The White Album

November 22nd 1968 saw the release of The Beatles ninth studio album, unfortunately November 22nd 2008 saw me having problems with my computer and therefore unable to post my thoughts on this album.

I'm pretty sure this was the second Beatles album I bought, the first was Abbey Road, my choice of the order I worked my way through the Fabs back catalogue was dictated by two things: how much pocket money I had to spend and more importantly which albums the local Woolworth's actually had in stock.

My copy of the album has the number 170,064 printed on it together with the groups name embossed rather than printed on it - this dates the album to being one of the earlier pressings, certainly between 1968 and 1970. Quite why my local Woolworth's would still be carrying in stock one of the earlier releases in 1972 is a bit of a mystery.

The stories surrounding the recording of the album have become the stuff of legend, the fall outs, the carrying of lighted ashtrays around the studio, the sulks, Ringo leaving the band for two weeks because he felt unloved, the tracks recorded during the albums sessions and left off: Hey Jude, The Long and Winding Road, Polythene Pam, Mean Mr Mustard, the guest musicians, the recording of Dear Prudence with Paul, George and John taking it in turns to record the drum part due to Ringo's absence all have joined the myths and legends of the band.

For me as a 12 year old buying into the Beatles I can remember holding the gate fold sleeve as if I had managed to grab hold of Bobby Moore's Number Six shirt or Marilyn Monroe's white skirt - it was so important, vital vinyl you might say. Simple white cover, the first and only Beatles album not to feature photographs of the band on the outside, you opened the gate fold and there on the left were the names of the thirty tracks beneath which it simply said: EMI Records and their address and the name of the printers. On the opposite page were (and still are as I still own the album) four 3 1/2 x 4 1/2 inch black and white photographs: John, Paul, George and Ringo. Inside the sleeve, in addition to the two discs that made up the album, are four coloured copies of the black and white photographs. I can remember finding a ball of blu-tac and fixing each one of them to my bedroom wall.

I didn't get my own stereo until my fourteenth birthday so that meant the first chance I had to listen to the album was on the family Pye radiogram - the problem there was that the radiogram was in the lounge and I wanted to lay on my bed and listen to the album. Not really a problem, turn the old valve driven stereo up to ten (they didn't go up to eleven in those days) and run to my room.

Now as I have said before context is everything. Yes, The Beatles were a pop band, a good rocking band when they wanted to be and a band who were constantly trying to change popular music and the airwaves of 1972 were a right ragtag of musical styles: Michael Jackson, Carly Simon, T.Rex, Elton John, David Bowie, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin and yet this album simply whisked me off to another planet for the hour and a half it took to listen to the four sides. There's everything in there and more: George Harrison's finest lyrics on While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Lennon at his most acerbic on Revolution and his most introverted on Julia, McCartney at the top of his songwriting game with Mother Nature's Son and the band rocking out on Helter Skelter, Birthday and Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except Me and My Monkey.

Of course to a twelve year old, and to my best friend at the time, the track that had our jaws on the floor was Revolution 9. Eight minutes and twenty two seconds of Yoko Ono inspired avant Garde insanity. To somebody who was still a few years away from discovering the joys of Frank Zappa and Captain Beefhart this song made no sense and yet made complete sense. The artist who dares to move away from the path frequently trodden is the one who, far from running out of ideas, is carried along in a maelstrom of activity and creativity, like a small raft on a fast flowing river. Lennon had long ceased to see The Beatles as his only creative output and this track is the foretaste of the things he was to do with the Plastic Ono Band on the Two Virgins album. What's interesting, in anorak wearing hindsight, is that this album sits halfway between the recording of Love Me Do at one end of Lennon's career and Walls and Bridges in 1974 which for me marks the end of Lennon's creative output.

The Beatles producer George Martin thought that the album should be edited down into one strong album rather than the 'sprawling mess' that one journalist called it. George Harrison and Paul McCartney both wanted a double album, George was quoted as saying that there were a lot of songs that had been recorded and needed to be cleared out before the egos got too big, Ringo insisted from the start of the process that it should be released as two albums.

Forty years on from its release I still think the album has much to admire and that it is greater than the sum of its parts. I don't think Eric Clapton has ever sounded better than on While My Guitar Gently Weeps for a start, the final track Good Night still sounds twee and majestic at the same time, Back In The U.S.S.R, with its dated reference to BOAC, still rocks as do Dear Prudence and Helter Skelter. I think my cultural life would be a poorer place without this album and so, as a piece of recorded work and an example of the finest band this country has ever produced, I think it's up there with the best.

I wrote this on 23rd November 2008, if it appears on 22nd November 2009 don't feel confused it was planned that way.