The Beatles  (46:12)
	01	Back in the USSR						02:44
	02	Dear Prudence						03:54
	03	Glass Onion						02:17
	04	Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da						03:08
	05	Wild Honey Pie						00:52
	06	The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill						03:13
	07	While My Guitar Gently Weeps						04:45
	08	Happiness is a Warm Gun						02:43
	09	Martha My Dear						02:28
	10	I'm So Tired						02:03
	11	Black Bird						02:18
	12	Piggies						02:04
	13	Rocky Raccoon						03:32
	14	Don't Pass Me By						03:50
	15	Why Don't We Do It In The Road						01:41
	16	I Will						01:46
	17	Julia						02:54
The Beatles (disc 2)  (47:10)
	01	Birthday						02:42
	02	Yer Blues						04:01
	03	Mother Nature's Son						02:47
	04	Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except Me and My Monkey						02:24
	05	Sexy Sadie						03:15
	06	Helter Skelter						04:29
	07	Long Long Long						03:06
	08	Revolution 1						04:15
	09	Honey Pie						02:41
	10	Savoy Truffle						02:55
	11	Cry Baby Cry						03:01
	12	Revolution 9						08:22
	13	Good Night						03:12

1968 EMI Records Ltd. / Parlophone.
Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab [MFSL/OMR] #2-072

This is an excellent transfer to CD of the Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs original release of the album.

The Beatles [White Album]
Date of Release Nov 22, 1968


Each song on the sprawling double album The Beatles is an entity to itself, as the band touches on anything and everything they can. This makes for a frustratingly scattershot record or a singularly gripping musical experience, depending on your view, but what makes the White Album interesting is its mess. Never before had a rock record been so self-reflective, or so ironic; the Beach Boys send-up "Back in the USSR" and the British blooze parody "Yer Blues" are delivered straight-faced, so it's never clear if these are affectionate tributes or wicked satires. Lennon turns in two of his best ballads with "Dear Prudence" and "Julia"; scours the Abbey Road vaults for the musique concrete collage "Revolution 9"; pours on the schmaltz for Ringo's closing number, "Good Night"; celebrates the Beatles cult with "Glass Onion"; and, with "Cry Baby Cry," rivals Syd Barrett. McCartney doesn't reach quite as far, yet his songs are stunning - the music-hall romp "Honey Pie," the mock country of "Rocky Raccoon," the ska-inflected "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da," and the proto-metal roar of "Helter Skelter." Clearly, the Beatles' two main songwriting forces were no longer on the same page, but neither were George and Ringo. Harrison still had just two songs per LP, but it's clear from "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," the canned soul of "Savoy Truffle," the haunting "Long Long Long," and even the silly "Piggies" that he had developed into a songwriter who deserved wider exposure. And Ringo turns in a delight with his first original, the lumbering country-carnival stomp "Don't Pass Me By." None of it sounds like it was meant to share album space together, but somehow The Beatles creates its own style and sound through its mess. - Stephen Thomas Erlewine

1. Back in the U.S.S.R. (Lennon/McCartney) - 2:43
2. Dear Prudence (Lennon/McCartney) - 3:56
3. Glass Onion (Lennon/McCartney) - 2:17
4. Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da (Lennon/McCartney) - 3:08
5. Wild Honey Pie (Lennon/McCartney) - :52
6. The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill (Lennon/McCartney) - 3:14
7. While My Guitar Gently Weeps (Harrison) - 4:45
8. Happiness Is a Warm Gun (Lennon/McCartney) - 2:43
9. Martha My Dear (Lennon/McCartney) - 2:28
10. I'm So Tired (Lennon/McCartney) - 2:03
11. Blackbird (Lennon/McCartney) - 2:18
12. Piggies (Harrison) - 2:04
13. Rocky Raccoon (Lennon/McCartney) - 3:32
14. Don't Pass Me By (Starkey/Starr) - 3:50
15. Why Don't We Do It in the Road? (Lennon/McCartney) - 1:41
16. I Will (Lennon/McCartney) - 1:46
17. Julia (Lennon/McCartney) - 2:54
18. Birthday (Lennon/McCartney) - 2:42
19. Yer Blues (Lennon/McCartney) - 4:01
20. Mother Nature's Son (Lennon/McCartney) - 2:48
21. Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except... (Lennon/McCartney) - 2:24
22. Sexy Sadie (Lennon/McCartney) - 3:15
23. Helter Skelter (Lennon/McCartney) - 4:29
24. Long, Long, Long (Harrison) - 3:04
25. Revolution 1 performed by Beatles / Nicky Hopkins - 4:15
26. Honey Pie (Lennon/McCartney) - 2:41
27. Savoy Truffle (Harrison) - 2:54
28. Cry Baby Cry (Lennon/McCartney) - 3:01
29. Revolution 9 (Lennon/McCartney) - 8:22
30. Good Night (Lennon/McCartney) - 3:11



