The Beatles is the ninth official British album and the fifteenth American … Read Full Bio ↴The Beatles is the ninth official British album and the fifteenth American album by The Beatles, a double album released in 1968. It is commonly known as The White Album as it has no graphics or text other than the band’s name (and, on the early LP and CD releases, a serial number) on its plain white sleeve. The album was the first the Beatles undertook following the death of their manager, Brian Epstein, and the first released by their own record label, Apple. Originally entitled A Doll’s House, the title was changed when the British progressive rock band Family released the similarly titled Music in a Doll’s House earlier that year.
The Beatles was written and recorded during a period of turmoil for the group. After visiting the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in India and having a particularly productive songwriting session in early 1968, the group returned to the studio for recording from May to October 1968, only to have conflict and dissent drive the group members apart. Drummer Ringo Starr quit the band for a brief time, leaving bassist Paul McCartney to perform drums on some of the album’s songs.
Upon release in November 1968, the album received mixed to positive reviews and reached the number one spot on the charts in the United Kingdom and United States. The album is notable for the eclectic nature of its songs, which has divided critics in evaluating the album’s legacy. Still, The Beatles is regarded as one of the greatest albums in rock history. In 2003, the album was ranked number 10 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of “The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time”.
Most of the songs were conceived during a transcendental meditation course with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in Rishikesh, India in the spring of 1968. Although the retreat, which had required long periods of meditation, was initially conceived by the band as a spiritual respite from all worldly endeavours—a chance, in John Lennon’s words, to “get away from everything”— both Lennon and Paul McCartney had quickly found themselves in songwriting mode, often meeting “clandestinely in the afternoons in each other’s rooms” to review the new work. “Regardless of what I was supposed to be doing,” Lennon would later recall, “I did write some of my best songs there.” Close to forty new compositions had emerged in Rishikesh, twenty-three of which would be laid down in very rough form at Kinfauns, George Harrison’s home in Esher, in May of 1968.
The Beatles had left Rishikesh before the end of the course, with Ringo Starr and then McCartney departing first, and Lennon and Harrison departing together later. According to some reports, Lennon left Rishikesh because he felt personally betrayed by rumours that Maharishi had made sexual advances toward Mia Farrow, who had accompanied The Beatles on their trip. Shortly after he decided to leave, Lennon wrote a song called “Maharishi” which included the lyrics, “Maharishi/You little twat”; the song became “Sexy Sadie”. According to several authors, Alexis Mardas (aka “Magic Alex”) deliberately engineered these rumours because he was bent on undermining the Maharishi’s influence over each Beatle. In a 1980 interview, Lennon acknowledged that the Maharishi was the inspiration for the song: “I just called him ‘Sexy Sadie’.
The Beatles was recorded between 30 May 1968 and 14 October 1968, largely at Abbey Road Studios, with some sessions at Trident Studios. Although productive, the sessions were reportedly undisciplined and sometimes fractious, and they took place at a time when tensions were growing within the group. Concurrent with the recording of this album, The Beatles were launching their new multimedia business corporation Apple Corps, an enterprise that proved to be a source of significant stress for the band.
The sessions for The Beatles marked the first appearance in the studio of Lennon’s new girlfriend and artistic partner, Yoko Ono, who would thereafter be a more or less constant presence at all Beatles sessions. Prior to Ono’s appearance on the scene, the individual Beatles had been very insular during recording sessions, with influence from outsiders strictly limited. McCartney’s girlfriend at the time, Francie Schwartz, was also present at some of the recording sessions.
Author Mark Lewisohn reports that The Beatles held their first and only 24-hour recording/producing session near the end of the creation of The Beatles, which occurred during the final mixing and sequencing for the album. The session was attended by Lennon, McCartney, and producer George Martin.
Despite the album’s official title, which emphasised group identity, studio efforts on The Beatles captured the work of four increasingly individualised artists who frequently found themselves at odds. The band’s work pattern changed dramatically with this project, and by most accounts the extraordinary synergy of The Beatles’ previous studio sessions was harder to come by during this period. Sometimes McCartney would record in one studio for prolonged periods of time, while Lennon would record in another, each man using different engineers. At one point in the sessions, George Martin, whose authority over the band in the studio had waned, spontaneously left to go on holiday, leaving Chris Thomas in charge of producing. During one of these sessions, while recording “Helter Skelter”, Harrison reportedly ran around the studio while holding a flaming ashtray above his head.
Long after the recording of The Beatles was complete, Martin mentioned in interviews that his working relationship with The Beatles changed during this period, and that many of the band’s efforts seemed unfocused, often yielding prolonged jam sessions that sounded uninspired. On 16 July recording engineer Geoff Emerick, who had worked with the group since Revolver, announced he was no longer willing to work with the group.
The sudden departures were not limited to EMI personnel. On 22 August, Starr abruptly left the studio, explaining later that he felt his role was minimised compared to that of the other members, and that he was tired of waiting through the long and contentious recording sessions. Lennon, McCartney and Harrison pleaded with Starr to return, and after two weeks he did. Upon Starr’s return, he found his drum kit decorated with red, white and blue flowers, a welcome-back gesture from Harrison. The reconciliation was, however, only temporary, and Starr’s exit served as a precursor of future “months and years of misery”, in Starr’s words. Indeed, after The Beatles was completed, both Harrison and Lennon would stage similar unpublicised departures from the band. McCartney, whose public departure in 1970 would mark the formal end of the band’s ensemble, described the sessions for The Beatles as a turning point for the group. Up to this point, he observed, “The world was a problem, but we weren’t. You know, that was the best thing about The Beatles, until we started to break up, like during the White Album and stuff. Even the studio got a bit tense then.”
According to Lewisohn, McCartney played drums on “Back in the U.S.S.R.” because Starr had left the group during the period when the song was being recorded. Lewisohn also reports that, in the case of “Dear Prudence”, also recorded during Starr’s absence, the three remaining Beatles each made contributions on bass and drums, with the result that those parts may be composite tracks played by Lennon, McCartney and/or Harrison. As of 2010, the actual musician/instrument lineup on the track remains disputed.
Though not formally credited on the album, Eric Clapton played lead guitar on Harrison’s “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”. Harrison explains in The Beatles Anthology that Clapton’s presence temporarily alleviated the studio tension and that all band members were on their best behaviour during his time with the band in the studio. Harrison, who had invited Clapton to the sessions, soon reciprocated by collaborating with Clapton on the song “Badge” for Cream’s last album Goodbye.
Clapton was not the only outside musician to sit in on the sessions. Nicky Hopkins provided electric piano for the single cut of “Revolution” (recorded during these sessions); Hopkins also provided acoustic piano on a number of tracks. Several horns were also recorded on the album version of “Revolution 1”. “Savoy Truffle” also features the horn section. Jack Fallon played a bluegrass fiddle on “Don’t Pass Me By”, and a team of orchestral players and background singers appeared on “Good Night” (which was Beatle-free except for Ringo’s vocal).
The sessions for The Beatles were notable for the band’s formal transition from 4-track to 8-track recording. As work on the album began, Abbey Road Studios possessed, but had yet to install, an 8-track machine that had supposedly been sitting in a storage room for months. This was in accordance with EMI’s policy of testing and customizing new gear, sometimes for months, before putting it into use in the studios. The Beatles recorded “Hey Jude” and “Dear Prudence” at Trident Studios in central London, which had an 8-track recorder. When they learned about EMI’s 8-track recorder, they insisted on using it, and engineers Ken Scott and Dave Harries took the machine (without authorization from the studio chiefs) into the Number 2 recording studio at Abbey Road for the band’s use.
