The Beatles through a Glass Onion Reconsidering the White Album Mark Osteen, Editor University of Michigan Press + Ann Arbortwo | Children of Nature Origins of the Beatles’ Tabula Rasa WALTER EVERETT The Beatles continually reinvented themselves. Revolver, referred to as “Mark IP” during its production, announced itself with a warped reinven- tion of the 1-2-g-4 count-off that had introduced their first album.' For Sgt. Pepper, they created another band in their own image. The slate was wiped clean again with the White Album, not only by their desire to re- turn to the natural state sought in their early-1968 Himalayan meditative rituals, but also through their 180-degree turn from the lavish artifice of Pepper, an album high with artistic pretensions, groundbreakingly imagi- native lyrics, radically colorful instrumentation, and a deep exploration beyond the limits of four-track recording, its extravagance marked by a groove audible only to dogs, all wrapped in a cover as opulent as it was mystifying.” In contrast, the plain white cover of the 1968 double album emblematized the group's return to nothingness just as surely as did their removal of the garish 1967 paint jobs from three of Lennon’s and McCartney's guitars, now stripped down to bare unvarnished wood. This new blank slate cast the group not in the austere, somber tones of the With the Beatles cover photo, but in a new light, as if an optimistic eggshell of unlimited possibilities was about to hatch.’ This chapter aims to show that a post-India back-to-nature simplicity guided much of the White Album’s motivational impulses.Children of Nature 55 Rishikesh to Esher First, for orientation, I should mention that only three tracks heard on the White Album—“Cry Baby Cry,” “Piggies,” and “Don’t Pass Me By’— are known to have existed in any form before the Beatles’ February- April 1968 spiritual training in Rishikesh, India, where Lennon and McCartney wrote many songs on the new Martin acoustic guitars they had brought with them. These and another crop of new songs were taped as composers’ demos in late May 1968, supposedly at Lennon’s and Harrison's homes, all collectively known as the “Kinfauns” (or “Esher”) tapes after the Surrey town (and house) in which Harrison resided at the time.‘ From May through October, the Beatles recorded most of these songs and eight more at London's EMI and Trident Studios, ending up with the thirty tracks selected for the double album. Table 2.1 lists songs found on various bootlegs of the Kinfauns tapes and those appearing on the White Album and other related titles, and provides information on their chronological development. That the White Album demos are known variously as the “Esher” and the “Kinfauns” tapes points to questions about their nature. Many of the recordings seem to be double-tracked performances by the song’s com- poser only, with the principal artist singing and playing acoustic rhythm guitar over a practically identical recording. Thus, the tapes could well originate from each of the composers’ home studios, each bringing his batch of new songs to one or more collective singalongs-to-tape at Kinfauns, with most full-group home rehearsals either not recorded or not circulating. One outlier is the demo of Harrison’s “Sour Milk Sea,” which is a full-band arrangement; others of Harrison’s songs have key: board as well as guitar and could still have been all his own work.” Much birdsong on the Kinfauns tapes (especially in Lennon’s; see particularly “Dear Prudence”) suggests an outdoor setting. If they were indeed recorded (or just overdubbed) at Kinfauns, the predominance of acoustic guitars would indicate a recapturing of the natural atmo- sphere in which the songs had been composed in India, and also pre- dict the sort of space in which Harrison would write “Here Comes the Sun” in the spring of 1969: Eric Clapton’s home garden. It makes sense that Harrison hosts the White Album rehearsals: whereas McCartney had risen above Lennon to lead the band through the Pepper and Magical Mystery Tour projects, it's Harrison who led the