A Sentence About Every Track from The White Album



By Andrew McIlvaney and Alastair Craig





Back in the USSR: A strong opener that gets even better when you fix your right earphone and realise there’s a guitar solo there, not just 13 uncomfortable seconds of Paul breathlessly “yeah”ing and “woo”ing into the void.

Dear Prudence: Beatles historians maintain that to hear this song as intended, one should set up a stereo outside your bedroom door, lock yourself inside your room, go into a borderline-reclusive state of transcendental meditation, and have Ringo Starr cluelessly putter around the outskirts of your home completely baffled by his surroundings (but good luck getting him to leave afterwards).



Glass Onion: And for two beautiful, fleeting beats, Ringo Starr truly is the best drummer in the world.

Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da: Finally: the legendary scribe of “Eleanor Rigby” and “Yesterday” finds a satisfactory artistic direction for the next two decades.

Wild Honey Pie: Having two “Honey Pie” tracks may be a totally unnecessary double album indulgence, but it certainly opens up some fun and feisty grammar debates on how to correctly pluralise them (and for the record: team “Honeys Pie” all the way).



The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill: Absolutely essential to the album, as it’s the only song everybody agrees should have totally been cut.



While My Guitar Gently Weeps: Technically this is one of the greatest songs ever written, but if you haven’t heard the “EH-OH!” that precedes it it’s really only half that.

Happiness is a Warm Gun: A handy example when teaching the concept of irony to children, if you’re a sick fuck.



Martha My Dear: Too fun for criticism, too lightweight for analysis, too sincere for snark, and too monosyllabic to offer any specific phrase to latch onto, so let’s just say “This is song that appears on The Beatles’ White Album” and move on.



I’m So Tired: Another entry in the John Lennon Cries for Help subcategory, and not even the best one on the album.



Blackbird: This beautiful, earthy acoustic masterpiece about racial acceptance is, as we speak, currently being used by a dudebro in the common area of his college dorm as a method to pick up a vaguely artsy girl in a Kings of Leon t-shirt.

Piggies: The White Album is notorious for the breadth of genres it covers, this being a perfect example of the Songs You’d Think The Muppets Would’ve Sung By Now genre.



Rocky Raccoon: Marginally improved by imagining that it’s literally about a gunslinging raccoon, substantially improved if you picture the piano solos being played in a saloon by an aged turtle, and amazing beyond all proportion if you also imagine that’s a cartoon squirrel in a cowboy hat playing harmonica on Paul’s shoulder (you’re welcome).



Don’t Pass Me By: Pass.

Why Don’t We Do It In The Road: A song about monkeys fooling around in public to an audience of no one would’ve been the perfect opportunity to take a swipe at Michael Nesmith and co., but whatever, I’ll take it as it is.

I Will: It’s worth pointing out that Paul McCartney was 26 when he wrote this gorgeously sincere song, whereas I at that age had just figured out how to rip 30 Rock commentaries onto my iPod so I could listen to them in the unemployment line.



Julia: If that girl in the Kings of Leon t-shirt is named Julia and wasn’t won over by Dudebro’s rendition of “Blackbird”, get ready ‘cuz this song’s coming up next!



Birthday: Were this song to incorporate the only two positive qualities of the standard Happy Birthday song (1. The big breath of air you inhale before singing the first “Happy”, and 2. The entropy of the ambitious octave jump, in which every singer seemingly picks a high note at random) this would have cleared the incredibly low bar of being the best birthday song ever, but alas, Grandmaster Flash remains king.



Yer Blues: To this day, music scholars debate exactly what John was trying to communicate with lyrics such as “yes I’m lonely” and “wanna die”, but alas, their words remain as abstract and elusive as those of “Help!”, “I’m A Loser” and the catchy bootleg favourite “Listen To Me You Clueless Cunts, I Am Not Feeling Well Right Now”.

Mother Nature’s Son: Conspiracy theorists will have you believe Paul died in a car accident before he could be bothered writing a third verse.

Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey: Just as imagining The Bee Gees’ “Stayin’ Alive” can help you time emergency CPR, this wonderfully frantic songs makes a handy internal metronome for arhythmic, relationship-ending sex.

Sexy Sadie: One man’s achingly sad heartbreak, anger, and betrayal translated almost 1:1 into a spine-tingingly haunting melody, so it’s just as well that John ignored Ringo’s relentless suggestions to title it “Pepsi Gravy”.



Helter Skelter: A great number now tragically tainted by historical notoriety and a particularly vile “family”, its wild vocal howls — taken cruelly out of context — making this once-harmless song fiendishly difficult to 100% in Beatles Rock Band when your mom never activates the Beatlemania score bonus on cue.



Long, Long, Long: A bold step forward in the art of track sequencing, as burying this quiet, tender ballad after the loudest song The Beatles ever recorded proved to be the most creatively passive-aggressive way to screw over George yet.

Revolution 1: If John Lennon’s goal was to start a youth movement in which teens everywhere questioned their leaders by wondering why anyone thought “carrying pictures of Chairman Mao” was an acceptable lyric, he completely succeeded.

Honey Pie: Lennon notoriously took a stand as an avowed atheist in a number of his solo-era compositions, but I put it to you that it was Paul who crafted the better argument against the existence of a higher power since no loving God could possibly allow this awful song to exist.



Savoy Truffle: George, inspired by Paul’s timeless melody “Scrambled Eggs”, never could quite grasp the idea of placeholder lyrics.

Cry Baby Cry: In the great “John vs. Paul as Songwriters” debate, it’s worth remembering that it took Paul a full 7:10 to calm Julian Lennon down with “Hey Jude” and John a mere 3:02 to undo all of that here.

Revolution 9: Ground zero for a whole new genre that would take youth culture by storm approximately fifteen years later: The Spooky Hallowe’en Sounds Cassette Tape.

Good Night: The majestic final note of Sgt. Pepper is a hard act to follow, but the audible saliva squelching of Ringo’s final whisper is intimate and transcending and quietly unnerving in its own special way.*





*Just as upsetting to canine ears, too.

