One of my Beatles loving friends recently challenged me to whittle the White Album down to one ten track album in running order. An ultimately pointless, but interesting exercise. Anyone else care to give it a shot? I'll post mine when you've finished.
6 comments:
Good Lord, I knew this would be difficult, but it's next to impossible. In non-sequenced order:
1) Back in the U.S.S.R.
2) Glass Onion
3) While My Guitar Gently Weeps
4) I'm So Tired
5) Blackbird
6) I Will
7) Birthday
8) Helter Skelter
9) Revolution 1
10) Cry Baby Cry
Next!
I'm workin' on it, Dave.
Like Jay, I'd shade towards the first album:
1. Back in the USSR
2. While My Guitar
3. Ob-la-di (how could you leave that out?"
4. Bungalow Bill
5. So Tired
6. I Will
7. Revolutions 1
8. Glass Onion
9. Happiness is a Warm Gun
10. Rocky Raccoon
Apologies to Blackbird and Helter Skelter.
I had Ob-La-Di in my original list, but it got squeezed out by Glass Onion. This album has a lot of - not filler, let's call them curiosities (Revolution 9, Wild Honey Pie, Good Night) - that make the winnowing a little easier, but there are just too many good ones here to keep it to 10. If I could add one more, it would be Ob-La-Di, and if I could add one more after that, it would be Happiness.
C'mon, Joe! (And where's Dave's list?)
Glass Onion
Dear Prudence
Sexy Sadie
Happiness is a Warm Gun
I Will
Julia
Long Long Long
While My Guitar Gently Weeps
I'm So Tired
Good Night
The thing that surprised me is how heavily I favored the Lennon compositions on the White Album. Trust me, I'm a huge Paul fan, but a lot his contributions qualified as pastiche on this album, kind of a "look at me and all the styles I can write in". There's music hall (Honey Pie), metal (Helter Skelter), Beach Boys (USSR), western (Rocky Racoon), Kinksish British stuff (Martha), etc. It pains me to leave Blackbird off, but I had to make room for the George songs, especially Long Long Long, my favorite Harrisong.
I must admit I felt bad for leaving off a Harrison tune, but my guilt was for Piggies.
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