By: Emily Stagename

As the fab four’s reign on rock and roll came to an end, they took risks and elevated rock and roll forever.

The collegiate world can be a tough one to navigate. As a freshman in college, I often find the new social atmosphere, workload, and general routine quite jarring. On days when the world doesn’t feel rationale, work doesn’t feel doable, and deadlines don’t feel meetable, I take refuge in my dorm room. I’ll warm up some tea, grab a book, and turn on the self titled magnum opus from the fab four.

The Beatles, (or The White Album, as it’s colloquially known), was a byproduct of in-fighting between band members, casual drug use, political turmoil, and transcendental meditation. This, of course, leads to the record being stuffed to the gills with ideas. In his description of The White Album to Melody Maker in 1968, Paul McCartney said that the songs “…Aren’t about anything in particular, they’re just songs. They’re not even particularly connected.” By 1968, The Beatles
had bitten from the apple of success and found it deeply unsatisfying. Though this album was not their last, its structure is representative of how disillusioned the members were, and how deeply they yearned to have their own creative freedom.

In its gargantuan thirty track run, the album works at a frenzying pace. From one song to the other, from one aesthetic to another. The cohesion (or lack-thereof,) allows it to run at a pace that’s practically avant garde, in only a way that The Beatles could manage.

Despite the runtime, the album never lulls. The album’s genre experimentation, like proto-metal on “Helter Skelter”, country on “Rocky Racoon”, and, most regrettably, noise collage on “Revolution Number 9”, gives it an intensely experimental feeling, that is compounded with the varying track lengths and aesthetics. One song will be a subdued, intimate acoustic affair like “Julia”, and the next will be an electric, tongue-in-cheek rock song like “Birthday”.

Though it may be experimental at times, the album still has the pop song genius that made The Beatles a household name. The pop genius that “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” displays is equally catchy and beautiful. Lennon’s magnum opus, a mutli-faceted track titled “Happiness is a Warm Gun,” majestically combines a syrupy chorus and deeply experimental song structure. Paul’s contributions vary from the subdued “Blackbird”, to the ferocious “Helter Skelter”, but they maintain a level of quality that you’d expect from the man who wrote “Yesterday”. (Well,
except for that one about doing it in the road, but they can’t all be winners.)

Beyond its critically important aspects, The White Album is a comforting reminder of the joys of spontaneity, creativity, and passion. In a time when you have a world of opportunity at your fingertips, being able to sit back, decompress, and take pleasure in the unexpected is a godsend. As Paul McCartney says (and everyone mocks): “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da / Life Goes on / Brah.” Ain’t that the truth.

(Quote sourced from Paul McCartney’s June 8th, 1968 interview with Melody Maker, conducted by Alan Walsh.)

Cover credited to EMI.