The Beatles, also referred to colloquially as the White Album, is the ninth studio album and only double album by the English rock band the Beatles, released on 22 November 1968.
Featuring a plain white sleeve, the cover contains no graphics or text other than the band's name embossed.
This was intended as a direct contrast to the vivid cover artwork of the band's previous LP Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
The Beatles is recognised for its fragmentary style and diverse range of genres, including folk, British blues, ska, music hall, proto-metal and the avant-garde.
It has since been viewed by some critics as a postmodern work, as well as one of the greatest albums of all time.
The album features 30 songs, 19 of which were written during March and April 1968 at a Transcendental Meditation course in Rishikesh, India.
There, the only western instrument available to the band was the acoustic guitar; several of these songs remained acoustic on The Beatles and were recorded solo, or only by part of the group.
The production aesthetic ensured that the album's sound was scaled down and less reliant on studio innovation than most of their releases since Revolver (1966).
The Beatles also broke with the band's tradition at the time of incorporating several musical styles in one song by keeping each piece of music consistently faithful to a select genre.
At the end of May 1968, the Beatles returned to EMI Studios in London to commence recording sessions that lasted until mid-October.
During these sessions, arguments broke out among the foursome over creative differences and John Lennon's new partner, Yoko Ono, whose constant presence subverted the Beatles' policy of excluding wives and girlfriends from the studio.
After a series of problems, including producer George Martin taking an unannounced holiday and engineer Geoff Emerick suddenly quitting during a session, Ringo Starr left the band for two weeks in August.
The same tensions continued throughout the following year and led to the band's break-up.
Sgt Pepper was "shaped by LSD", but the Beatles took no drugs with them to India aside from marijuana, and their clear minds helped the group with their songwriting
Side one
as a parody of Chuck Berry's song "Back in the U.S.A." and the Beach Boys. A field recording of a jet aeroplane taking off and landing was used at the start of the track, and intermittently throughout it. The backing vocals were sung by Lennon and Harrison in the style of the Beach Boys, further to Mike Love's suggestion in Rishikesh that McCartney include mention of the "girls" in the USSR. The track became widely bootlegged in the Soviet Union, where the Beatles' music was banned, and became an underground hit.
was one of the songs recorded at Trident. The style is typical of the acoustic songs written in Rishikesh, using guitar arpeggios. Lennon wrote the track about Mia Farrow's sister Prudence Farrow, who rarely left her room during the stay in commitment to the meditation.
was the first backing track recorded as a full band after Starr's brief departure. MacDonald claimed Lennon deliberately wrote the lyrics to mock fans who claimed to find "hidden messages" in songs, and referenced other songs in the Beatles catalogue – "The Walrus was Paul" refers back to "I Am the Walrus" (which itself refers to "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds").[100] McCartney, in turn, overdubbed a recorder part after the line "I told you about the Fool on the Hill", as a deliberate parody of the earlier song. A string section was added to the track in October.
was written by McCartney as a pastiche of ska music. The track took a surprising amount of time to complete, with McCartney demanding perfectionism that annoyed his colleagues. Jimmy Scott, a friend of McCartney, suggested the title and played bongos on the initial take. He demanded a cut of publishing when the song was released, but the song was credited to "Lennon–McCartney". After working for three days on the backing track, the work was scrapped and replaced with a new recording. Lennon hated the song, calling it "granny music shit", while engineer Richard Lush recalled that Starr disliked having to record the same backing track repetitively, and pinpoints this session as a key indication that the Beatles were going to break up. McCartney attempted to remake the backing track for a third time, but this was abandoned after a few takes and the second version was used as the final mix. The group, save for McCartney, had lost interest in the track by the end of recording, and refused to release it as a single. Marmalade recorded a version that became a number one hit.
the end of the session for "Mother Nature's Son". It is typical of the brief snippets of songs he recorded between takes during the album sessions.
"The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill"
was written by Lennon after an American visitor to Rishikesh left for a few weeks to hunt tigers. It was recorded as an audio vérité exercise, featuring vocal performances from almost everyone who happened to be in the studio at the time. Ono sings one line and co-sings another, while Chris Thomas played the Mellotron, including improvisations at the end of the track. The opening flamenco guitar flourish was a recording included in the Mellotron's standard tape library.
"While My Guitar Gently Weeps"
was written by Harrison during a visit he made to his parents' home in Cheshire. He first recorded the song as a solo performance, on acoustic guitar, on 25 July – a version that remained unreleased until Anthology 3. He was unhappy with the group's first attempt to record the track, and so invited his friend Eric Clapton to come and play on it. Clapton was unsure about guesting on a Beatles record, but Harrison said the decision was "nothing to do with them. It's my song." Clapton's solo was treated with automatic double tracking to attain the desired effect; he gave Harrison the guitar he used, which Harrison later named "Lucy".
evolved out of several song fragments that Lennon compiled into one piece, having previewed two of the segments in his May 1968 demo. According to MacDonald, this approach was possibly inspired by the Incredible String Band's songwriting. The basic backing track ran to 95 takes, due to the irregular time signatures and variations in style throughout the song. The final version consisted of the best halves of two takes edited together. Lennon later described the song as one of his favourites, while the rest of the band found the recording rejuvenating, as it forced them to re-hone their skills as a group playing together to get it right. Apple's press officer Derek Taylor made an uncredited contribution to the song's lyrics.