Songs
Although most of the songs on any given Beatles album are usually credited to the Lennon/McCartney songwriting team, that description is often misleading, and rarely more so than on The Beatles. With this album, each of the four band members began to showcase the range and depth of his individual songwriting talents, and to display styles that would be carried over to his eventual solo career. Indeed, some songs that the individual Beatles were working on during this period eventually were released on solo albums. These include Lennon’s “Look at Me” and “Child of Nature”, eventually reworked as “Jealous Guy”; McCartney’s “Junk” and “Teddy Boy”; and Harrison’s “Not Guilty” and “Circles”.
Many of the songs on the album display experimentation with unlikely musical genres, borrowing directly from such sources as 1930s dance-hall music (in “Honey Pie”), classical chamber music (in “Piggies”), the avant-garde sensibilities of Yoko Ono and John Cage (in “Revolution 9”), and the lush sentimentality of Henry Mancini’s film scores (in “Good Night”). Such diversity was quite unprecedented in global pop music in 1968, and the album’s sprawling approach provoked (and continues to provoke) both praise and criticism from observers. “Revolution 9”, in particular, a densely layered eight-minute-and-thirteen-second sound collage, has attracted both interest and disapproval from both fans and music critics over the years.
The only western instrument available to the group during their Indian visit was the acoustic guitar, and thus most of the songs on The Beatles were written and first performed on that instrument. Some of these songs remained acoustic on The Beatles (notably “Rocky Raccoon”, “Blackbird”, “Julia”, “Cry Baby Cry”, “I Will” and “Mother Nature’s Son”) and were recorded in the studio either solo, or by only part of the group.
A number of songs were recorded during these sessions but were never included on a Beatles record, including Harrison’s “Not Guilty” (which he rerecorded for his 1979 self-titled album, George Harrison), Lennon’s “What’s the New Mary Jane” (which has been previously recorded), and McCartney’s “Jubilee” (later retitled “Junk” and released on McCartney’s first solo LP).
Others included “Mean Mr. Mustard” and “Polythene Pam” (both of which would be used for the medley on Abbey Road); “Child of Nature” (recorded with drastically different lyrics as “Jealous Guy” for Lennon’s Imagine); “Etcetera” (a McCartney composition later recorded by the Black Dyke Mills Band as “Thingumybob”); “The Long and Winding Road” (completed in 1969 for the Let It Be LP); “Something” (which ended up on Abbey Road); and “Sour Milk Sea” (which Harrison gave to friend and Apple artist Jackie Lomax for his first LP, Is This What You Want).
Other songs recorded for, but ultimately left off The Beatles received significant exposure via bootlegs, notably Harrison’s “Circles” (which he would eventually re-record as solo tracks and release on his 1982 album, Gone Troppo) and “Not Guilty”, and Lennon’s manic “What’s the New Mary Jane”. More recently, the song “Revolution 1 (Take 20)”, a previously unknown track, surfaced in 2009 on the Europe-only bootleg Revolution: Take…Your Knickers Off and is supposed to connect “Revolution 1” and the avant-garde “Revolution 9” (both of which appeared on The Beatles) in an attempt by Lennon to record one long version of “Revolution” before ultimately splitting the two songs up.
The Beatles was the first Beatles’ album released by Apple Records, as well as their only original double album. Producer George Martin has said that he was against the idea of a double album at the time and suggested to the group that they reduce the number of songs in order to form a single album featuring their stronger work, but that the band decided against this. Interviewed for the Beatles Anthology, Starr said he now felt it should have been released as two separate albums (that he appropriately named The White Album and The Whiter Album). Harrison felt on reflection that some of the tracks could have been released as B-sides, but “there was a lot of ego in that band”. He also supported the idea of the double album, to clear out the backlog of songs the group had at the time. McCartney, by contrast, said it was fine as it was and that its wide variety of songs was a major part of the album’s appeal.
The Beatles shares the same release date (22 November) as The Beatles’ second album, With the Beatles, released five years earlier.
Although “Hey Jude” was not intended to be included on any LP release, it was recorded during the White Album sessions and was released as a stand-alone single before the release of The Beatles. “Hey Jude’s” B-side, “Revolution”, was an alternate version of the album’s “Revolution 1”. Lennon had wanted the original version of “Revolution” to be released as a single, but the other three Beatles objected on the grounds that it was too slow. A new, faster version, with heavily distorted guitar and a high-energy keyboard solo from Nicky Hopkins was recorded, and was relegated to the flip side of “Hey Jude”. The resulting release — “Hey Jude” on side A and “Revolution” on side B — emerged as the first release on the Beatles’ new Apple Records label. It went on to be the Beatles’ most successful single, with world sales over 5 million by the end of 1968 and 7.5 million by October 1972.
Four tracks from the “White Album” were released on two American and one British single almost eight years after the original album was released. In the summer 1976, to promote the compilation album, Rock ‘n’ Roll Music, EMI’s Parlophone label in the UK and its Capitol label in the US each released a single that contained A and B-sides that appeared on the compilation album. In Britain, Parlophone issued “Back in the U.S.S.R.” as the single. (Its B-side was “Twist and Shout”, which originally appeared on the group’s first album, Please Please Me.) In America, Capitol released “Got to Get You Into My Life” (from the group’s 1966 album, Revolver) on the A-side, but selected “Helter Skelter,” to serve as the flip side. “Helter Skelter” was likely chosen for the B-side because a cover version of the song had been prominently featured in a made-for-TV movie about the Charles Manson murders that had aired on CBS shortly before the release of Rock ‘n’ Roll Music. The singles were successful, with “Got to Get You into My Life” hitting No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the US and “Back in the U.S.S.R.” hitting No. 18 on the New Musical Express chart in Britain. Both records also helped sell Rock ‘n’ Roll Music, which hit No. 2 in the United States and No. 10 in the UK. With the success of the singles from the compilation album, Capitol followed-up “Got To Get You Into My Life” with the release of another single in November 1976. Instead of taking two more tracks from Rock ‘n’ Roll Music, however, Capitol selected two “White Album” tracks—”Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” as the A-Side, and “Julia” as the B-Side. The “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” single was sold in an individually-numbered white picture sleeve that mimicked the design of the original album. “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” did not duplicate the success of its predecessor, however, as it failed to make the Top Forty, stalling out at No. 49 on Billboard.
The Beatles was the last Beatles album to be released with a unique, alternate mono mix, albeit one issued only in the UK and a few other countries. Twenty-eight of the album’s 30 tracks (“Revolution 1” and “Revolution 9” being the only exceptions) exist in official alternate mono mixes. Several of these mono mixes are quite different from the stereo versions.
Beatles’ albums after The Beatles (except Yellow Submarine in the UK) occasionally had mono pressings in certain countries (such as Brazil), but these editions—Yellow Submarine, Abbey Road and Let It Be—were in each case mono fold-downs from the regular stereo mixes.
In the US, mono records were already being phased out; the US release of The Beatles was the first Beatles LP to be issued in stereo only.
