Turning the Beatles White album into a single LP

Cafe Society
1

I don’t think we’ve done this for a while. And before you question the underlying concept, I agree with Paul McCartney: (paraphrasing) "It’s The Beatles and they gave you a shit-load of songs. And you are complaining?

So, obviously from the title of this post, pick about 14 songs (from 30) that would comprise a standard 2-side LP.

It’s on the honour system, so you can have more short songs and less long songs to make up your two sides.

Here are the songs:

Side one

  1. “Back in the U.S.S.R.” McCartney 2:43
  2. “Dear Prudence” Lennon 3:56
  3. “Glass Onion” Lennon 2:18
  4. “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” McCartney 3:08
  5. “Wild Honey Pie” McCartney 0:52
  6. “The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill” Lennon 3:14
  7. “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” Harrison 4:45
  8. “Happiness Is a Warm Gun” Lennon 2:43

Side two
9. “Martha My Dear” McCartney 2:28
10. “I’m So Tired” Lennon 2:03
11. “Blackbird” McCartney 2:18
12. “Piggies” Harrison 2:04
13. “Rocky Raccoon” McCartney 3:33
14. “Don’t Pass Me By” Starr 3:51
15. “Why Don’t We Do It in the Road?” McCartney 1:41
16. “I Will” McCartney 1:46
17. “Julia” Lennon 2:54

Side three

  1. “Birthday” McCartney/Lennon 2:42
  2. “Yer Blues” Lennon 4:01
  3. “Mother Nature’s Son” McCartney 2:48
  4. “Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey” Lennon 2:24
  5. “Sexy Sadie” Lennon 3:15
  6. “Helter Skelter” McCartney 4:29
  7. “Long, Long, Long” Harrison 3:04

Side four
8. “Revolution 1” Lennon 4:15
9. “Honey Pie” McCartney 2:41
10. “Savoy Truffle” Harrison 2:54
11. “Cry Baby Cry” Lennon 3:02
12. “Revolution 9” Lennon 8:22
13. “Good Night” Lennon 3:13

2

Great topic. Here goes:

  1. Back in the USSR
  2. Dear Prudence
  3. Glass Onion
  4. Bungalow Bill.
  5. While My Guitar
  6. Happiness Is.
  7. I’m So Tired
  8. Blackbird
  9. I Will
  10. Julia
  11. Mother Natures Son
  12. Me and My Monkey
  13. Long Long Long (personal favorite)
  14. Cry Bay Cry.
3

Dump everything written by just Lennon and we’re golden.

4
  1. Back In The USSR
  2. Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da
  3. While My Guitar Gently Weeps
  4. Happiness Is A Warm Gun
  5. Why Don’t We Do It In The Road?
  6. Birthday
  7. Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey
  8. Helter Skelter
  9. Revolution 1
  10. Revolution 9

Is it okay that I only want 10 tracks on my White Album?

BTW, does anyone else do this IRL? I’ve edited songs and parts of songs from the copies of albums that I make to listen to. For instance, I completely removed the spoken intro to Jane’s Addiction’s Stop and I removed a song from The Sword’s album Warp Riders (I burned a new copy of the CD to listen to in the truck, I mean).

5

I’m going to do this by listing the 15 I want to get rid of. First, all of side 4.
Renumbered for this exercise

Side four

  1. “Revolution 1” Lennon 4:15
  2. “Honey Pie” McCartney 2:41
  3. “Savoy Truffle” Harrison 2:54
  4. “Cry Baby Cry” Lennon 3:02
  5. “Revolution 9” Lennon 8:22
  6. “Good Night” Lennon 3:13

Savoy Truffle is the best of the lot, but could be dumped.

Next, the useless Wild Honey Pie. Short, at least
7. “Wild Honey Pie” McCartney 0:52

Now it gets harder. My next three are
8. “Blackbird” McCartney 2:18
9. “Piggies” Harrison 2:04
10. “I Will” McCartney 1:46

Piggies is the best of this lot, but still just okay.
I’d eliminate “Don’t Pass Me By” but we need at least one Ringo song on the record. So it stays.

