Scratch

Recently, upon listening to the first couple track of "The Beatles" (commonly known as "The White Album"), I was inspired to write a track-by-track analysis of it. It's not completed yet, and I'll update it very soon, but I just wanted to represent what I had so far.

Enjoy.


The Beatles - The Beatles (or "The White Album", whichever one floats your boat)
Track-by-track analysis
Credit to Wikipedia for some information


Introduction

The diverse amount of genres displayed in The Beatles' eponymous double-disc, as well as the varying amounts of production (from the basic simplicity of "Mother Nature's Son" to the high production amount in songs such as "Cry Baby Cry") to this day has created a barrier between music critics on whether the album should be praised or panned. Though not technically a "music critic", if I were one, I would be on the side that appreciates the band's exploration through the many sounds of music that started with the wondrous "Sgt. Pepper Lonely Hearts Club Band".
And though this two-disc doesn't quite possess the same charm as Sgt. Pepper and his band of lonely hearts, one must understand that the times of the album's production were very trying times indeed; and considering that, they were able to create a rather masterful piece of work.
At the same time however, the album can only partially be considered a Beatles piece, being more or less a compilation of the band members' solo works written and recorded around the time. The reason I'm saying this is because by this time, so much drama was brewing in the lifestyle of The Beatles, that they were practically writing and even recording songs separately.
Still, that doesn't reduce the quality of the album's tracks at all. In fact, once again, hats off to The Beatles for creating such a delightful double-LP in the midst of all that stress.
And without any further ado, the track-to-track analysis you so much awaited for, to the point where you actually tolerated sitting through that lengthy introduction. Well, being displayed in text, I guess you could've just scrolled down the article to skip through the introduction if you're in a "tl;dr" mood, but -- yeah, I'm rambling on again. Let's just go to the analysis.

1. Back in the U.S.S.R.

What could be a better album opener than a guitar-driven romp like this? This high-energy melding of Zeppelin-style hard rock, Chuck Berry-flavored rock and roll, and Beach Boys-esque surf rock makes for a very unique sound that has also come to become one of the Beatles' most iconic songs, and a staple for Paul McCartney's live sets. The lyrics appear to criticize elements of the then-ongoing and ever-raging Cold War.
Despite provoking some political criticism as a result, the song is nowadays considered to be one of the greatest Beatles songs their catalogue has to offer. George Harrison's enthusiastic guitar solo is one of the highlights of the song, as well as a powerful drum delivery from...Paul McCartney? No, we didn't make a mistake there; Paul had to fill in on drums for this track due to Ringo's brief quitting of the band. Good thing Paul was quite the multi-instrumentalist, eh?

2. Dear Prudence

The soaring airplane sound effect that closes off "Back in the U.S.S.R." eventually segues into the next track, "Dear Prudence". And despite this segueing, "Dear Prudence" is a completely different song - a slow, psychedelic-tinged, mellow ballad that displays Lennon in his guru mode.
The song is characterized by soft guitar-picking from George Harrison and playful drumming from Paul McCartney. That's right, folks, Ringo didn't play on this track either. When you start to listen to that pre-outro section, you start to think, "Man, listen to that drumming - Ringo Starr is such an amazing drummer"; then you look up the song, and realize it wasn't of Starkey's courtesy. Man, that's disappointing.

3. Glass Onion

This is the first song track listing-wise to feature Ringo Starr's involvement in the album's production, and the striking drum fill that opens up the track is basically like Ringo saying, "Yep, I'm back. Did anybody miss me?"
"Glass Onion" showcases the album's more experimental side, with unusual musical representation, and that unsettling outro that slightly harks back to the stark orchestral arrangement of "Eleanor Rigby", recorded two years earlier.
But what easily performs the most "harking back" in this song is the song's lyrics, which includes a sizable amoubnt of references to many earlier Beatles songs, some more evident than others. "I told you about strawberry fields // you know the place where nothing is real" is an easy reference to "Strawberry Fields Forever"; "I told you 'bout the walrus and me, man" is another simple reference to a walrus-themed 1967 hit for The Beatles. Then there's some other subtle references to songs such as "Fixing a Hole" and even one of their earlier songs - "There's a Place". The song almost acts like John Lennon's interpretation of a "Beatles' Greatest Hits" track listing.

4. Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

McCartney's share of songwriting contributions return with the happy-go-lucky sounding "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da". The song's ska/reggae flavor was a response to the fact that such Jamaican-influenced genres were beginning to become popular in the most united of kingdoms. The lyrics tell of the polished lifestyle of Desmond and Molly, as well as the rest of their family.
Despite being rather well received by the press, and even being released as a single in many countries, the other Beatles were quite against the song; specifically John Lennon, who called the song "granny music". Paul must have chuckled subconciously at this comment upon reading it, because even when John was turning down his song, he executed it with such witty bluntness that it's actually humourous to read, no matter what point Lennon was trying to get across.
The voices heard at the end of the song seem to be a foreshadowing of the vocal style heard in the next track, "Wild Honey Pie".

5. Wild Honey Pie

What is the strangest, oddest, and most utterly queer song in the Beatles' song library you may ask? Without a doubt, the answer to this would be track five, side one of The Beatles - "Wild Honey Pie". Despite sharing a similar title to that of "Honey Pie", a song found all the way on side four of the same album, the two sound absolutely nothing alike.
"Wild Honey Pie" is performed solely by Paul McCartney, being the only person to appear on the track whatsoever. The song is 52 seconds of pure whimsical daftness, though we can't help but admire it.

6. The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill

Track seis [/Spanish usage] of The White Album opens with a sure humdinger of a flamenco guitar solo, which is followed by the main composition - an experimental (not as experimental as "Wild Honey Pie", but still pretty unusual) folk-rock track by Lennon whose lyrics take the form of the words of a storybook.
A storybook that's apparently about an "all-American bullet-headed Saxon mother's son" named Bungalow Bill who goes out tiger-hunting...with his mom (which sort of depletes the level of "hero" in him) and an elephant. Then a tiger seems to appear. There it is, this is the prize that Bill...and his mom...have been scavenging for. But instead of attacking the tiger, Bill and his ensemble of hero wanna-bes just stand bewildered in the face of the tiger, which once more depletes the level of "hero" in Bill. Then, out of complete randomness, Captain Marvel pops into the story and saves the day by zapping the tiger between the eyes. I guess that's the source of the tiger's power. Anyway, upon celebrating "Bill's" victory, the children who look up to him inquire "if to kill was not a sin". Bill's mom decides to interject, "Not when he looked so fierce" (a line interestingly sung by Yoko Ono). The story finally caps off with Bill cheekily blurting "If looks were to kill, it would have been us instead of him".
The writing style of this song is very, very, unusual and "random", as one might put it nowadays. But that's just the kind of style we love to hear from John Lennon.


That's what I've written so far for this analysis. I hope you enjoyed reading it - please give feedback as what you think of it thus far and how I can improve. Feel free to criticize as much as you like, as long as such criticism is constructive.

I will be updating this with more track descriptions very soon.

Last edited by All4one (2012-05-20 12:41:04)