The mono version of The Beatles was made available worldwide (including the US) on 9 September 2009, as part of the Beatles in Mono CD box set.
The album’s sleeve was designed by Richard Hamilton, a notable pop artist who had organised a Marcel Duchamp retrospective at the Tate Gallery the previous year. Hamilton’s design was in stark contrast to Peter Blake’s vivid cover art for Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and consisted of a plain white sleeve. The band’s name was discreetly embossed slightly below the middle of the album’s right side, and the cover also featured a unique stamped serial number, “to create,” in Hamilton’s words, “the ironic situation of a numbered edition of something like five million copies.” Indeed, the artist intended the cover to resemble the “look” of conceptual art, an emerging movement in contemporary art at the time. Later vinyl record releases in the US showed the title in grey printed (rather than embossed) letters. Early copies on compact disc were also numbered. Later CD releases rendered the album’s title in black or grey. The 30th anniversary CD release was done to look like the original album sleeve, with an embossed title and serial number, including a small reproduction of the poster and pictures (see re-issues).
The album’s inside packaging included a poster, the lyrics to the songs, and a set of photographs taken by John Kelly during the autumn of 1968 that have themselves become iconic. This is the only sleeve of a Beatles studio album not to show the members of the band on the front.
Tape versions of the album did not feature a white cover. Instead, cassette, reel-to-reel, and 8-track versions (first issued on two cartridges in early 1969) contained cover artwork that featured high contrast black and white (with no grey) versions of the four Kelly photographs. In both the cassette and 8-track versions of the album, the two tapes were sold in a black slip-cover box that bore the title, “The Beatles” and the outline of an apple, embossed in silver. This departure from the LP’s design not only made it difficult for less-informed fans to identify the tape in record stores, but it also led some fans at the time to jokingly refer to the 8-track or cassette not as the “white album” but as the “black tape.” In 1988, Capitol/EMI re-issued the 2-cassette version of the album, still with the same cover artwork as the original cassettes, but without the black slip-cover box.
The Beatles were at the peak of their global influence and visibility in late 1968. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, released the previous year, had enjoyed a combination of commercial success, critical acclaim, and immense cultural influence that had previously seemed inconceivable for a pop release. Time, for instance, had written in 1967 that Pepper constituted a “historic departure in the progress of music—any music,” while Timothy Leary, in a widely quoted assessment of the same period, declared that the band were prototypes of “evolutionary agents sent by God, endowed with mysterious powers to create a new human species.” After releasing an album that had delivered such critical, commercial, and generational shockwaves, The Beatles faced the inevitable question of what they could possibly do to top it. The next full-length album, whatever it was, was destined to draw considerable scrutiny. The intervening release of Magical Mystery Tour notwithstanding (released as a double-EP package in the UK), The Beatles represented the group’s first major musical statement since Sgt. Pepper, and thus was a highly anticipated event for both the mainstream press and the youth-oriented counter-culture movement with which the band had by this time become strongly associated. Expectations, to say the least, were high.
The reviews were mixed to mostly positive.
* Tony Palmer, in The Observer, wrote shortly after the album’s release: “If there is still any doubt that Lennon and McCartney are the greatest songwriters since Schubert, then … the album The Beatles … should surely see the last vestiges of cultural snobbery and bourgeois prejudice swept away in a deluge of joyful music making…”
* Richard Goldstein, writing in The New York Times on 8 December 1968, described the album as a “major success.”
* Another review in The New York Times, this one by Nik Cohn, considered the album “boring beyond belief” and described “more than half the songs” as “profound mediocrities.”
* Alan Smith, in an NME review entitled “The Brilliant, the Bad, and the Ugly,” derided “Revolution #9” as a “pretentious” example of “idiot immaturity” and, in the following sentence, assigned the benediction “God Bless You, Beatles!” to “most of the rest” of the album.
* The New Rolling Stone Album Guide praises the album but maintains that it has “loads of self-indulgent filler,” identifying “Revolution #9” in particular as “justly maligned,” and suggests that listeners in the CD era, who can program digital players to skip over unwanted tracks, may have an advantage over the album’s original audience.
Some contemporary critics say the album’s inclusion of supposedly extraneous material is a part of its appeal. Stephen Thomas Erlewine’s review for Allmusic contends that:
* “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.”
One important current trend in critical assessments of the album is to draw parallels between the band’s disintegrating ensemble and the chaotic events of the tumultuous year in which The Beatles was created, 1968. Along these lines, Slant Magazine observed that:
* “(The album) reveals the popping seams of a band that had the pressure of an entire fissuring generational/political gap on its back. Maybe it’s because it shows The Beatles at the point where even their music couldn’t hide the underlying tensions between John, Paul, George, and Ringo, or maybe because it was (coincidentally?) released at the tail end of a year anyone could agree was the embittered honeymoon’s end for the Love Generation, the year when, to borrow from a famous Yeats poem, the center decidedly could not hold … for whatever reason, The Beatles is still one of the few albums by the Fab Four that resists reflexive canonization, which, along with society’s continued fragmentation, keeps the album fresh and surprising.”
In 1997, The Beatles was named the 10th greatest album of all time in a ‘Music of the Millennium’ poll conducted by HMV, Channel 4, The Guardian and Classic FM. In 1998, Q magazine readers placed it at number 17, while in 2000 the same magazine placed it at number seven in its list of the 100 Greatest British Albums Ever.
In 2001, the TV network VH1 named it as the 11th greatest album ever.
It was ranked number 10 in Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time in 2003.
In 2006, the album was chosen by Time Magazine as one of the 100 best albums of all time.
On the 40th anniversary of the album’s release the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, published a lengthy article which declared that “Forty years later, this album remains a type of magical musical anthology: 30 songs you can go through and listen to at will, certain of finding some pearls that even today remain unparalleled.” Forgiving Lennon’s “more popular than Jesus” remark, the paper called the White Album the “creative summit” of the Beatles’ career, comparing it favourably to contemporary music and taking note of the now antiquated equipment used, concluding that “a listening experience like that offered by the Beatles is truly rare.”
Ian MacDonald, in his book Revolution in the Head, argues that The Beatles was the album in which the band’s cryptic messages to its fan base became not merely vague but intentionally and perhaps dangerously open-ended, citing oblique passages in songs like “Glass Onion” (e.g., “the walrus was Paul”) and “Piggies” (“what they need’s a damn good whacking”). These pronouncements, and many others on the album, came to attract extraordinary popular interest at a time when more of the world’s youth were using drugs recreationally and looking for spiritual, political, and strategic advice from The Beatles. Steve Turner, too, in his book A Hard Day’s Write, maintains that, with this album, “The Beatles had perhaps laid themselves open to misinterpretation by mixing up the languages of poetry and nonsense.” Bob Dylan’s songs had been similarly mined for hidden meanings, but the massive countercultural analysis of The Beatles surpassed anything that had gone before.