Back in the U.S.S.R.
Composed By John Lennon/Paul McCartney


AMG REVIEW: "Back in the U.S.S.R.," the opening track on The Beatles (aka The White Album), was both a tribute to and a satire of traditional rock forms that had formed the foundation of the Beatles' sound, even if the group had spent most of their career transcending those foundations. There was a Chuck Berry chug to the verses - indeed, the words were a spin on Berry's "Back in the USA" - and an explicit emulation of the Beach Boys' high harmonies on the bridge. ( The Beach Boys influence is perhaps attributable to Beach Boys singer Mike Love, whom McCartney had spent time with in early 1968 when studying with the Maharishi in India, and who had suggested the idea for the song in the first place.) In a sense it was a pastiche, and for those critics that favor intense personal expression over craftsmanship, it might be judged as unduly superficial. Within the limits of the pastiche, however, "Back in the U.S.S.R." is at the very top of the genre in quality. The jet-propelled excitement of the song is established by the opening and closing sound effects of an airplane taking off and/or landing, and urgent ascending guitar chords in a boogie rhythm. The Beatles had recently embraced a back-to-basics rock ethos with their "Lady Madonna" single, and "Back in the U.S.S.R." continued that trend, with one of Paul McCartney's patented forceful hard rock vocals. "Back in the U.S.S.R." was not merely a rewrite of a combination of classic 1950s and early-'60s rock songs, however. Few or, more probably, none of the acts recording in that style back then would have devised such a sharp, tongue-in-cheek lyric, talking about a flight so dreadful that you almost threw up, foxy chicks in Moscow and the Ukraine, and hailing the sound of balalaikas (instead of guitars) ringing. It was, and still is, unusual to hear an English lyric singing about Soviet life (should we now say "former Soviet life"?) in such glowing, sassy, and fun terms, even if the intent was ironic rather than based on factual experience. Some of the more boneheaded conservatives of the day, in fact, seized upon "Back in the U.S.S.R." as evidence that the Beatles were Communist shills. "Back in the U.S.S.R.," unlike many other late-'60s Beatles songs, has a straightforward basic arrangement that's easy to play live, and has been covered from time to time on record; John Fred & the Playboys (of "Judy in Disguise" fame) did a brassy soul version, for instance. - Richie Unterberger




Glass Onion
Composed By John Lennon/Paul McCartney


AMG REVIEW: One of the lesser songs on The Beatles is John Lennon's "Glass Onion". Written in part as a response to the "Paul is dead" hoax of the mid to late 60's, "Glass Onion" playfully adds to the story, saying "Here's another clue for you all/The walrus was Paul", although this is clearly tongue in cheek. Indeed, the song almost mocks it's listeners - there are references to "Strawberry Fields" and the "fool on the hill", which Lennon treats with a rather world-weary scorn. The song is certainly unique in The Beatles canon, yet it is without doubt one of their least inspired efforts, and unusually for a Beatles song, "Glass Onion" has not received any cover versions of any note. - P.G. Ward




While My Guitar Gently Weeps
Composed By George Harrison


AMG REVIEW: George Harrison had established himself as a decent songwriter in the years prior to 1968, but he had not come up with any songs that sat on the same level as the best Lennon- McCartney compositions or had entered the body of popular music as a standard of sorts. "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," from The White Album, was the best shot he had launched toward achieving that status up to that time, even if it fell just short of landing within the best few dozen or so Beatles songs. Although it starts off at a fairly brisk mid-tempo speed dotted by stuttering notes, it soon settles into a dramatically slow tempo that stays just this side of funereal. Harrison almost always had a more pious, brooding tone to his work than Lennon- McCartney did, and that's evident on the verses of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," with their mournful, almost resigned reflections. This is juxtaposed with a more uplifting - musically, at any rate - bridge in which Harrison's voice soars at the very limits of his upper range, and which adopts a somewhat more questioning, wondering attitude. A song about a guitar gently weeping, of course, would be expected to prominently feature guitars, and the fluid leads are played by Harrison's friend Eric Clapton, in the single most famous instance of an outside rock musician contributing to a Beatles recording. The fades on Harrison's songs tended to be more prone to aimless meandering than those used on Lennon- McCartney's - on "Blue Jay Way" and "Love You To," for instance - and the extended tag to "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" approaches those qualities, although some may see that as suitable for the song's passive flavor. A completely different alternate take of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" was recorded featuring only Harrison and his acoustic guitar (with a bit of overdubbed organ by McCartney), and including a verse not heard in the White Album version. This take was issued on Anthology 3, and unlike most of the alternates heard on the Anthology series, was both different from and equally as impressive as the familiar version. It had a subdued, "unplugged" feel that was quite enchanting, amplifying the song's saddest and most solitary qualities. - Richie Unterberger




