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

i totally forgot how much I love "I Will". People sometimes favor "Here, There, and Everywhere" among sappy McCartney songs, but I like "I Will" much better.

I can't believe Rev 9 was number one. should've been Happiness.

Also no votes for Honey Pie? That's a great song.

voting rev 9 first strikes me as...insouciant but i happen to like it myself so why not? good list, they can't all be someone's favorite.
(id've saved "don't pass me by" from the goose egg)

Why in the world is a general preference of Long Long Long an example of ILM revisionism?

Well, for many years it was just another example of Harrison boringness.

"Revolution 9" – 8:13 17
"Revolution 1" – 4:15 0

there's no way 17 people made the same error, is there? this is worse proto-indie bullshit than that 1967 poll where Piper At The Gates and VU beat every populist classic rock LP.

Long, Long, Long is a fantastic song. I think the most overlooked tracks are the better ones really. (After 25+ years of listening anyway)

"Revolution 9" – 8:13 17
"Revolution 1" – 4:15 0

it ain't my number one song on this album, but between those two choices, i'd say that's 17 smart votes.

revolution >> revolution 9 >> revolution 1

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.

I really love "Good Night". The version on Anthology 3 (Ringo + piano --->fade-in to the orchestra backing) I would say is actually superior, and quite moving.

I missed the vote, but would probably give it to "Happiness is a Warm Gun", followed closely by "Julia" and "Mother Nature's Son".

"Dear Prudence" is an okay song, but never been really smitten with it. I respect "Blackbird" and can see why people would vote it #1, but strangely don't like it as much as I feel I should.

Have to agree with the above about "Revolution #9" taking the gold.

Oh yeah! Revolution #9 all the way! So happy with the results of this poll....

And exactly the right #2...the weird time changes, the backing and lead vocals, are just amazing

great result!

Pitchfork indier-than-thou mentality strikes again.

Worst.poll.ever.

I do like "Rev 9" and for the reasons so lucidly laid out above. Still, as with many of the P&J polls, I suspect results-skewing gremlins at work.

What's next, "Cambridge 1969" better than "Taxman??"

Well, no. But "No Bed For Beatle John" would give it a run for its tax dollars. I derive genuine pleasure from "No Bed For Beatle John" and have listened to it many times.

I am unsure who gabbneb thinks are morons. The people who did or didn't vote for those songs?

Ditto.

I so don't get the apparent distaste for "Glass Onion" and "Savoy Truffle." Must be the lyrics about which, as with most songs, I know close to nothing.

Well, in the interest of full disclosure, I quite like "No Bed For Beatle John" a lot, too. But not more than "Taxman"

The results are a disaster. The winner in particular. Also sprach The Beatles haters.

but geir, "revolution 9" is the most harmonically complex work the beatles ever made! it's pan-tonal!

yeah, i voted for it, and it's in my beatles top 10 right alongside "she loves you", "money" (no, they didn't write "money"...not like it matters anyway), and most of side two of abbey road. you can't call us beatles haters and get away with it.

and anyway, the REAL beatles-haters actually made a movie!
(which somehow manages to be more embarrassingly dated than the 40-year-old magical mystery tour)

The only typical Beatles song among the ones you mentioned is "She Loves You". The rest are all unrepresentative.

Geir, did you vote in this poll?

rev. 9 is ably argued for upthread. by people who don't hate the beatles, even.

-- tipsy mothra, Friday, 21 September 2007 00:46 (7 hours ago) Bookmark Link

Honey Pie and that other one you said, G, are not the highpoints of the album.

"I will" is so slight, but so perfect.

Admittedly, "Rev 1" getting zero is wrong, but then...

Revolution 1 is pretty damn good. Not as good as the original version, but great all the same.

Maybe someone said this I can't be fucked reading the threwad but Glass Onion IS a fucking parody you fucking idiot

Ps fuckity fuck fuck fuck!

Yeah it's a parody, but it's also quite creepy. It works on different levels.

"it's a GOAL!"

Why in the world is a general preference of Long Long Long an example of ILM revisionism?

I was going to ask this.

Well, for many years it was just another example of Harrison boringness

Oh, was it? My attention must have been elsewhere during those years. Neither did I consider the ILX 'revisionist' agenda, whatever that is. I simply voted for it because it's absolutely fucking magical on every level, and it means a lot to me personally - the way it gently just arrives quietly; the lovely mellotron over the opening acoustic guitar; Harrison's 'how could I ever have lost you/when I loved you?' punctuated by the ascending mellotron(or organ) line and Ringo's magnificent roll down the tom-toms. More? The piano under 'so many tears I was searching/so many tears I was wasting'; the rising 'oh, oh' climax to those lines, the clashing, wailing outro.

I love how it feels like a small-hours, one-take improvisation that somehow became more than that. Magical.

Geir, did you vote in this poll?

I didn't see it on time. Probably would have voted for "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" I guess.

But I don't really like the album at lot at all. Even the good stuff is below par when compared to the work of genius they used to do from 63 to 67.

That's lovely, Dr. C. Certainly you're not wrong. I was citing just about every Beatle book published in the last 30 years in which "Long Long Long" is either patted on the back or dismissed as a trifle; and a resurrection of Harrison as some kind of major songwriter is definitely a new development (i.e. the last 10 years, although I guess the RS crowd thought he was until 1973). And, hell, I voted for "Savoy Truffle" so what do I know.

