when i get to the bottom i go back to the top of the WHITE ALBUM POLL

"Savoy Truffle" -- one of Harrison's few cranky songs with a sense of humor. Plus, GREAT horns and guitar solo.

otm!!

Prediction: I'll be the only one to vote for "Martha My Dear."

The only reason I voted for it is because its the song on this album most likely to just pop up in my head, though this album is an abundance of riches to be sure.

while my guitar...has so many great moments...i have to vote for it

"Julia" played at the right time and place is magical

This is impossible. Have mercy on us, and at least divide it into sides.

sooooo tough but I went with "why don't we do it in the road?"

"Wild Honey Pie" - I used to think it was a measure of their freedom. Now I think it songifies the ADD eclecticism and endless details that lend this album its identity and render it so suitable for obsessive listening.

Otherwise, its masterpiece is clearly "Happiness Is a Warm Gun."

Oh and shame on you, Whiney.

Oh I don't know, I don't know. Blackbird is the song I play on guitar to impress girls (it's one of the only non-strummy songs I can play), Piggies I always thought was hilarious when I was a teenager, Long Long Long is great, Cry Baby Cry, Rocky Raccoon. They're all important to me. Even Bungalow Bill I like.

The problem is, this is probably my favorite post-weed Beatles LP. And it's a double-fucking album. "Strawberry Fields" and some others are untouchable, but they're technically singles; so aside from that, I like the speed-era Beatles, I guess.

or prefer the speed-era Beatles, rather.

looking at this list, what amazes me most is how many songs i don't want to vote for. i voted for "i will."

Long Long Long.

For some reason I always thought it was a Lennon song. When I found it was George, I had Harrison-fever for weeks and listened to All Things Must Pass every night.

After going through the list and thinking about how much I love all these songs, I went with Revolution #9. It is such a tense, creepy record, and then it just goes to a whole other level of weirdness. Love it or hate it, it is a pretty singular experience. Or maybe I just like the memory of spinning it backward on my first turntable...turn me on, dead man...

Blackbird is the song I play on guitar to impress girls (it's one of the only non-strummy songs I can play)

heh i think it was the first non-strummy song i learned.
i went with long, long, long too, i love almost every minute of the album but time kinda stops when lll comes up. george was an alright dude.

I think I will be the only one voting for "Good Night". A very touching vocal, and it sounds like a soundtrack to some classic Hollywood movie. It feels like the least Beatlesy song there is, which is not why I like it so much, but it really speaks to their versatility. Also Ringo is my fav dude.

Second choice is helta skelta cos it cranks hard.

I might be the only one to vote for "Glass Onion."

"Blackbird"

Tim Ellison must be on vacation.

It is tough to decide. "Back in the USSR" was my favorite as a kid, and I still like it, especially the part with the Beach Boys satire. "Dear Prudence" is the one that sticks in my head. "Happiness is a warm gun" has a nice episodic quality, with three distinct parts. "Julia" is gorgeous. But I'm going to have to go with "While My Guitar..". It seems deeper than the rest, and I'm always compelled to listen closely whenever I hear it.

Another possible title:

c'mon, c'mon! c'mon, c'mon! Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My WHITE ALBUM POLL!!!

GOOD NIGHT.

and people who say it's "treacly" and the like? go and watch HENRY PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER or something.

"Yer Blues" is rubbish. There are so many crap songs on this album, I hardly know where to start!

where's Geir?

I voted for Sexy Sadie because among many strange, evocative songs, I feel its pull a little more than any other, today at least.

Long Long Long was also in my mind.

Then I realised I should really have voted for Revolution #9.

Ah well, I hope others will.

Well, I did.

It's strange, and you can say oh look at the contrarian..

But it still has that sense of 'theatre' about how Cry Baby Cry finishes (a good second place, possibly), and the "can you take me back" fades in, along with the "wine" chat, and suddenly into the dislocation of it all.

Destroy: Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Back in the U.S.S.R, Helter Skelter, Birthday, Why Don't We Do It in the Road?

Sublime: Glass Onion, Julia, Martha My Dear, Blackbird, Happiness Is a Warm Gun.

Think my vote will have to go to Julia.

Revolution #9's good too, but doesn't give me the chills.

Long Long Long

Crazy tough, but I'm going with "Helter Skelter."

Runner up: "Martha My Dear" (lovely, silly song)

"Revolution #9" still gives me the creeps.

Ooh -- "Glass Onion" -- huge fave as well.

It gives me the creeps, the chills, the sense of theatre, the sense of reaching for the stars. Fragments of it often run through my mind.

x-post

Everybody's Got Something To Hide... is the secret best track. Those cow-bells(?) at the start, then big screamy vocals for a bit, and then "everybody's got something TO HIIIIDE 'cept for me and my WAH-WAH-WAH-WA-AH-WAH-WAH!"

"Mother Nature's Son" for the "Find me in my field of grass" lyric.

julia. the most beautiful love song in the world.

The opening line and that circular rhythm. That's all Julia is, to me, and it's perfect.

