I love the fact that something this extremely weird and out there and "avante garde" is on an album by the most popular band in the history of popular music. I mean... There's something about that that i think is very very cool. And regardless this track ...
I mean so you're saying "oh ok you like it because it's weird and it gives the Beatles eternal cred as weird mofos" sure I do.. yes I am saying that. But I also really enjoy listening to the track - It's just the type of thing I don't want to do as often as say listening to Everybody's Got Something To Hide or Cry Baby Cry... dig? But when I am in that mood... yeah. It does what it's trying to do man. I say take what you need (take this brother, may it serve you well) and listen to the track on your headphones. See what aural images are created for you.
For a long while I never noticed the cowboys and indians... You know I think maybe a cool thing would be a really sound by sound dissection of this song... I'm sure though, there must already be one... eh?
13. Good Night
As I mentioned earlier: This is not one of my favorites. In fact I'd say it's easily my least favorite song on the album. That being said I don't hate it. The over the top orchestration of it (it sounds like a Disney soundtrack or something) combined with Ringo's less than perfect voice makes for a very interesting combination. I especially like the female backing vocals which seem very out of place on a Beatles album which is why I like them so much maybe? That's what the Beatles do throughout this album - they hit you with surprise after surprise. Really there's so much going on in this album (even just one half of it as I am listening to tonight) that it's astounding.
The Beatles White Album - The album of all time.
I hope you have enjoyed this wonderful journey through the White Album.
Now BUY IT:
oh yeah.. the official name of the white album is just "The Beatles" - self titled, yes.Labels: music