Even Lennon’s seemingly direct engagement with the tumultuous political issues of 1968 in “Revolution 1” carried a nuanced obliqueness, and ended up sending messages the author may not have intended. In the album’s version of the song, Lennon advises those who “talk about destruction” to “count me out.” As McDonald notes, however, Lennon then follows the sung word “out” with the spoken word “in.” At the time of the album’s release — which followed, chronologically, the up-tempo single version of the song, “Revolution” — that single word “in” was taken by many on the radical left as Lennon’s acknowledgment, after considered thought, that violence in the pursuit of political aims was indeed justified in some cases. At a time of increasing unrest in the streets and campuses of Paris and Berkeley, the album’s lyrics seemed to many to mark a reversal of Lennon’s position on the question, which was hotly debated during this period. However, the recording chronology belies the interpretation that from the single to the album Lennon moved from a definite position to one of ambivalence, since despite the single’s earlier release it was the album version that was recorded first.
Cult leader Charles Manson persuaded members of his “family” that the album was an apocalyptic message predicting a prolonged race war and justifying the murder of wealthy people.
In October 1969, a Detroit radio program began to promote theories based on clues supposedly left on The Beatles and other Beatles albums that Paul McCartney had died and been replaced by a lookalike. The ensuing hunt for clues to a cover up, that The Beatles presumably wanted to suppress (and simultaneously publicise), became one of the classic examples of an urban legend.
As it was their first studio album in almost eighteen months (and coming after the blockbuster success of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band) expectations were high at time of release of The Beatles. The album debuted at number one in the UK on 1 December 1968, (becoming their third album to do so, after Help! and Revolver). It spent seven weeks at the top of the UK charts (including the entire competitive Christmas season), until it was replaced by The Seekers’ Best of the Seekers on 25 January 1969, dropping to number two. However, the album returned to the top spot the next week, spending an eighth and final week at number one. Then, it spent another four weeks on the Top 10, and then dropped the charts quicker than Sgt. Pepper. The White Album was particularly notable for blocking the Beatles follow-up album, Yellow Submarine, which debuted (and peaked at) number three on 8 February 1969, the same week The White Album was dominating the second position on the charts. In all, The Beatles spent 24 weeks on the UK charts, far less than the more than 200 weeks for Sgt. Pepper’s).
In the United States, the album was received with huge commercial success. It debuted at number 11, jumped to number two, and reached number one in its third week, spending a total of nine weeks at the top. In all, The Beatles spent 155 weeks on the Billboard 200. According to the Recording Industry Association of America, The Beatles is The Beatles’ best-selling album at 19-times platinum and the tenth-best-selling album of all time in the United States. (Each sale is counted as 2 sales, because “The Beatles” is a double record set.)
Two re-issues in 1978 (one by Capitol Records, the other by Parlophone) saw the album pressed on white vinyl, completing the look of the “white” album. In 1985, EMI Electrola released a DMM (direct metal mastering) white vinyl pressing of the album in Germany, which was imported to the United States in large numbers. Another popular white vinyl pressing was manufactured in France. The 1978 Parlophone white vinyl export pressing and the German DMM pressing are considered by many to be the best-sounding versions of the album. This is due to the use of the famed Neumann lathe on the 1978 export pressing and the use of the DMM process on the 1985 pressing.
On 7 January 1982, Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab (MFSL) released the album in a non-embossed unnumbered version of cover with the ORIGINAL MASTER RECORDING banner at the top. Neither the poster nor portraits were included. The labels to the discs are white with primarily black text and the Capitol dome logo at three o’clock. The MFSL discs were made with Super Vinyl, a heavy and hard compound that provides an extraordinary quiet playing surface. Although MFSL leased the album from Capitol and used the company’s sub-master, many fans believe they sound superior to the standard British and American pressings. The discs were stored in “rice paper” static-free, dust-free inner sleeves enclosed in an off-white gatefold reinforced stiff board that fit into the custom fabricated album jacket.
The album was first released on CD on 25 August 1987.
In 1998, a 30th anniversary reissue of the album was released. The packaging of this release is virtually identical to its vinyl counterpart. It has the same pure white gatefold cover, complete with the title The BEATLES in a slightly raised, embossed graphic at a slight angle. It also included the now-classic sequentially numbered serial number on the front of this cover, thus making this one a real limited edition. The interior of this cover features the song titles on the left-hand side, and the four black-and-white photos of the group members on the right. This version of the cover even accurately mimics the original British vinyl pressing from 1968, with the openings for the discs at the top rather than the sides. There are miniatures of the four full-colour glossy portrait photos included, as well as an exact replica of the poster with the photo collage on one side, and the album’s complete song lyrics on the opposite side. The CDs are housed in black sleeves, which were also used for the original British album. This commemorative double CD album is housed in a clear plastic slipcase.
On 9 September 2009, new remasters of all The Beatles studio albums were released. For this new release, the slipcover holding the CD digipak is embossed in much the same style as the original sleeve. Although there is no serial number on the front, there is a serial number printed along the edges of the CD version.
The Beatles was written and recorded during a period of turmoil for the group. After visiting the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in India and having a particularly productive songwriting session in early 1968, the group returned to the studio for recording from May to October 1968, only to have conflict and dissent drive the group members apart. Drummer Ringo Starr quit the band for a brief time, leaving bassist Paul McCartney to perform drums on some of the album’s songs.
Upon release in November 1968, the album received mixed to positive reviews and reached the number one spot on the charts in the United Kingdom and United States. The album is notable for the eclectic nature of its songs, which has divided critics in evaluating the album’s legacy. Still, The Beatles is regarded as one of the greatest albums in rock history. In 2003, the album was ranked number 10 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of “The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time”.
Most of the songs were conceived during a transcendental meditation course with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in Rishikesh, India in the spring of 1968. Although the retreat, which had required long periods of meditation, was initially conceived by the band as a spiritual respite from all worldly endeavours—a chance, in John Lennon’s words, to “get away from everything”— both Lennon and Paul McCartney had quickly found themselves in songwriting mode, often meeting “clandestinely in the afternoons in each other’s rooms” to review the new work. “Regardless of what I was supposed to be doing,” Lennon would later recall, “I did write some of my best songs there.” Close to forty new compositions had emerged in Rishikesh, twenty-three of which would be laid down in very rough form at Kinfauns, George Harrison’s home in Esher, in May of 1968.
The Beatles had left Rishikesh before the end of the course, with Ringo Starr and then McCartney departing first, and Lennon and Harrison departing together later. According to some reports, Lennon left Rishikesh because he felt personally betrayed by rumours that Maharishi had made sexual advances toward Mia Farrow, who had accompanied The Beatles on their trip. Shortly after he decided to leave, Lennon wrote a song called “Maharishi” which included the lyrics, “Maharishi/You little twat”; the song became “Sexy Sadie”. According to several authors, Alexis Mardas (aka “Magic Alex”) deliberately engineered these rumours because he was bent on undermining the Maharishi’s influence over each Beatle. In a 1980 interview, Lennon acknowledged that the Maharishi was the inspiration for the song: “I just called him ‘Sexy Sadie’.
The Beatles was recorded between 30 May 1968 and 14 October 1968, largely at Abbey Road Studios, with some sessions at Trident Studios. Although productive, the sessions were reportedly undisciplined and sometimes fractious, and they took place at a time when tensions were growing within the group. Concurrent with the recording of this album, The Beatles were launching their new multimedia business corporation Apple Corps, an enterprise that proved to be a source of significant stress for the band.
The sessions for The Beatles marked the first appearance in the studio of Lennon’s new girlfriend and artistic partner, Yoko Ono, who would thereafter be a more or less constant presence at all Beatles sessions. Prior to Ono’s appearance on the scene, the individual Beatles had been very insular during recording sessions, with influence from outsiders strictly limited. McCartney’s girlfriend at the time, Francie Schwartz, was also present at some of the recording sessions.