  1. “Mother Nature’s Son” McCartney 2:48
  2. “Long, Long, Long” Harrison 3:04

That leaves only one Harrison song, but it is a great one.
Now it is getting to hurt.

  1. “The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill” Lennon 3:14
    A good one, not a great one.
    Helter Skelter has to stay out of historical interest. If I propose getting rid of “Happiness is a Warm Gun” you might think I belong to the NRA. “Rocky Raccoon” is minor, but served as the basis of our high school play, so it stays. Glass Onion has to stay to honor the “Paul is Dead” movement from my freshman year in college. (Ironically, there is a 50-50 chance of Paul being the only one not dead.)

So next is
14. “Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey” Lennon 2:24

I need to get rid of two more? I guess one each from Lennon and McCartney
15. “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” McCartney 3:08
Okay, I lied. A McCartney song is the last on the list - and it is painful. This is a great song.
16. “Why Don’t We Do It in the Road?” McCartney 1:41

I didn’t try to balance the times, but getting rid of Revolution No. 9 makes lots of room.

6

In the early 1990’s, I used to make cassette copies of CD’s to listen to in my car. When I did this for the White Album, I saw that there was about three minutes’ too much music to fit on the 90-minute cassette I had, so I had to leave out one song. It wasn’t any contest: Revolution 9.

7

Posting before I look at other responses. I would keep side 3 mostly intact as side 2 of my single album, and side 1 would be assembled from the rest of the album.

Side 1:

  1. Back in the USSR
  2. Dear Prudence
  3. Savoy Truffle
  4. Blackbird
  5. I’m So Tired
  6. While My Guitar Gently Weeps

Side 2:

  1. Revolution 1
  2. Birthday
  3. Yer Blues
  4. Mother Nature’s Son
  5. Everybody’s Got Something To Hide
  6. Sexy Sadie
  7. Helter Skelter
8

Exactly. Also the first side of the tape ran out about 2/3 of the way through Julia, but no big loss there either.

9

Yep, all the time. I drop out endless endings if they don’t add anything (such as the mumbling at the end of Pretty in Pink off the soundtrack). I’ve cut the dragging middle out of ELPs Take A Pebble. Shave about 5 minutes and its a lot tighter.

The most common fix is recombining songs, especially live ones. For some incomprehensible reason, the folk that put the song breaks in live albums almost always attach the spoken intros to the end of the previous song. Very strange. And I had to reattach “There goes Todd!” to the end of Hello It’s Me rather than where it was at the beginning of the next song.

10

Interesting thread, but I’m actually more interested in this quote. Did he really say something like that? What was the context? Do you have a cite? Was the album not well-received when it came out?

11
  1. “Back in the U.S.S.R.” McCartney 2:43
  2. “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” McCartney 3:08
  3. “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” Harrison 4:45
  4. “Happiness Is a Warm Gun” Lennon 2:43
  5. “I’m So Tired” Lennon 2:03
  6. “Blackbird” McCartney 2:18
  7. “Piggies” Harrison 2:04
  8. “Don’t Pass Me By” Starr 3:51
  9. “Why Don’t We Do It in the Road?” McCartney 1:41
  10. “I Will” McCartney 1:46
  11. “Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey” Lennon 2:24
  12. “Sexy Sadie” Lennon 3:15
  13. “Helter Skelter” McCartney 4:29
  14. “Savoy Truffle” Harrison 2:54

Six from Paul
Four from John
Three from George
One from Ringo

12

No love for Rocky Raccoon? You guys are skipping a classic.