Happiness Is a Warm Gun
Composed By John Lennon/Paul McCartney


AMG REVIEW: "Happiness Is a Warm Gun," from The Beatles (commonly referred to as the White Album), is one of John Lennon's most surreal Beatles songs, although it stops short of the mega-absurdity of his most famous surreal Beatles song, "I Am the Walrus." The track is actually a combination of no less than five different sections that could have conceivably been fleshed out into five different complete songs, starting with a brief, sad lullaby-like passage on acoustic guitar. That's followed by a tenser section that, in the style of "I Am the Walrus," is comprised of disconnected, bizarre images which were actually devised by Lennon during an acid trip with friends and Beatles employees Derek Taylor, Neil Aspinall, and Pete Shotton, according to Taylor. A bluesier fragment, featuring woozy, growling guitar, contains pretty upfront references to needing a fix; if that's to be taken at face value, that wooziness is a nicely appropriate vibe for a druggy sensation. After coming to a dead stop, things resume with a more insistent passage comprised solely of a lyric about Mother Superior jumping the gun. The song climaxes with its longest, most recognizable portion, which sounds like a parody of 1950s doo wop music, albeit with lyrics that would never have featured in any doo wop song. The title makes its first appearance during that section and refers to a slogan Lennon found in a gun magazine, a warm gun indicating a gun that's just fired. He took this opportunity to mix gun and sexual metaphors; the "gun" could mean something else that fires a shot, obviously, but there's also that reference, in a talking blues voice, to feeling a finger on his trigger. Some of Lennon's highest falsetto vocals ever are heard just prior to the launch into the final chorus. It added up to quite a few musical and lyrical ideas to fit into one song, but the Beatles did so here quite successfully. - Richie Unterberger




Piggies
Composed By George Harrison


AMG REVIEW: One of the most undistinguished songs on The Beatles is George Harrison's "Piggies." While Harrison wrote a couple of classics for the double album, he also gave it some of his slightest material. "Piggies," with its childish, whimsical lyric and very dated-sounding psychedelic music has not aged very well at all, nor was it received well at the time. It does have a innocent charm about it, and Harrison sings it with boyish glee, but it is hard to praise the song any further. "Piggies" is also one of the few Beatles songs that has not received a cover version by any major artist, which in its own way shows the slightness of the song. - Thomas Ward



I Will
Composed By John Lennon/Paul McCartney


AMG REVIEW: That the Beatles could seemingly toss off a song like "I Will," bury it in the middle of a sprawling double record, and still have it rank as good as almost any of the top Tin Pan Alley or Brill Building pop songs is testament to how masterfully they wrote and recorded at the peak of their powers. And it did seem tossed off, completely arranged - by Paul McCartney - on take one of the 1968 recording session heard on Anthology 3. Yet, it took 68 takes to get the smooth final version heard on The Beatles (aka the White Album). McCartney handles all the vocals and plays the two acoustic guitar parts, John Lennon plays the clip-cloppy percussion, while Ringo Starr plays additional percussion with maracas and cymbals. McCartney packs the song with harmonies - vocally and on the guitars - and this typically Beatles harmonic element is what takes this relatively simple country-folk song over the top. Also interesting is the whimsical jug band-like bass part, which seems to be provided by McCartney vocally, recorded through a drum. The music's lightheartedness reflects the wistful lyrics. The melody is bittersweet and, together with the classic chord progression, feels like an Everly Brothers song. Apparently, the innocent lyrics, a completely straightforward pledge of love, were inspired by McCartney's newly blossoming love for his wife-to-be Linda Eastman (nee Linda McCartney). Yet, this being the Beatles, there is a little twist to the well-worn sentiment, beginning with the first line, "Who knows how long I've loved you," a line that can have a variety of interpretations to be sure, but probably is to be understood as the feeling one gets when a new love just feels right, completely natural, and not self-conscious; finding that "one" who was destined for you, an ancient love that has always existed and will continue to exist "forever and forever," a line and sentiment made all the more poignant with the passing of Linda McCartney in 1998. Notable covers include the soulful, jazzy interpretation by Tuck & Patty on Paradise Found (1998), the lovely reading of the song as a children's song/ lullaby by Art Garfunkel on Songs From a Parent to a Child (1997), and the version by Alison Krauss on Now That I've Found You: A Collection (1995). - Bill Janovitz