group to India, and in his new song “Not Guilty” he expresses snide modesty about any leadership role he may be perceived to exert, and his creativity seems to be un-56 THE BEATLES THROUGH A GLASS ONION able 2.1. Sources for Substantial Audio Drafts and Finished Recordings of Beatles Compositions Appearing on, or Related to, the White Album (all dates 1968 unless given otherwise) ‘A: Songs whose origins are known to precede the Rishikesh stay ngs “Don't Pass Me By”: Starr mentions in WQXL-AM interview (April 27, 1964); McCartney pusks snatches of chorus in interviews for Sydney radio (June 26, 1964) and Top Gear, BBC Radio (July 14, 1964); studio (June 5-6, July 12, 28; edited and mixed October i) “Piggies”: Harrison's drafts (as early as 1966); Kinfauns demo (Kinfauns, late May); studio (September 19-20, October 10; mixed October 11) “Cry Baby Cry": five early Lennon sketches on piano, Mellotron and electric guitar with voice (late 1967; see Everett 1999, 166); Lennon's Kinfauns demo (Kenwood, late May?); studio (July 15 rehearsal heard on Beatles 1996; basic tracks commenced same day, with overdubs on July 15 and 17; mixed October 15) B: Rishikesh songs not appearing among Kinfauns demos “Spiritual Regeneration” (aka “Thank You Guru Dev"): Rishikesh tape of McCartney, Harrison, Donovan, and Mike Love (March 15) (see Everett 1999, 158-59) “Dehra Dun": Harrison's Rishikesh song first recorded with his own band (May 26, 1970) “Wild Honey Pie”: McCartney, studio (August 20, mixed October 18) C: Songs whose first known recordings are among Kinfauns demos “Revolution”: Lennon's Kinfauns demo (Kenwood, late May?); “Revolution 1” studio (re- corded May 30-31; June 4, 21; mixed June 25); “Revolution 9” studio (recorded May 30-31; June 4, 6, 10, 11, 20; edited and mixed May 20, 25, August 20); “Revolution” stu- dio (recorded July 10-12; mixed for mono July 15, for stereo December 5, 1969) “Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey”: Lennon's Kinfauns ‘demo (Kenwood, late May?); studio (June 26-27, July 1, 28; mixed October 23) “Sexy Sadie” (originally “Maharishi”: Lennon's Kinfauns demo (Kenwood, late May? studio (July 19, 24; August 13, 21; ad-libbed outtakes include “Brian Epstein Blues mixed on August 21, October 14) “Yer Blues”; Lennon's Kinfauns demo (Kenwood, late May?); studio (recorded, edited, and mixed August 13-14, 20, October 14) “Dear Prudence”: Lennon's Kinfauns demo (Kenwood, late May?); studio (recorded August 28-29, mixed October 13) “I'm So Tired”: Lennon's Kinfauns demo (Kenwood, late May?); studio (recorded October 8, mixed October 15) “The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill”: Lennon's Kinfauns demo (Kenwood, late May?); studio (recorded October 8, mixed October 9) “Julia”: Lennon’s Kinfauns demo (Kenwood, late May?); studio (two run-throughs heard ‘on Beatles 1991; recorded and mixed on October 13) “What's the New Mary Jane": Lennon’s Kinfauns demo (Kenwood, late May?); studio (re- corded August 14, mixed October 14 [and later, in 1969 and 1985]) “Look at Me”: Lennon’s Kinfauns demo [?]; rerecorded for John Lennon / Plastic Ono Band (1970) [I'm Just a] Child of Nature”: Lennon’s Kinfauns demo (Kenwood, late May?); re- hearsed on January 2, 1969; rerecorded as “Jealous Guy" on Imagine (1971) “Glass Onion”: Lennon’s Kinfauns demo (Kenwood, late May); studio (September 11-13, 16; overdubbed and mixed October 10) “Happiness Is a Warm Gun”: Lennon's Kinfauns demos (Kenwood, late May); studio (September 23, 25; mixed on September 26, October 15) «Mean Mr, Mustard”: Lennon's Kinfauns demo (Kenwood, late May); rerecorded for ‘Abbey Road (1969) sChildren of Nature 57 “Polythene Pam”: Lennon's Kinfauns demo (Kenwood, late May); rerecorded for Abbey Road (1969) “Blackbird”: McCartney's Kinfauns demo (Cavendish Ave., late May?); studio (June 11; mixed October 13) “ObLaDi, Ob-LaDa”: McCartney's Kinfauns demo (Cavendish Ave., late May?); studio (July 3-5, 8-9, 11, 15; mixed October 12) “Mother Nature’s Son”: McCartney's Kinfauns demo (Cavendish Ave., late May?); studio (August 9, 20; ad-libbed outtakes