Author Mark Lewisohn reports that The Beatles held their first and only 24-hour recording/producing session near the end of the creation of The Beatles, which occurred during the final mixing and sequencing for the album. The session was attended by Lennon, McCartney, and producer George Martin.
Despite the album’s official title, which emphasised group identity, studio efforts on The Beatles captured the work of four increasingly individualised artists who frequently found themselves at odds. The band’s work pattern changed dramatically with this project, and by most accounts the extraordinary synergy of The Beatles’ previous studio sessions was harder to come by during this period. Sometimes McCartney would record in one studio for prolonged periods of time, while Lennon would record in another, each man using different engineers. At one point in the sessions, George Martin, whose authority over the band in the studio had waned, spontaneously left to go on holiday, leaving Chris Thomas in charge of producing. During one of these sessions, while recording “Helter Skelter”, Harrison reportedly ran around the studio while holding a flaming ashtray above his head.
Long after the recording of The Beatles was complete, Martin mentioned in interviews that his working relationship with The Beatles changed during this period, and that many of the band’s efforts seemed unfocused, often yielding prolonged jam sessions that sounded uninspired. On 16 July recording engineer Geoff Emerick, who had worked with the group since Revolver, announced he was no longer willing to work with the group.
The sudden departures were not limited to EMI personnel. On 22 August, Starr abruptly left the studio, explaining later that he felt his role was minimised compared to that of the other members, and that he was tired of waiting through the long and contentious recording sessions. Lennon, McCartney and Harrison pleaded with Starr to return, and after two weeks he did. Upon Starr’s return, he found his drum kit decorated with red, white and blue flowers, a welcome-back gesture from Harrison. The reconciliation was, however, only temporary, and Starr’s exit served as a precursor of future “months and years of misery”, in Starr’s words. Indeed, after The Beatles was completed, both Harrison and Lennon would stage similar unpublicised departures from the band. McCartney, whose public departure in 1970 would mark the formal end of the band’s ensemble, described the sessions for The Beatles as a turning point for the group. Up to this point, he observed, “The world was a problem, but we weren’t. You know, that was the best thing about The Beatles, until we started to break up, like during the White Album and stuff. Even the studio got a bit tense then.”
According to Lewisohn, McCartney played drums on “Back in the U.S.S.R.” because Starr had left the group during the period when the song was being recorded. Lewisohn also reports that, in the case of “Dear Prudence”, also recorded during Starr’s absence, the three remaining Beatles each made contributions on bass and drums, with the result that those parts may be composite tracks played by Lennon, McCartney and/or Harrison. As of 2010, the actual musician/instrument lineup on the track remains disputed.
Though not formally credited on the album, Eric Clapton played lead guitar on Harrison’s “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”. Harrison explains in The Beatles Anthology that Clapton’s presence temporarily alleviated the studio tension and that all band members were on their best behaviour during his time with the band in the studio. Harrison, who had invited Clapton to the sessions, soon reciprocated by collaborating with Clapton on the song “Badge” for Cream’s last album Goodbye.
Clapton was not the only outside musician to sit in on the sessions. Nicky Hopkins provided electric piano for the single cut of “Revolution” (recorded during these sessions); Hopkins also provided acoustic piano on a number of tracks. Several horns were also recorded on the album version of “Revolution 1”. “Savoy Truffle” also features the horn section. Jack Fallon played a bluegrass fiddle on “Don’t Pass Me By”, and a team of orchestral players and background singers appeared on “Good Night” (which was Beatle-free except for Ringo’s vocal).
The sessions for The Beatles were notable for the band’s formal transition from 4-track to 8-track recording. As work on the album began, Abbey Road Studios possessed, but had yet to install, an 8-track machine that had supposedly been sitting in a storage room for months. This was in accordance with EMI’s policy of testing and customizing new gear, sometimes for months, before putting it into use in the studios. The Beatles recorded “Hey Jude” and “Dear Prudence” at Trident Studios in central London, which had an 8-track recorder. When they learned about EMI’s 8-track recorder, they insisted on using it, and engineers Ken Scott and Dave Harries took the machine (without authorization from the studio chiefs) into the Number 2 recording studio at Abbey Road for the band’s use.
Songs
Although most of the songs on any given Beatles album are usually credited to the Lennon/McCartney songwriting team, that description is often misleading, and rarely more so than on The Beatles. With this album, each of the four band members began to showcase the range and depth of his individual songwriting talents, and to display styles that would be carried over to his eventual solo career. Indeed, some songs that the individual Beatles were working on during this period eventually were released on solo albums. These include Lennon’s “Look at Me” and “Child of Nature”, eventually reworked as “Jealous Guy”; McCartney’s “Junk” and “Teddy Boy”; and Harrison’s “Not Guilty” and “Circles”.
Many of the songs on the album display experimentation with unlikely musical genres, borrowing directly from such sources as 1930s dance-hall music (in “Honey Pie”), classical chamber music (in “Piggies”), the avant-garde sensibilities of Yoko Ono and John Cage (in “Revolution 9”), and the lush sentimentality of Henry Mancini’s film scores (in “Good Night”). Such diversity was quite unprecedented in global pop music in 1968, and the album’s sprawling approach provoked (and continues to provoke) both praise and criticism from observers. “Revolution 9”, in particular, a densely layered eight-minute-and-thirteen-second sound collage, has attracted both interest and disapproval from both fans and music critics over the years.
The only western instrument available to the group during their Indian visit was the acoustic guitar, and thus most of the songs on The Beatles were written and first performed on that instrument. Some of these songs remained acoustic on The Beatles (notably “Rocky Raccoon”, “Blackbird”, “Julia”, “Cry Baby Cry”, “I Will” and “Mother Nature’s Son”) and were recorded in the studio either solo, or by only part of the group.
A number of songs were recorded during these sessions but were never included on a Beatles record, including Harrison’s “Not Guilty” (which he rerecorded for his 1979 self-titled album, George Harrison), Lennon’s “What’s the New Mary Jane” (which has been previously recorded), and McCartney’s “Jubilee” (later retitled “Junk” and released on McCartney’s first solo LP).
Others included “Mean Mr. Mustard” and “Polythene Pam” (both of which would be used for the medley on Abbey Road); “Child of Nature” (recorded with drastically different lyrics as “Jealous Guy” for Lennon’s Imagine); “Etcetera” (a McCartney composition later recorded by the Black Dyke Mills Band as “Thingumybob”); “The Long and Winding Road” (completed in 1969 for the Let It Be LP); “Something” (which ended up on Abbey Road); and “Sour Milk Sea” (which Harrison gave to friend and Apple artist Jackie Lomax for his first LP, Is This What You Want).
Other songs recorded for, but ultimately left off The Beatles received significant exposure via bootlegs, notably Harrison’s “Circles” (which he would eventually re-record as solo tracks and release on his 1982 album, Gone Troppo) and “Not Guilty”, and Lennon’s manic “What’s the New Mary Jane”. More recently, the song “Revolution 1 (Take 20)”, a previously unknown track, surfaced in 2009 on the Europe-only bootleg Revolution: Take…Your Knickers Off and is supposed to connect “Revolution 1” and the avant-garde “Revolution 9” (both of which appeared on The Beatles) in an attempt by Lennon to record one long version of “Revolution” before ultimately splitting the two songs up.