Julia
Composed By John Lennon/Paul McCartney


AMG REVIEW: "Julia" is one of the most haunting and demanding songs every that John Lennon ever wrote. Heavily influenced by his new lover Yoko Ono, this is arguably the most revealing and personal Lennon ever got on record. The song is a meditation on the death of Lennon's mother, Julia, who died when her son was only twelve, an event which he kept hidden throughout most of his records (there are notable exceptions, "Mother" being the most obvious one). The lyrics to the song are magnificent - "Half of what I say is meaningless/But I say it just to reach you Julia" is Lennon at his most inspired. The song too, with its folkish, acoustic setting is both unique in The Beatles canon and utterly spellbinding, totally hypnotic. Lennon sings the song with a fragile vulnerability, a facet that the artists who attempt to cover the song miss totally. Simply one of John Lennon's finest compositions. - P.G. Ward




Birthday
Composed By John Lennon/Paul McCartney


AMG REVIEW: "Birthday" was one of the most fun and frivolous tracks on The White Album, as well as one of the catchiest. There is no deep meaning to "Birthday," not even on the far-fetched level that some attach to apparently simple Beatles lyrics that might mean something else on a deeper level. It's just a good-time birthday message, more fun to sing at parties, in most cases, than the overworn "Happy Birthday." Its chief strength is its mightily compelling riff, which anchors verses that stick to the classic three-chord rock format. The bridge is more ambitiously melodic, with its falling and rising lines and the kind of high Beach Boys-like harmonies the group was apt to employ from time to time (as on "Back in the U.S.S.R." and "Paperback Writer"). What do you do when you're the Beatles and you have a slight though enjoyable song? Well, squire, you embellish it with all manner of production ideas to make it more interesting and even more enjoyable. Principal author Paul McCartney's raunchy rock vocals were supplemented by playful backup vocals - including not just other Beatles, but also Beatles wives Patti Harrison and Yoko Ono - that added to the spontaneous high-energy party atmosphere (the song was actually written in the studio, and recorded in one day). There's also a neat squiggliness to the shrill guitar riffs, and a haunting echo to the insistently repeated riff that comes to the foreground at the very end, after all the other voices and instruments have dropped out. - Richie Unterberger




Yer Blues
Composed By John Lennon/Paul McCartney


AMG REVIEW: The Beatles very rarely banished optimism from their work. Much of their catalog, of course, was extremely optimistic, and even given that John Lennon was prone to expressing self-doubt and anxiety in his songs, it was very rare that those were not tempered by considerable hope and happiness. "Yer Blues" is one of the few instances in which despair and pessimism is at the forefront of a Beatles tune. Yes, it's true that the song is a parody of the British blues boom sweeping British rock bands in the late '60s, with its deliberately (perhaps) exaggerated imagery of loneliness and suicidal tendencies. There's more than a hint of true despair and angst in Lennon's lead vocals, though, as though his nerves were starting to get scraped raw, whether by the experience of being in the Beatles or other factors. Typically, when the Beatles adopted a form of popular music to mimic, they did not just imitate it in a by-numbers fashion, but added idiosyncratic twists. The imagery employed in "Yer Blues" is not of the kind likely to surface in many blues songs, even given that genre's predilection for violent, debased wordplay. There are the descriptions of eye-picking eagles and bone-licking worms, the reference to Dylan's Mr. Jones (the main character of Bob Dylan's song "Ballad of a Thin Man"), and, above all, the astonishing admission that Lennon has come to the point where he even hates rock & roll. That's probably not a literal confession; more likely, he's using that phrase to express his dissatisfaction with continuing to keep up the happy rock-star pose that had been the Beatles' public image since Beatlemania began in 1963. Although "Yer Blues" follows a standard blues progression for much of the time, the group varies the usual electric blues template with imaginative stop-start tempo changes and an off-kilter, wobbly lead guitar line. For the last verse, the Beatles go into what sounds like an almost sardonic boogie rhythm, brought to its close by a particularly gnarly guitar solo. Just after The White Album came out, Lennon performed another powerful version of "Yer Blues" on the television program The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus, with an ad hoc supergroup consisting of himself, Keith Richards (on bass), Eric Clapton, and Jimi Hendrix Experience drummer Mitch Mitchell. This was followed with a pounding boogie instrumental jam, featuring dissonant avant-garde violin by Ivry Gitlis, and shrieking by Yoko Ono. This program was never broadcast, and for decades the performance was only available on bootleg, but finally came out officially (on both CD and video) in 1995. - Richie Unterberger