Here are the ones I like (some have been removed just because they don’t hold up well after 1000 listens. For example “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da”)

  1. “Dear Prudence” Lennon 3:56

  2. “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” Harrison 4:45

  3. “Blackbird” McCartney 2:18

  4. “Rocky Raccoon” McCartney 3:33

  5. “Don’t Pass Me By” Starr 3:51

  6. “Why Don’t We Do It in the Road?” McCartney 1:41

  7. “Julia” Lennon 2:54

  8. “Mother Nature’s Son” McCartney 2:48

  9. “Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey” Lennon 2:24

  10. “Sexy Sadie” Lennon 3:15

  11. “Helter Skelter” McCartney 4:29

  12. “Long, Long, Long” Harrison 3:04

  13. “Revolution 1” Lennon 4:15

13

He said this.

14

Speaking of the Beatles…I cut that “I dig a pygmy…” intro to Two of Us.

To make this exercise a little more rigorous, we’d need to know what the max length in minutes of an LP should be.

15

To answer my own question: apparently, it depends…you could squeeze in more songs at the expense of quality. But let’s go with: 20 minutes per side.

16

This clip is from the Beatles Anthology documentary. The context is that George Martin, and I believe George Harrison also, had suggested that in retrospect, it might have been better to trim the album down to its best stuff, and release one great album rather than an uneven double album that has some great songs, but also some that are only so-so. Paul, obviously, didn’t agree with that.

17

I agree w/Paul. Why cut anything out? Just skip it if you don’t like a song or two. There are more good songs on this album then most bands had in their whole careers.

18

These days you can easily skip a song or two you don’t like. When the White Album was released, however, that required going to your turntable at the appropriate time and lifting the needle off the record and carefully replacing it in the correct groove.

19

nm

20

I’d split the album’s songs something like this:

A list

“Back in the U.S.S.R.” 2:43
“Dear Prudence” 3:56
“Glass Onion” 2:18
“While My Guitar Gently Weeps” 4:45
“Happiness Is a Warm Gun” 2:43
“I’m So Tired” 2:03
“Blackbird” 2:18
“I Will” 1:46
“Julia” 2:54
“Yer Blues” 4:01
“Mother Nature’s Son” 2:48
“Sexy Sadie” 3:15
“Long, Long, Long” 3:04
“Revolution 1” 4:15
“Cry Baby Cry” 3:02

Total: 45:51

B list

“Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” 3:08
“Wild Honey Pie” 0:52
“The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill” 3:14
“Martha My Dear” 2:28
“Piggies” 2:04
“Rocky Raccoon” 3:33
“Don’t Pass Me By” 3:51
“Why Don’t We Do It in the Road?” 1:41
“Birthday” 2:42
“Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey” 2:24
“Helter Skelter” 4:29
“Honey Pie” 2:41
“Savoy Truffle” 2:54
“Revolution 9” 8:22
“Good Night” 3:13

Total: 47:36

I think The Beatles works better as a double-album, despite the inclusion of about half an LP’s worth of weaker material (such as “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da”, “The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill”, “Piggies”, “Rocky Raccoon”, “Don’t Pass Me By”, “Helter Skelter”, “Savoy Truffle”). I think that the diversity of musical styles presented on the album, probably greater than on any other LP I’ve ever heard, would not lend itself so well to a single LP format and it would lack an overarching cohesion.

A double-album format suits The Beatles’ eclectic potpourri nature. Its working title was A Doll’s House and it has the feel of a compartmentalized collection of rooms that one can wander through and explore, with each presenting a different and unique experience.

Overall, it’s my favorite Beatles album. It may also have been of benefit, though, that I came to the album in the Compact Disc age, thus being able to select or skip tracks with ease - once one has heard “Don’t Pass Me By” once, one probably is not desirous of hearing it a second time.

I’m also of the view that “Revolution 9” is, when treated as a sound collage rather than a song, an impressive work of art. On a single Beatles LP, I don’t think it would work, but it complements The Beatles’ double-album format and helps act as a counterbalance to the more whimsical stuff like “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da”. The combination of both gives the album an all-embracing multi-textured kaleidoscopic feel, as though an entirety of existence had been condensed down into 90-minute auditory form. It’s an album that really blew my mind when I first heard it.