For the biggest band in history, The Beatles’ process was often a total mess. While their debut album was famously recorded in ten hours as the band seemed to burst to life with all the productivity and power that would make them stars, every album after that got harder and harder. When it comes to one late album, it’s a miracle it made it to release, even though McCartney says, in hindsight, it worked.
The saying goes that what comes up must come down, and really, from the second the Beatles hit the dizzying heights of their fame, the sharp descent was always destined to happen. What had once begun as a band of friends simply making music because they loved it had now become a huge machine. With so many external pressures and an insane amount of eyes on them, The Beatles show that even the tightest of dynamics can be cracked under the weight. Because whereas other bands might slowly decline musically, with their output becoming worse or getting more rushed, the Fab Four stayed sonically sound, it was their relationships that suffered.
By the time their final albums came around, they were in a strange place. Musically, they were still pushing into pioneering places. After Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and the removal of the restraint to be able to play their music live, their sound became incredibly experimental and bold as they were free from the shackles of making simple rock and roll. That is obviously a great thing, but as their working relationships were breaking apart, making collaboration less regular and songwriting more isolated, it was hard to corral the members and ensure they were moving in the same direction.
That splintered nature is most obvious on The White Album. One look at the vast, sprawling tracklist provides a perfect portrait of where the band were at, as they were prolific and still excited by music but personally disconnected. As everyone had gone to their own corners to make music, everyone wanted their stuff on the record. No one would compromise, leading to a mammoth album with no through path.
When you put it that way, it makes The White Album sound like a mess. If you’d never heard it before, you’d assume it would be a chaotic, untethered record that was hard to engage with as a whole. But somehow, it’s not. That seems to take Paul McCartney by surprise, too.
Unable to remove the record from the context of memory, McCartney will always be the first to admit that The White Album represents a tricky period. “It wasn’t a pleasant one to make,” he said. However, looking at it with hindsight, he sees the silver lining.
“I think it was a very good album. It stood up,” he said, admitting that despite the carnage going on behind the scenes, the Beatles still pulled off a great album. Looking on the brighter said, he claimed, “Sometimes those things work for your art. The fact that it’s got so much on it is one of the things that’s cool about it.”
Even though The White Album ended up being a sprawling beast, undeniably capturing the band at their most volatile and rocky, maybe that’s the beauty of it. Allowing their personal lives to be embedded in the art, the record is a moment of their history, both sonically and socially.
