The White Album

On this date the Beatles began work on what came to be known as the White Album, released in November 1968. The sessions continued through mid-October, including the non-album single “Hey Jude”/“Revolution.” After the lavish “Sgt. Pepper” cover and blowback from the “Magical Mystery Tour” debacle, they decided this LP would have a stark white cover with just the band’s name on the front. It became a double album partly to finish out their contract sooner. The songs were mainly written while they were in India studying Transcendental Meditation. The actual sessions were, in a word, contentious. The ego war between John and Paul reached a low point, exacerbated even more over the next few albums. George was ticked he wasn’t being taken seriously as a songwriter by Lennon and McCartney. Yoko’s constant presence in the studio and John’s drug issues didn’t help. Things deteriorated to where Ringo quit the band for almost two weeks and had to be coaxed into coming back. (Paul played drums on “Back In The USSR.”) It wasn’t so much a group effort, as only about half the tracks had all four members playing, yet the songs were mostly brilliant - with a few clunkers. Once again the Beatles didn’t just break the rules, they wrote new ones for everyone else to follow. The White Album remains a watershed moment in rock music history.