Helter Skelter
Composed By John Lennon/Paul McCartney


AMG REVIEW: "Helter Skelter" was one of the fiercest and most brutal rockers in the Beatles' catalog and indeed one of fiercest and most brutal rockers done by anyone. The blues-rock-inflected, ominous melody and words of the song were imposing enough on their own, but it was the unique textures the Beatles devised via their studio arrangement that truly made it into an extraordinary, even apocalyptic song. Composer Paul McCartney has said that the track was written and recorded with the aim of making the noisiest, dirtiest hard rock song possible. While in general this was not an area the Beatles explored often, "Helter Skelter" can hold its own in this respect with the heaviest outings by the heaviest groups of the era, such as Jimi Hendrix and the Who. The opening metallic staccato riff immediately sets a gripping, unsettling tone, as does the devil's-den descending guitar riff and one of McCartney's all-time rowdiest vocals. The menace is maintained by ghostly background harmonies and devastating growling guitar riffs. The words are mainly a pretext for something to hang the evil sound around, "Helter Skelter" being the British term for a children's spiral slide, although that term was virtually unknown in the United States. The song certainly does re-create the sensation of sliding down into the depths in a whirlwind of confusion, and as it does use some imagery of love and women as well, it's possible that it was also meant to reflect the dangerous, delirious excitement of succumbing to passion. As is by now well-known, Charles Manson didn't see it that way, (mis)interpreting the song as a harbinger of an imminent Armageddon (as he did for much of The White Album). The sky-is-falling tenor of the tune increases near the end, as McCartney adopts a nearly hysterical timbre that sounds more like a warning than a celebration, the guitars make white noise shrieks that approach an aerial dogfight, devolving into a nearly tuneless rumble as the song fades. Or does it - as with "Strawberry Fields Forever," it's a false ending that after a few seconds of dead air returns with an even more foreboding menace, ending with all the aplomb of a car crash, as if the group has exhausted themselves. The cap on the explosion is Ringo Starr's memorable shout, "I've got blisters on my fingers!" followed by a solitary ugly guitar chord. The most noted cover of "Helter Skelter" was a surprising one by early new wave pioneers Siouxsie & the Banshees, who put one on their debut album in the late '70s. - Richie Unterberger




Cry Baby Cry
Composed By John Lennon/Paul McCartney


AMG REVIEW: "Cry Baby Cry" takes the form of a child's nursery rhyme, which is probably what John Lennon intended it to be. It is a somewhat melancholy look into a day in the life of a king, queen, and their children. It seems a sedate little lullaby, but this being the Beatles, it gets a little surreal and dark, particularly with the last verse: "At twelve o'clock a meeting/'round the table/For a seance in the dark/With voices out of nowhere put on specially/By the children for a lark." Interestingly, Lennon is actually inviting "baby" to cry; odd for a lullaby. He had mentioned in an interview that he thought he had picked up the lyrics from an advertisement that commanded "Cry baby cry, make your mother buy," surely not a soft sell. In the year 1968, Lennon was still a little under the influence of Bob Dylan, and as such, allowed such stream of consciousness to lead to the dreamy tale he spins on "Cry Baby Cry." The simple strumming of Lennon's flanged acoustic guitar is joined by harmonium played by George Martin and Lennon's own piano. It comes across as a tender White Album folk song, interspersed with Ringo Starr's explosive drum fills and a rocking electric guitar riff thrown in at the end of the verses. But even in this simple form, the Beatles' experimentation takes hold, albeit non-intrusively: The warped-sounding guitar is matched by the shaky harmonium; a wheezy organ; a heavily compressed piano; varying mix effects on the vocals; and the final, pasted-on "can you take me back" section, all adding to the twisted children's song feeling - a sort of "through the past darkly" vibe. This dark lullaby quality is probably what attracted the great Boston '80s-'90s band Throwing Muses. They lend their twisted pop sensibilities to "Cry Baby Cry" on their 1991 CD single "Not Too Soon." - Bill Janovitz




Good Night
Composed By John Lennon/Paul McCartney


AMG REVIEW: One of the lesser moments on The Beatles is "Good Night". Although rather tongue-in-cheek, it's orchestrated arrangement is rather ambitious, and never really comes off. Indeed, with Ringo Starr's vocal, the track is positively spooky and sinister, although this is perhaps more to do with the fact that the song immediately succeeds the ridiculous "Revolution #9". Unlike many of the songs on the album, "Good Night" has not aged well, with it's arrangement far too involved and intricate, although it does contain one of McCartney's prettiest melodies on the album. Unsurprisingly, no major artist has chosen to record the song. - P.G. Ward