The Beatles was the first Beatles’ album released by Apple Records, as well as their only original double album. Producer George Martin has said that he was against the idea of a double album at the time and suggested to the group that they reduce the number of songs in order to form a single album featuring their stronger work, but that the band decided against this. Interviewed for the Beatles Anthology, Starr said he now felt it should have been released as two separate albums (that he appropriately named The White Album and The Whiter Album). Harrison felt on reflection that some of the tracks could have been released as B-sides, but “there was a lot of ego in that band”. He also supported the idea of the double album, to clear out the backlog of songs the group had at the time. McCartney, by contrast, said it was fine as it was and that its wide variety of songs was a major part of the album’s appeal.
The Beatles shares the same release date (22 November) as The Beatles’ second album, With the Beatles, released five years earlier.
Although “Hey Jude” was not intended to be included on any LP release, it was recorded during the White Album sessions and was released as a stand-alone single before the release of The Beatles. “Hey Jude’s” B-side, “Revolution”, was an alternate version of the album’s “Revolution 1”. Lennon had wanted the original version of “Revolution” to be released as a single, but the other three Beatles objected on the grounds that it was too slow. A new, faster version, with heavily distorted guitar and a high-energy keyboard solo from Nicky Hopkins was recorded, and was relegated to the flip side of “Hey Jude”. The resulting release — “Hey Jude” on side A and “Revolution” on side B — emerged as the first release on the Beatles’ new Apple Records label. It went on to be the Beatles’ most successful single, with world sales over 5 million by the end of 1968 and 7.5 million by October 1972.
Four tracks from the “White Album” were released on two American and one British single almost eight years after the original album was released. In the summer 1976, to promote the compilation album, Rock ‘n’ Roll Music, EMI’s Parlophone label in the UK and its Capitol label in the US each released a single that contained A and B-sides that appeared on the compilation album. In Britain, Parlophone issued “Back in the U.S.S.R.” as the single. (Its B-side was “Twist and Shout”, which originally appeared on the group’s first album, Please Please Me.) In America, Capitol released “Got to Get You Into My Life” (from the group’s 1966 album, Revolver) on the A-side, but selected “Helter Skelter,” to serve as the flip side. “Helter Skelter” was likely chosen for the B-side because a cover version of the song had been prominently featured in a made-for-TV movie about the Charles Manson murders that had aired on CBS shortly before the release of Rock ‘n’ Roll Music. The singles were successful, with “Got to Get You into My Life” hitting No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the US and “Back in the U.S.S.R.” hitting No. 18 on the New Musical Express chart in Britain. Both records also helped sell Rock ‘n’ Roll Music, which hit No. 2 in the United States and No. 10 in the UK. With the success of the singles from the compilation album, Capitol followed-up “Got To Get You Into My Life” with the release of another single in November 1976. Instead of taking two more tracks from Rock ‘n’ Roll Music, however, Capitol selected two “White Album” tracks—”Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” as the A-Side, and “Julia” as the B-Side. The “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” single was sold in an individually-numbered white picture sleeve that mimicked the design of the original album. “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” did not duplicate the success of its predecessor, however, as it failed to make the Top Forty, stalling out at No. 49 on Billboard.
The Beatles was the last Beatles album to be released with a unique, alternate mono mix, albeit one issued only in the UK and a few other countries. Twenty-eight of the album’s 30 tracks (“Revolution 1” and “Revolution 9” being the only exceptions) exist in official alternate mono mixes. Several of these mono mixes are quite different from the stereo versions.
Beatles’ albums after The Beatles (except Yellow Submarine in the UK) occasionally had mono pressings in certain countries (such as Brazil), but these editions—Yellow Submarine, Abbey Road and Let It Be—were in each case mono fold-downs from the regular stereo mixes.
In the US, mono records were already being phased out; the US release of The Beatles was the first Beatles LP to be issued in stereo only.
The mono version of The Beatles was made available worldwide (including the US) on 9 September 2009, as part of the Beatles in Mono CD box set.
The album’s sleeve was designed by Richard Hamilton, a notable pop artist who had organised a Marcel Duchamp retrospective at the Tate Gallery the previous year. Hamilton’s design was in stark contrast to Peter Blake’s vivid cover art for Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and consisted of a plain white sleeve. The band’s name was discreetly embossed slightly below the middle of the album’s right side, and the cover also featured a unique stamped serial number, “to create,” in Hamilton’s words, “the ironic situation of a numbered edition of something like five million copies.” Indeed, the artist intended the cover to resemble the “look” of conceptual art, an emerging movement in contemporary art at the time. Later vinyl record releases in the US showed the title in grey printed (rather than embossed) letters. Early copies on compact disc were also numbered. Later CD releases rendered the album’s title in black or grey. The 30th anniversary CD release was done to look like the original album sleeve, with an embossed title and serial number, including a small reproduction of the poster and pictures (see re-issues).
The album’s inside packaging included a poster, the lyrics to the songs, and a set of photographs taken by John Kelly during the autumn of 1968 that have themselves become iconic. This is the only sleeve of a Beatles studio album not to show the members of the band on the front.
Tape versions of the album did not feature a white cover. Instead, cassette, reel-to-reel, and 8-track versions (first issued on two cartridges in early 1969) contained cover artwork that featured high contrast black and white (with no grey) versions of the four Kelly photographs. In both the cassette and 8-track versions of the album, the two tapes were sold in a black slip-cover box that bore the title, “The Beatles” and the outline of an apple, embossed in silver. This departure from the LP’s design not only made it difficult for less-informed fans to identify the tape in record stores, but it also led some fans at the time to jokingly refer to the 8-track or cassette not as the “white album” but as the “black tape.” In 1988, Capitol/EMI re-issued the 2-cassette version of the album, still with the same cover artwork as the original cassettes, but without the black slip-cover box.
The Beatles were at the peak of their global influence and visibility in late 1968. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, released the previous year, had enjoyed a combination of commercial success, critical acclaim, and immense cultural influence that had previously seemed inconceivable for a pop release. Time, for instance, had written in 1967 that Pepper constituted a “historic departure in the progress of music—any music,” while Timothy Leary, in a widely quoted assessment of the same period, declared that the band were prototypes of “evolutionary agents sent by God, endowed with mysterious powers to create a new human species.” After releasing an album that had delivered such critical, commercial, and generational shockwaves, The Beatles faced the inevitable question of what they could possibly do to top it. The next full-length album, whatever it was, was destined to draw considerable scrutiny. The intervening release of Magical Mystery Tour notwithstanding (released as a double-EP package in the UK), The Beatles represented the group’s first major musical statement since Sgt. Pepper, and thus was a highly anticipated event for both the mainstream press and the youth-oriented counter-culture movement with which the band had by this time become strongly associated. Expectations, to say the least, were high.
The reviews were mixed to mostly positive.
* Tony Palmer, in The Observer, wrote shortly after the album’s release: “If there is still any doubt that Lennon and McCartney are the greatest songwriters since Schubert, then … the album The Beatles … should surely see the last vestiges of cultural snobbery and bourgeois prejudice swept away in a deluge of joyful music making…”
* Richard Goldstein, writing in The New York Times on 8 December 1968, described the album as a “major success.”