include “Et Cetera”; mixed October 12) “Rocky Raccoon”: McCartney's Kinfauns demo (Cavendish Ave., late May?); studio (August 15, mixed October 10) “Back in the U.S.S.R”: McCartney's Kinfauns demo (Cavendish Ave., late May?); studio (August 22-23; mixed August 23, October 13) “Honey Pie”: McCartney's Kinfauns demo (Cavendish Ave., late May?); studio (October 1,2, 4; mixed October 5) “Jubilee”: McCartmey's Kinfauns demo (Cavendish Ave., late May?); rerecorded as “Junk” on McCartney (1970) “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”: Harrison's Kinfauns demo (Kinfauns, late May); studio (July 25, August 16; September 8, 5; mixed October 7) “Circles”: Harrison's Kinfauns demo (Kinfauns, late May); rerecorded for Gone Tioppo (1982) “Sour Milk Sea”: Harrison's Kinfauns demo with electric guitar, bass, and percussion (Kinfauns, late May) “Not Guilty”: Harrison’s Kinfauns demo (Kinfauns, late May), studio (August 1, 8,9, 12 [mixed later, in 1985]); rerecorded for George Harrison (1979) D: Songs likely postdating Kinfauns tapes “Good Night”: Lennon, studio (June 28, July 2, 22; mixed October 11) “Helter Skelter”: McCartney, studio (July 18, September 9-10; mixed September 17, October 12) “Hey Jude”: McCartney's Cavendish Ave. demo (done by July 26), studio (July 29-31, August 1; mixed August 2, 8) “I Will”: McCartney, studio (September 16-17; adibbed outtakes include “Down in Havana,” “Los Paranoias,” and “The Way You Look Tonight”; mixed September 26, October 14) [*Can You Take Me Back”]: McCartney, studio (September 16) “Birthday”: McCartney, studio (September 18; mixed October 14) “Savoy Truffle”: Harrison, studio (October 3, 5, 11, 14) “Martha My Dear”: McCartney, studio (October 4-5) “Long Long Long”: Harrison, studio (October 7-9, mixed October 10, 14) “Why Don't We Do It in the Road?”: McCartney, studio (October 9-10, mixed October 16) leashed in new abundance in his four tracks—almost five—on the 1968 collection.® The acoustic colors of the Rishikesh and Kinfauns settings would carry through the album's ultimate studio production in terms of engineering as well as instrumentation: “the use of phasing, varispeed and ADT fell off sharply” from the psychedelic effects of recent releases. “The echo chambers continued to see use, but there was an overall shift back” to a drier sound (Ryan and Kehew 2006, 503), which best suggests a rural lack of reverberation. Varispeed is applied most notably to “Don’t Pass Me By,” a singleton that has no ties to Rishikesh in any event.58 THE BEATLES THROUGH A GLASS ONION ‘The Beatles’ new gift for simplicity is heard most readily in their ap- proach to instrumental and vocal arrangement. In a Radio Luxembourg interview broadcast on November 20, 1968 (two days before the album’s release), McCartney says that for “Mother Nature’s Son,” he walked back the lavish colorings of Pepper by using fewer and simpler instruments; he says they “tried to play more like a band this time,” with fewer overdubs. Perhaps thinking of how “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” had first been taped with acoustic guitar and piano (which were only to be overcome by exotic organs, tamboura, processed guitars, and speed-altered vocals— nearly to the point that the basic track was inaudible), McCartney said a year later that “we decided not to try to cover them up like we might do normally and just use the acoustic guitar instead of say a piano, or electric guitar” on top (Beatles 19g9b, disc 3). Although true in many cases, these statements include four ironies: (1) “Mother Nature's Son” is given a brass-ensemble overdub; (2) anomalies like “Blackbird,” “Julia,” “Revolution 9,” and “Good Night” are the furthest things from group performance the Beatles ever recorded; (3) at least fourteen White ‘Album tracks feature overdubbed keyboards (piano, organ, harmonium, harpsichord, and Mellotron); and (4) each composing Beatle was lay- ing down basic tracks to his own songs in various tracking rooms, often simultaneously, and then serving as superimposed sideman on others’ songs. In his interview with