Ian McDonald rates LLL, I think - I'll have to re-read. Also wasn't George kind of instantaneously promoted to a higly rated songwriter with Something and Here Comes The Sun on Abbey Road.

Ian Mcdonald definitely rates LLL, from what I remember.

...Revolution 9 doesn't do much for me, I mean, it's certainly more listenable than lots of people would have you believe, but there are tracks on here that I can and do play ALL the time and I have a hard time thinking people do that with Revolution 9. Also, I think if it was a straight run off between Revolution 9 and any of the other tracks placing immediately below it, the former probably wouldn't get much more than 17 votes. Having said all that, I'm kind of glad Revolution 9 won the poll, it's sui generis.

ohhh "revolution 1" is 'revolution! shut out! I guess the single version renders (1) kind of superfluous but still.

I love how it feels like a small-hours, one-take improvisation that somehow became more than that.

Well put.

I would like to retract my Rocky Raccoon vote so that 'Don't Pass Me By' gets at least one!

"Revolution 9" is okay but too long. It would've been better edited down to a 2-3 min pop-song length, and in-keeping with the rest of the album.

wtf @ popularity of "Happiness is a Warm Gun".

Weird, Revolution 9 got more than twice as many votes as the rest of side 4 combined. I don't think it's just that people are drawn to the songs that stand out the most, though a slab of musique concrete on a Beatles record no doubt does just that. Maybe people are responding to what the Beatles were doing by 1968 - stretching out, experimenting - and Revolution 9 exemplifies that approach. So even if it seems like the least Beatles-y thing on the record, I think people voted for the most White Album-y. Song fragments, abrupt stylistic changes - nothing else here sums up that style as handily (though nicely enough, Happiness Is A Warm Gun comes closest and clocks in at number 2).

to all the ppl who think rev 9 was voted for out of some kind of principle, eg "beatles hatred" or "indier-than-thou mentality" , well i can only speak for myself; i voted for it because it's the most affecting and most outstanding song (yes, song) on there, and it's beome part of my head like none of the other tracks on there. It feels timeless while obv very sixties, it's without some of the most billious emotions displayed on the other tracks and works on a much deeper level, and most importantly of all, it functions like a memorable pop track.

Admit it, haters: Would you rather have had three 'fair to middling' songs instead?

(i.e. "Not Guilty", "What's the new Mary Jane" and um.. another ringo one?)

xp
and i reckon that's why many others voted for it. there may have been one or two jokers, "lol revolution 9" but who gives a shit.

Yeah agreed and if I didn't make clear: great song.

"But I don't really like the album at lot at all. Even the good stuff is below par when compared to the work of genius they used to do from 63 to 67.

-- Geir Hongro, Friday, 21 September 2007 12:50"

funnily enough i agree with the second sentence here. my favourite beatles period is '62 to '66, snd that's why i love rev 9; it has the energy and enthusiasm of those earlier tracks, rather than the lethargy and disgust scattered elsewhere on the lp.

No, Revolution 9 is too drawn out, it needs to be shorter, faster. It would be amazing then.
Strange, strange album.

I think that one of my favorite things about the White Album is how it still manages to be strange, even after so much of the Beatles' more out-there material has lost its initial weirdness. The album, taken as a whole, still feels a little out-of-place, and as someone else mentioned above, it's pretty tense and creepy. Those aren't traits I normally associate with Beatles music, but I'm glad to see that they've survived in this group of songs.

I didn't vote in this poll because I can't decide. There are so many things I love about it, not least of which that Paul sang both "I Will" and "Helter Skelter."

"No, Revolution 9 is too drawn out, it needs to be shorter, faster. It would be amazing then."

kay i know it's all a game of opinions but this really is total bull.

Admit it, haters: Would you rather have had three 'fair to middling' songs instead?

Actually, I'd prefer to hear "Junk" five times.

Or, shit, "Let 'Em In" three times.

Apparently there is an unreleased tape to which they added all these odd little bits and pieces from the sessions, not sure how long it is, but I believe(?) there might be a sliver of it in the White Album part of Anthology doc, it sounds really cool, I wish they would release it

This thread = best stuff ever written about "the White Album" (that I have ever read, anyway)

Kudos, everyone!

fwiw, some more reading: the white album is my favourite album of 1968.

JNSOT, I think you would like Devin McKinney's book Magic Circles: The Beatles in Dream and History, which has some good stuff on the white album. My final statement on R9 is that the whole record, which was do be called A Doll's House originally, is like a Chinese box of little child-like gambits, putons, false leads, allegories, to avoid the world they were in (that's why it refers to the studio itself so much), both their immediate world and the world at large falling apart. R9 starts out with a bitchy fight between studio staff that you can barely pick up and progresses to an apocalypse of allout, total destruction (this was the "revolution" year, obv). Good Night as the childlike wish for order and the past after all that--movie theater as womb--is because of its context, after R9, after the whole album, perhaps the most disturbing (and yet beautiful for what it can't attain) thing on the record.

sorry, didn't check what i wrote, "to be called" in line 2

I love this album, but it's always irritated me how my two least favorite cuts, "Back in the USSR" and "Happy Birthday", open each of the two halves.

At least "Back in the USSR" is useful for the beautiful way it segues between the airplane into the guitar plucking at the beginning of "Dear Prudence", but "Happy Birthday" is a waste of time.

Rev. 9 would have worked out just fine as a 1 minute skit like "Wild Honey Pie".