* Another review in The New York Times, this one by Nik Cohn, considered the album “boring beyond belief” and described “more than half the songs” as “profound mediocrities.”
* Alan Smith, in an NME review entitled “The Brilliant, the Bad, and the Ugly,” derided “Revolution #9” as a “pretentious” example of “idiot immaturity” and, in the following sentence, assigned the benediction “God Bless You, Beatles!” to “most of the rest” of the album.
* The New Rolling Stone Album Guide praises the album but maintains that it has “loads of self-indulgent filler,” identifying “Revolution #9” in particular as “justly maligned,” and suggests that listeners in the CD era, who can program digital players to skip over unwanted tracks, may have an advantage over the album’s original audience.
Some contemporary critics say the album’s inclusion of supposedly extraneous material is a part of its appeal. Stephen Thomas Erlewine’s review for Allmusic contends that:
* “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.”
One important current trend in critical assessments of the album is to draw parallels between the band’s disintegrating ensemble and the chaotic events of the tumultuous year in which The Beatles was created, 1968. Along these lines, Slant Magazine observed that:
* “(The album) reveals the popping seams of a band that had the pressure of an entire fissuring generational/political gap on its back. Maybe it’s because it shows The Beatles at the point where even their music couldn’t hide the underlying tensions between John, Paul, George, and Ringo, or maybe because it was (coincidentally?) released at the tail end of a year anyone could agree was the embittered honeymoon’s end for the Love Generation, the year when, to borrow from a famous Yeats poem, the center decidedly could not hold … for whatever reason, The Beatles is still one of the few albums by the Fab Four that resists reflexive canonization, which, along with society’s continued fragmentation, keeps the album fresh and surprising.”
In 1997, The Beatles was named the 10th greatest album of all time in a ‘Music of the Millennium’ poll conducted by HMV, Channel 4, The Guardian and Classic FM. In 1998, Q magazine readers placed it at number 17, while in 2000 the same magazine placed it at number seven in its list of the 100 Greatest British Albums Ever.
In 2001, the TV network VH1 named it as the 11th greatest album ever.
It was ranked number 10 in Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time in 2003.
In 2006, the album was chosen by Time Magazine as one of the 100 best albums of all time.
On the 40th anniversary of the album’s release the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, published a lengthy article which declared that “Forty years later, this album remains a type of magical musical anthology: 30 songs you can go through and listen to at will, certain of finding some pearls that even today remain unparalleled.” Forgiving Lennon’s “more popular than Jesus” remark, the paper called the White Album the “creative summit” of the Beatles’ career, comparing it favourably to contemporary music and taking note of the now antiquated equipment used, concluding that “a listening experience like that offered by the Beatles is truly rare.”
Ian MacDonald, in his book Revolution in the Head, argues that The Beatles was the album in which the band’s cryptic messages to its fan base became not merely vague but intentionally and perhaps dangerously open-ended, citing oblique passages in songs like “Glass Onion” (e.g., “the walrus was Paul”) and “Piggies” (“what they need’s a damn good whacking”). These pronouncements, and many others on the album, came to attract extraordinary popular interest at a time when more of the world’s youth were using drugs recreationally and looking for spiritual, political, and strategic advice from The Beatles. Steve Turner, too, in his book A Hard Day’s Write, maintains that, with this album, “The Beatles had perhaps laid themselves open to misinterpretation by mixing up the languages of poetry and nonsense.” Bob Dylan’s songs had been similarly mined for hidden meanings, but the massive countercultural analysis of The Beatles surpassed anything that had gone before.
Even Lennon’s seemingly direct engagement with the tumultuous political issues of 1968 in “Revolution 1” carried a nuanced obliqueness, and ended up sending messages the author may not have intended. In the album’s version of the song, Lennon advises those who “talk about destruction” to “count me out.” As McDonald notes, however, Lennon then follows the sung word “out” with the spoken word “in.” At the time of the album’s release — which followed, chronologically, the up-tempo single version of the song, “Revolution” — that single word “in” was taken by many on the radical left as Lennon’s acknowledgment, after considered thought, that violence in the pursuit of political aims was indeed justified in some cases. At a time of increasing unrest in the streets and campuses of Paris and Berkeley, the album’s lyrics seemed to many to mark a reversal of Lennon’s position on the question, which was hotly debated during this period. However, the recording chronology belies the interpretation that from the single to the album Lennon moved from a definite position to one of ambivalence, since despite the single’s earlier release it was the album version that was recorded first.
Cult leader Charles Manson persuaded members of his “family” that the album was an apocalyptic message predicting a prolonged race war and justifying the murder of wealthy people.
In October 1969, a Detroit radio program began to promote theories based on clues supposedly left on The Beatles and other Beatles albums that Paul McCartney had died and been replaced by a lookalike. The ensuing hunt for clues to a cover up, that The Beatles presumably wanted to suppress (and simultaneously publicise), became one of the classic examples of an urban legend.
As it was their first studio album in almost eighteen months (and coming after the blockbuster success of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band) expectations were high at time of release of The Beatles. The album debuted at number one in the UK on 1 December 1968, (becoming their third album to do so, after Help! and Revolver). It spent seven weeks at the top of the UK charts (including the entire competitive Christmas season), until it was replaced by The Seekers’ Best of the Seekers on 25 January 1969, dropping to number two. However, the album returned to the top spot the next week, spending an eighth and final week at number one. Then, it spent another four weeks on the Top 10, and then dropped the charts quicker than Sgt. Pepper. The White Album was particularly notable for blocking the Beatles follow-up album, Yellow Submarine, which debuted (and peaked at) number three on 8 February 1969, the same week The White Album was dominating the second position on the charts. In all, The Beatles spent 24 weeks on the UK charts, far less than the more than 200 weeks for Sgt. Pepper’s).
In the United States, the album was received with huge commercial success. It debuted at number 11, jumped to number two, and reached number one in its third week, spending a total of nine weeks at the top. In all, The Beatles spent 155 weeks on the Billboard 200. According to the Recording Industry Association of America, The Beatles is The Beatles’ best-selling album at 19-times platinum and the tenth-best-selling album of all time in the United States. (Each sale is counted as 2 sales, because “The Beatles” is a double record set.)
Two re-issues in 1978 (one by Capitol Records, the other by Parlophone) saw the album pressed on white vinyl, completing the look of the “white” album. In 1985, EMI Electrola released a DMM (direct metal mastering) white vinyl pressing of the album in Germany, which was imported to the United States in large numbers. Another popular white vinyl pressing was manufactured in France. The 1978 Parlophone white vinyl export pressing and the German DMM pressing are considered by many to be the best-sounding versions of the album. This is due to the use of the famed Neumann lathe on the 1978 export pressing and the use of the DMM process on the 1985 pressing.
On 7 January 1982, Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab (MFSL) released the album in a non-embossed unnumbered version of cover with the ORIGINAL MASTER RECORDING banner at the top. Neither the poster nor portraits were included. The labels to the discs are white with primarily black text and the Capitol dome logo at three o’clock. The MFSL discs were made with Super Vinyl, a heavy and hard compound that provides an extraordinary quiet playing surface. Although MFSL leased the album from Capitol and used the company’s sub-master, many fans believe they sound superior to the standard British and American pressings. The discs were stored in “rice paper” static-free, dust-free inner sleeves enclosed in an off-white gatefold reinforced stiff board that fit into the custom fabricated album jacket.