Jann Wenner for Rolling Stone, Lennon said of the White Album, “All you experts listen. None of you can hear. Every track on that album is an individual track; there isn’t any Beatle music on. it. It was John and the band, Paul and the band, George and the band. It was just me and a backing group, Paul and a backing group” (Wenner 1971, 88). Given their growing distance, it is not happenstance that, not long after the album’s release, Lennon and McCartney had such differ- ent memories of the intent and process. The concept for “Mother Nature’s Son,” written in India, came froma lecture by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. In February 1967, Harrison's wife, Pattie, joined the Spiritual Regeneration Movement (Everett 1999, 129), overseen by the Maharishi, whose standard invocation was “Jai Guru Deva Om” (Gould 2007, 462), which forms the chorus of Lennon’s “Across the Universe.” This song was recorded in February 1968, but not as part of the White Album project. (Nor were the contemporaneous “Lady Madonna,” “Hey Bulldog,” and “The Inner Light,” the last of which in- cluded recordings made in Mumbai along with Harrison's soundtrack work for the film Wonderwall.) When the Maharishi scheduled a lecture in London in August 1967, the Harrisons roused Lennon and Starr to attendChildren of Nature 59 it with them, and they became so enamored of him so quickly that the entire group followed the Maharishi immediately to Bangor for further indoctrination. As Lennon told Playboy in one of his final interviews, the London talk inspired not only “Mother Nature’s Son,” but also Lennon’s own draft from India, “Child of Nature” (also known as “On the Road to Rishikesh,” and performed in January 1969 by that title), which later became “Jealous Guy,” released in 1971 on Imagine.’ The two known songs composed in India that most openly reflect the band’s spiritual mission were not developed for the White Album. “Circles,” whose last lines relate to reincarnation, did not see release until 1982. “Dehra Dun,” named for the state capital of Uttarakhand, which includes Rishikesh, is a communal chant celebrating enlighten- ment not unlike the Hare Krishna mantra that Harrison recorded as a single in July 1969, his “Govinda Jai Jai” and “Gopala Krishna” (both 1970; see also O. Harrison 2011, 240), or indeed the coda of his world- wide number one hit, “My Sweet Lord,” recorded in mid-1g70. Harrison played “Dehra Dun” on May 26, 1970, to open the All Things Must Pass sessions (Winn 2005, reel Eg7537); officially unreleased, it is heard on Beatles 2014. “Mother Nature's Son” is more subtle in its spirituality. Its core idea is fleshed out in the Maharishi’s 1963 book on the benefits of Transcendental Meditation, Science of Being and Art of Living, in which the practice is said to lead one to the natural joyful state of bliss, inno- cence, and simplicity. Perhaps the book’s most relevant sentence is as follows: “When one has submitted oneself in this manner to the almighty power of Mother Nature, then one is the loving, submissive and obedient child who will certainly enjoy all the power of the divine.”* Other back-to- nature emblems of this time include (1) McCartney's humble December 1967 furnishing of his wild farm on the Mull of Kintyre; (2) discover- ies of the simple philosophy of the Tao Te Ching (in a book given to Harrison in November 1967), which texts were to turn up in lyrics for “The Inner Light” and “All Things Must Pass,” and of Kahlil Gibran, whose lines were borrowed for “Julia”; and (3) the band’s hearing for the first time in Rishikesh Bob Dylan’s retro-acoustic album, John Wesley Harding (rel. December 1967). Jonathan Gould thus proposes that the Beatles “seemed to feel that their next album should be a kind of formal antithesis to Sgt. Pepper, on which production and arranging would be downplayed in favor of the sort of raw, unadorned sound that Bob Dylan had used to such startling effect on John Wesley Harding, [hailed] as a much-needed musical antidote to the excesses of acid rock” (2007, 489).60 THE BEATLES THROUGH A