Sexy Sadie. If it was an animal it would be a spider. Also considered: Happiness is a Warm Gun (snake), Cry Baby Cry (stray dog) or Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except Me and My Monkey (monkey).

I predict no votes for Birthday (goldfish), Piggies (slug) and Don't Pass Me By (labrador). The rest could all get some, though I can't see much reason to vote for Glass Onion (siamese cat) or While My Guitar Gently Weeps (block of granite).

"Birthday" is fine, as is "Glass Onion"

"Piggies" is shit tho. "Don't Pass Me By" worse.

i like "don't pass me by." a truly wacky recording, but it's got the bones of a good countryish rock song.

The barest of bones

"Piggies" is great!!!

I've always fucking hated "Rocky Racoon." After recording that, Paul SHOULD'VE been dead.

Ugh, that was weak.

I like "Rocky Racoon"!

Snap vote for Sexy Sadie.

"Glass Onion" - garbage.

I voted "Happiness Is A Warm Gun" which is one of maybe six songs I even like on this album

I went with "I'm So Tired". That "I wonder should I call you..." part.

This is pretty goofy, but when I was a teenager making the 90-minute trip between my two parents' houses, I'd sing the White Album to myself out of boredom. I got pretty good with the timing though "Revolution #9" was tricky.

I'll also give credit to Paul for being dominant on Revolver or even Abbey Road, but The Beatles was the one album where Lennon won hands-down. McCartney seems to have started hinting at his Wings schmaltz right around this time.

(I like the schmaltz. It just doesn't compare to "Happiness is a Warm Gun".)

There's some real rubbish from Lennon on this album though

My friends and I once issued a design challenge, in which we made journal designs to represent each song on this album. Oh, I wish I had it accessible to show you guys 'cause it was awesome! At any rate - I'm going for Rocky Raccoon, coincidentally my best design.

Count me as someone who thinks the winner is a rather dubious (least aggressive word I can come up with) #1.

"Long, Long, Long" and "Martha My Dear" would be my picks. My third got zero votes: "Don't Pass Me By."

The great thing about Beatles albums is how you can know every single detail of them by heart, for years, and still individual songs and moments can sneak up on you and hit the exact right note at the right time. Feel like the White Album is maybe the epitome of this just for having so much stuff floating around. Like, the ending of "I'm So Tired" just hit me like a stack of bricks. Damn.

(accidentally misposted to the "worst song" thread, reposting)

The title and cover of this is weird: it implies austerity and restraint whereas the album is both the most playful and heterogeneous albums the Beatles releases. Malevich would not approve.

not necessarily... it could imply a blank canvas, suggesting a world of possibilities lie within.

Maybe... Isnt white "all colors" and black is "no colors." that might be what they were thinking. Still, the album is full of genre experiments and is very pop art whereas blank white canvasses, in 1968, suggested an Ab-Ex sensibility, maybe.

Idk it just feels like the wrong cover for that album to me.

it's meant to look like conceptual art

it is

i don't really get yr point

none more white

The cover is part and parcel of the album's charisma, especially in how it doesn't "fit"

Results of this poll are so suspect

iirc McCartney wanted it to be the complete opposite of Sgt Pepper

Some artist dude set up the album art. I don't think it was The Beatles' idea.

But yeah, pop-art and abstract both equally fit for this record IMO.

plus idk, with all the tension in the band the absence of artwork feels like a fuck you, and the way the album is just a huge melange of song styles is kind of a fuck you too

from wikipedia

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."[citation needed

Interesting. I forgot about the serial numbers.

Woah, never knew it was Richard Hamilton! I really only know him by the 50s collage stuff (''What Is It That Makes Today's Homes'' etc etc), so I don't know how this fits into his work but it's interesting since he would also have been known for kind of a four-color pop-culture maximalism, not dissimilar from the Pepper cover.

I think the cover works well for the reasons Treeship gives. If I had to give it another cover it'd probably be something like Revolver: four separate personalities, airy and bright from a distance but crowded and weird and bashing-into-each-other up close.

yeah Hamilton's work doesn't really hint at the austerity of the White album cover --- which kind of impresses me, that he could serve the needs of the project so perfectly by coming up with something that was not only anathema to what the band had been known for, but also kind of anathema to what he was artistically known for

it's so cool

I changed my mind. The cover's alright.

speaking of covers, just saw the cover for this thing -- kind of terrible?
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61-AXldtQDL._SL1500_.jpg

oh yuk

it looks like a SingStar box

'Revolution #9' took this? Oh, ILX.

wow that really does look terrible

it's really annoying me

it wasn't my fault, i voted for julia...

Hamilton's work doesn't really hint at the austerity of the White album cover

He did the poster also.

Only on ILM could Revolution 9 win. It's ridiculous and brilliant at the same time,

i like it but i think it's insane that anything beat long, long, long.

i'd like to note for the record that my vote, for "i will," was wrong.

i still think it's a great song, though.

it seems I did not vote? sb me

xp that's not a bad vote at all. i thought for a second this was the "worst song" thread and was momentarily scandalized.