I was running from one studio to another, doing a kind of executive role.” George has something going in one studio, and I can go in another,' says Paul. They said, 'Well, you've got another studio. They came back and presented me with 33 songs, which they all wanted to record at once, literally.
They'd been away for quite a while after the death of (manager) Brian Epstein. The Beatles' late-producer George Martin said that the album sounded more like the work of four solo artists rather than one unified band: “They came back from abroad. John was her only focus, really and truly.”ĭuring The Beatles Anthology, George Harrison defended the group's decision to release a 30-song album: “But y'know, what do you do when you've got all them songs and you want to get rid of them so that you can do more songs? Y'know, there was a lot of ego in that band, and there was a lot of songs (on 'The White Album') that should have been elbowed, or maybe made into B-sides.” 15 I mean, she and John once stayed in our house and she was just so intent on John all the time. Y'know that was fine, so I knew I'd never get close to her. She would never have girlfriends, I don't think, anyway. She was more a man's woman than a woman's woman. George Harrison's first wife Pattie Boyd says that the days of all the Beatle wives being a close-knit group pretty much ended with Yoko entering the inner circle: “John fell in love with Yoko and that was that. Now, they had an outsider there all the time that was quite comfortable voicing an opinion about the music they were recording. The main difference between the “White Album” sessions and all that had come before was the constant presence of John Lennon's then-new girlfriend, Yoko Ono, who was seemingly glued to Lennon's side at all times, breaking a long-standing unwritten rule that girlfriends and wives pretty much stayed away from the studio. Several songs originally intended for the “White Album” turned up on later solo albums, such as “Junk” which Paul McCartney released on his 1970 solo debut McCartney, “Child Of Nature” which John Lennon rewrote as “Jealous Guy” for his 1971 album Imagine, “Not Guilty” which made its way onto George Harrison's 1979 self-titled album, and Harrison's “Circles” which finally saw release on his 1982 album Gone Troppo. Most of the songs from “The White Album” were written while the group was in India, including “Back In The U.S.S.R.,” “Yer Blues,” “I Will,” “The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Bill,” “Rocky Raccoon,” “I'm So Tired,” “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da,” “Dear Prudence,” “Mother Nature's Son,” and Lennon's thinly-veiled attack on the Maharishi, titled “Sexy Sadie.” Other highlights on the album included “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” “Julia,” “Helter Skelter,” “Glass Onion,” “Martha My Dear,” “Birthday,” and Ringo Starr's first composition, the country-flavored “Don't Pass Me By.” In 2009, a near-10-minute version of “Revolution 1” made the rounds of underground collectors - the majority of which stems from the May 30th session. It was the group's first studio work since returning from Rishikesh, India after an extended stay to study transcendental meditation under the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. On May 30th, 1968, the “White Album's” first session was held for John Lennon's “Revolution 1,” which was recorded in London at EMI's Studio Two, with the session stretching from 2:30 p.m. It was 53 years ago Sunday (May 30th, 1968) that the Beatles began recording their 30-song self-titled double album, which is commonly known as “The White Album.”