White Album Trimmed...

Wasting time has always been one of my specialties. So when The Beatles White Album celebrated its 43rd birthday this past Tuesday... I turned to producer George Martin's long-held statement that he wished they could have released it as a stronger single record.

What do you keep? Which songs go to the dustbin? And how much do you change the sequence? Because years of listening has trained the ear to think "Dear Prudence" after "Back in the USSR" and "I Will" after "Why Don't we Do it in the Road?".

Now I set about the revamped White Album with a few guidelines:

1-- Balance between the writers. That means 5 songs each for John & Paul... 3 for George and 1 for Ringo. Also in sequencing the songs the goal was to have no back-to-back songs by the same primary writer.

2-- Post positions-- the Beatles took great care in the sequencing of the albums they had control over (all UK releases and all US releases from Pepper onwards)... and that meant beginning with a bang... finishing with a flourish... and building a bridge between the sides.
"Taxman"sets the tone for Revolver..."Ticket to Ride" makes you want to flip the side on Help!... "Here Comes the Sun" opens Abbey Road's side two with ease and "Twist and Shout" ends Please Please Me with an exclamation point.

3--Single spotlight-- I took the liberty of removing "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" from the pool because with a 14- track album they probably would have looked to release another song as a 45... and Paul had been pushing this one like nothing else (much to the others dismay). But it's catchy in a "Hello Goodbye" way-- George Martin would have pushed for it-- and having "Everybody's Got Something to Hide, Except for Me and My Monkey" follows the trend of John's earthier stuff backing Paul's commercial fare ("Walrus/Goodbye", "Revolution/Hey Jude").

So here we go...

Side A--
1-Back in the USSR
2-Dear Prudence
3-Piggies
4-Don't Pass Me By
5-Glass Onion
6-Blackbird
7-While My Guitar Gently Weeps

Can't shake the starting sequence that's been ingrained for 43 years... the plane's engines are like the opening chord on "A Hard Day's Night". I also wanted to bring George and Ringo in early on side one. I tried to balance the rockers and ballads as well as sarcasm and idealism (Glass Onion/Blackbird). Plus-- "Guitar" is a nice Side A closer in the same vein as "She Said She Said" or "Michelle"... you felt fulfilled but your appetite for more is in play.

Side B
1-Helter Skelter
2-Julia
3-Rocky Raccoon
4-Savoy Truffle
5-Cry Baby Cry
6-I Will
7-Happiness is a Warm Gun

From the harsh to the soft to the sublime (Paul's narrative is memorable but George's recounting of different chocolates that Eric Clapton likes is pure gold). John goes from reflective to haunting to the final song that's literally helter skelter-- three different styles and tempos somehow stitched together. Their better finishing tracks summed up the album's tone while also letting the curtain come down. After hearing "Tomorrow Never Knows" or "A Day in the Life"... I was cool with silence for a little bit. One reason I think the double album suffers is by placing "Happiness" at the end of side one the listener gets completely sucked into the song-- it takes a while to get back into things on side two. I'd mentally go to lunch until about halfway through "Blackbird".

Easy Cuts-- "Honey Pie" and "Revolution #9"... opposite ends of the spectrum-- one could have been released in 1938... and the other maybe in 2038.

Tough Cuts--"Why Don't we do it in the Road?" is a fantastic track but has B-Side written all over it like "I'm Down".