The album was first released on CD on 25 August 1987.
In 1998, a 30th anniversary reissue of the album was released. The packaging of this release is virtually identical to its vinyl counterpart. It has the same pure white gatefold cover, complete with the title The BEATLES in a slightly raised, embossed graphic at a slight angle. It also included the now-classic sequentially numbered serial number on the front of this cover, thus making this one a real limited edition. The interior of this cover features the song titles on the left-hand side, and the four black-and-white photos of the group members on the right. This version of the cover even accurately mimics the original British vinyl pressing from 1968, with the openings for the discs at the top rather than the sides. There are miniatures of the four full-colour glossy portrait photos included, as well as an exact replica of the poster with the photo collage on one side, and the album’s complete song lyrics on the opposite side. The CDs are housed in black sleeves, which were also used for the original British album. This commemorative double CD album is housed in a clear plastic slipcase.
On 9 September 2009, new remasters of all The Beatles studio albums were released. For this new release, the slipcover holding the CD digipak is embossed in much the same style as the original sleeve. Although there is no serial number on the front, there is a serial number printed along the edges of the CD version.
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Back in the U.S.S.R.
The Beatles Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Flew in from Miami Beach BOAC
Didn't get to bed last night
On the way the paper bag was on my knee
Man, I had a dreadful flight
I'm back in the USSR
You don't know how lucky you are, boy
Back in the USSR, yeah
Been away so long I early knew the place
Gee, it's good to be back home
Leave it till tomorrow to unpack my case
Honey disconnect the phone
I'm back in the USSR
You don't know how lucky you are, boy
Back in the US
Back in the US
Back in the USSR
Well the Ukraine girls really knock me out
They leave the west behind
And Moscow girls make me sing and shout
That Georgia's always on my my my my my my my my my mind
Oh, come on
Hu hey hu, hey, ah, yeah
Yeah, yeah, yeah
I'm back in the USSR
You don't know how lucky you are, boys
Back in the USSR
Well the Ukraine girls really knock me out
They leave the west behind
And Moscow girls make me sing and shout
That Georgia's always on my my my my my my my my my mind
Oh, show me round your snow peaked
Mountain way down south
Take me to your daddy's farm
Let me hear your balalaika's ringing out
Come and keep your comrade warm
I'm back in the USSR
Hey, you don't know how lucky you are, boy
Back in the USSR
Oh, let me tell you, honey
Didn't get to bed last night
On the way the paper bag was on my knee
Man, I had a dreadful flight
I'm back in the USSR
You don't know how lucky you are, boy
Back in the USSR, yeah
Been away so long I early knew the place
Gee, it's good to be back home
Leave it till tomorrow to unpack my case
Honey disconnect the phone
I'm back in the USSR
You don't know how lucky you are, boy
Back in the US
Back in the US
Back in the USSR
Well the Ukraine girls really knock me out
They leave the west behind
And Moscow girls make me sing and shout
That Georgia's always on my my my my my my my my my mind
Oh, come on
Hu hey hu, hey, ah, yeah
Yeah, yeah, yeah
I'm back in the USSR
You don't know how lucky you are, boys
Back in the USSR
Well the Ukraine girls really knock me out
They leave the west behind
And Moscow girls make me sing and shout
That Georgia's always on my my my my my my my my my mind
Oh, show me round your snow peaked
Mountain way down south
Take me to your daddy's farm
Let me hear your balalaika's ringing out
Come and keep your comrade warm
I'm back in the USSR
Hey, you don't know how lucky you are, boy
Back in the USSR
Oh, let me tell you, honey
"Back in USSR" is one of The Beatles' classic hits, produced by George Martin, released in 1968. The song narrates the story of a traveler who had journeyed from Miami Beach to Moscow, and now ecstatic at returning, celebrates the experience by praising the Ukrainian and Moscow girls while coaxing his sweetheart to show him around the city.
The song gives us an idea of the influence of American culture on The Beatles and especially Paul McCartney. He explained in an interview how he was excited by the idea of playing rock and roll in the Soviet Union. But the lyrics "Back in the USSR," according to McCartney, were intended for the Beach Boys to parody Chuck Berry's "Back In The USA."
The first verse of the song describes the traveler's experience, his struggle with the air travel, and the emergence of “Paper Bag” problems. He says, “Man, I had a dreadful flight”, showing his frustration with the airline.
The traveler sings with glee while returning to the USSR after being away for so long. He expresses his excitement, noticing the beauty of Ukrainian girls and their emerging culture. He, again, expresses his satisfaction, saying "Gee, it's good to be back home" in the second verse.
The upbeat tempo of this song and the catchy lyrics that often resonate with the listeners make it seem like a happy song to some fans. It is perhaps one of the most recognizable tracks in The Beatles' anthology, and it often signifies with the memories of the group's early work.
Line by Line Meaning
Flew in from Miami Beach BOAC
I flew from Miami Beach with BOAC airline.
Didn't get to bed last night
I didn't have a chance to sleep last night.
On the way the paper bag was on my knee
During the flight, I had a paper bag on my knee.
Man, I had a dreadful flight
My flight was really bad.
I'm back in the USSR
I have returned to the USSR.
You don't know how lucky you are, boy
You should consider yourself fortunate to live in the USSR.
Been away so long I barely knew the place
I have been gone for so long that I barely recognize the place.
Gee, it's good to be back home
It feels great to be back home.
Leave it till tomorrow to unpack my case
I plan to unpack my luggage tomorrow.
Honey disconnect the phone
Please disconnect the phone, my loved one.
Well the Ukraine girls really knock me out
The girls in Ukraine are extremely attractive.
They leave the west behind
Compared to women in the west, the girls in Ukraine are far better.
And Moscow girls make me sing and shout
The girls in Moscow make me excited and euphoric.
That Georgia's always on my mind
I often think about Georgia.
Show me round your snow peaked mountain way down south
Take me to explore the snow-capped mountains in the south.
Take me to your daddy's farm
Please introduce me to your father's farm.
Let me hear your balalaika's ringing out
I want to hear the sound of your balalaika.
Come and keep your comrade warm
Spend some time with me and keep me warm, my comrade.
Hey, you don't know how lucky you are, boy
You should realize how fortunate you are to live in the USSR.
Oh, let me tell you, honey
Let me explain to you, my loved one.
Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Written by: John Lennon, Paul McCartney
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
Philip Kassabian
on Mother Nature's Son
A really great Beatles song.
Philip Kassabian
on The Night Before
A really splendid Beatles song.
Philip Kassabian
on P.S. I Love You
Now this is a really great Beatles song.
Philip Kassabian
on There's a Place
A seriously underrated Beatles song.
Philip Kassabian
on Do You Want to Know a Secret
A fantastic song by The Beatles.
Philip Kassabian
on When I'm Sixty-Four
A very tuneful Beatles song.
Philip Kassabian
on Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds
An excellent Beatles song.
Philip Kassabian
on I'm Looking Through You
A beautiful Beatles song.
Philip Kassabian
on Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)
Honestly The Beatles can't stop producing good songs.
Philip Kassabian
on Michelle
A fantastic Beatles song and absolutely beautiful.