The White Album Game

Posted on September 12, 2007 
by: Big Jar

To pass the time on a long car ride this weekend, my friends and I came up with a fun conceptual game based upon The White Album.

Imagine you are John Lennon. You and the rest of The Beatles have just finished recording the album’s thirty songs, and you send a final copy (the one everyone knows) to your executive producer. After reviewing the material, he decides that the album is too long, and instructs you to cut half of the record’s tracks.

Yes, I know that part of the record’s charm is its rambling incoherence and the “throwaway” material. But for the sake of argument, if you were coerced into making this decision, which songs would you keep and which ones would you set aside for the anthologies?

First, we made a list of the White Album songs that everyone agreed were absolute keepers:

While My Guitar Gently Weeps

Happiness is a Warm Gun

Blackbird

Rocky Raccoon

Julia

Mother Nature’s Son

Honey Pie

Next, we made a list of songs that everyone agreed we could cut without shedding any tears:

Glass Onion

Wild Honey Pie

Revolution 1

Savoy Truffle

Revolution 9

That left us with eighteen songs to fill eight spots left on our final cut:

Dear Prudence

Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill

Martha My Dear

I’m So Tired

Piggies

Don’t Pass Me By

Why Don’t We Do It in the Road?

I Will

Birthday

Yer Blues

Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey

Sexy Sadie

Helter Skelter

Long, Long, Long

Cry Baby Cry

Good Night

This game ended up being fun because everyone had different choices for that final eight. Here are mine:

Bungalow Bill–I like the anti-animal cruelty message behind this one, and the children’s chorus adds a nice goofy twist. 

Me and My Monkey–It’s kind of a throwaway, but the fun they’re having on this track makes it impossible to discard for me.

Helter Skelter–We can’t ignore the hardest rocking moment in Beatles history.  I’VE GOT BLISTERS ON ME FINGERS!!!

Yer Blues–I can’t figure out if they’re kidding or not, but I love the unexpected content of this song. The Beatles are best when they are not themselves.

Cry, Baby, Cry–Lennon always trumps McCartney. It’s a rule. This isn’t my favorite song, but you can hear a little bit of Dylan in it and that goes a long way.

Piggies–Harrison is woefully underrepresented on this and all other Beatles albums. The man was a brilliant songwriter and this song is awesome. I especially like the harpsichord and the anti-classist sentiment.

 Why Don’t We Do it in the Road?–Just because we’re paring this album down doesn’t mean we have to entirely eliminate the throwaway tracks. I just couldn’t bear to part with this short but sweet moment of brilliance.

Good Night–I think that ending an album properly is very important. How else could we end this album but with Ringo’s off-key warbling?

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