GLASS ONION It was also at this time that John Lennon intensified his career as destroyer of myths; his quest for direct truth, warts and all, led him to conceive of the rush-released oracle, whether it be a statement about revolution (invoking the conceptual Dada work of his new soul mate, Yoko Ono, transcendental in its own way), an album cover of Edenic innocence offering his and Ono’s full-frontal nudity, or musical install- ments of des actualités in “The Ballad of John and Yoko,” “Give Peace a Chance,” and “Instant Karma.” It was Lennon who a year later would want the album of “Get Back” material (eventually, Let Jt Be) presented without gimmicks, without overdubbed sweetening and edits, as a true document of the Beatles at work. The Beatles was a major step along the way toward Lennon’s vision of the group au naturel in a back-to-the- womb yearning he would attain most closely in “Mother” (1970), pet haps his response to McCartney's “Mother Nature’s Son” as well as to the figure of “Mother Mary” referred to in “Let It Be.” Still, Lennon is ab- Table 2.2. Best-Known Sources of All Key White Album Recordings (including studio-floor discussions) and Mixes ‘Abbey Road Tape, vol. 1 (2001): EMI studio work Another Sessions . .. Plus (1999): EMI studio work “Anthology VHS (1996) and DVD (2003) sets: EMI and Trident studio work “Anthology 3 (1996): four of Lennon's Esher demos; EMI studio work Arrive Without Aging (1991): “Cry Baby Cry” Kenwood sketches The Beatles (1968): EMI mono and stereo releases of EMI and Trident studio work (Giles Martin’s 5.1-channel Ogg Vorbis stems [2009] for Rock Band are available for “Birthday,” “Revolution,” “Dear Prudence,” “Helter Skelter,” “Back in the U.S.S.R..” and “While My Guitar Gently Weeps") ‘The Beatles, 1967-1970 (1973): EMI and Trident studio work The Beatles at Abbey Road (1983): EMI studio work Complete Controlroom Monitor Mixes, vols. 1 and 2 (2002): EMI studio work Down in Havana (2000): EMI studio work EMI Outtakes (1974): EMI studio work From Kinjauns to Chaos (1999): most Esher tapes; EMI studio work on “Revolution” Gone Tomorrow, Here Today (1997): EMI and Trident studio work “Hey Jude” /*Revolution” single (1968): EMI and Trident studio work Mythology, Vol. 3 (1999): EMI and Trident studio work ‘The Peter Sellers Tape (1993): EMI studio work Primal Colours (1995): EMI studio work Rarities (1980): EMI studio work Revolution (1994): EMI studio work on “Revolution” series Strawberry Fields Forever (1985): Rishikesh performances of March 15 Unsurpassed Masters, vol. 4 (1990): EMI studio work Unsurpassed Masters, vol. 6 (1991): EMI studio work “What a Shame Mary Jane Had a Pain at the Party” 12" single (1980): EMI studio work White Sessions (1998): Trident studio workChildren of Nature 61 struse in “Glass Onion,” particularly in the wacky gibberish abandoned after the song's Kinfauns demo, but also in the odd verses and complex harmonies that hide meanings in layers of riddles. The opening verse of “Happiness Is a Warm Gun,” “she’s not a girl who misses much,” is simi- larly suggestive yet opaque. His mutterings grafted onto the ending of “I'm So Tired” became the prime motivation for fans listening to Beatle records backward, and thus for the “Paul Is Dead” theory. Lennon con- tinued to be nature-bound yet enigmatic through the remainder of the Beatles’ work together. Many available recordings allow us to trace changes to the composition and arrangement of White Album songs from home demos to the re- hearsals, outtakes, and preliminary mixes of studio work. While an ex- haustive study is not possible here, I’ll present many of the sorts of revi- sions that occurred in arrangement, lyrics, tonality, harmony, melody, rhythm, formal structure, and engineering as the album’s tracks took shape.’ Table 2.2 lists the primary sources for recordings auditioned for this chapter. Arrangement It’s hard to imagine “Blackbird” with a setting other than a single vocal line and acoustic guitar. In fact, throughout the group's career, that’s the way many, if not most, Beatle songs were brought to the studio and were first demonstrated to George Martin, who would then work with the Beatles to create a group arrangement and perhaps add outside players as well. In the studio, McCartney is heard suggesting to Martin that for “Blackbird,” a string quartet might enter after the second verse; the producer agrees (“it does want something like that”) and adds that he had thought “in that stop bit, there should be something coming from a distance, an arranged sound, coming from a distance” (Beatles 1997). Perhaps this function was later fulfilled by the chirping birdsong. Preliminary takes show Lennon trying a countermelody for “Blackbird” on a second acoustic guitar (see example 1) and then hunting for an accompaniment in various rhythmically placed first scale degrees on pia- no, all for nought (all heard on Beatles 1997). Ultimately, McCartney was to tell an interviewer on the eve of the album’s release why “Blackbird” ended up so spare: “it’s simple in concept, because we couldn’t think of anything else to put on it” (Beatles 1999b, disc 3). Conversely, whereas “Mother Nature’s Son” might have remained a62 THE BEATLES THROUGH A GLASS ONION ‘McCartney vocal Black - bird singing. in the dead of — = Lemonacg fi i = 7 Figure 2.1. “Blackbird” outtake u a « simple acoustic-guitar number, a mellow brass quartet warms the pastoral texture. This was Lennon's idea. Inspired by euphoniums in a recent re- lease by Harry Nilsson, he announced the notion from the control room to McCartney (down on the studio floor) via a talkback microphone. Thinking of the arrangement for “She's Leaving Home” on Nilsson’s al- bum Pandemonium Shadow Show (rel. December 1967), Lennon is heard to suggest “in the distance a little bit of brass band, a little bit of Nilsson’s brass band.” McCartney responds, “yes, that'd be lovely . . . that would be nice with a brass—like four-cornered. euphonium, just a little” (Beatles 1997). Not only did the Beatles add a Martin-arranged brass setting, but in the released track's closing moments, a simple descending major scale is detectable in an overdubbed guitar not present in an alternate mono mix (RM8) and heard in the dub given away to Peter Sellers (Beatles 1998¢)- In a studio run-through of “I’m So Tired,” as included on the third volume of the Anthology (Beatles 1996), Harrison plays a guitar idea that was scrapped but reappears only slightly differently a year later on “Octopus’s Garden.” In addition to the brass in “Mother Nature’s Son,” Martin recorded Chris Thomas’s parts for a sixsaxophone track for “Savoy Truffle,” and his own woodwind parts for “Honey Pie,” trumpets and trombones for “Revolution 1,” a double string quartet for “Piggies” and “Glass Onion,” both strings and brass for “Martha My Dear,” anda full orchestra for “Good Night.” “Blackbird,” “Julia,” and “Mother Nature’s Son” harken back to the natural outdoors rather obviously through their subdued acoustic in- strumentations. But the Beatles’ electric arsenal was augmented in 1968 with new Gibson and Fender guitars featured in “Birthday,” “Yer Blues,” “Helter Skelter,” “Glass Onion,” “Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey,” “Savoy Truffle,” and “Back in the U.S.S.R.” Nature could be powerful as well as quiet; blues-based rock ‘n’ roll was “real, not a concept” for Lennon, and the White Album had the Beatles rocking as hard as ever on the six tracks just mentioned.”® Beatle enthu-Children of Nature 63 siasts know January 1969 as the Get Back month, for a project in which Lennon and McCartney wanted to return to their live-performing, rock ‘n’ roll, Cavern-and-Hamburg roots. But such a seed had been plant- ed in pop radio of early 1968 by a rock 'n’ roll revival that led off with “Lady Madonna” and went on to resuscitate original recordings of Gene Vincent's “Be-Bop-A-Lula,” Carl Perkins’s “Blue Suede Shoes,” Jerry Lee Lewis's “Great Balls of Fire,” Buddy Holly’s “That'll Be the Day,” and Little Richard's “Good Golly Miss Molly,” all of which returned like cica- das after a ten-year absence to the British charts that spring and summer. Primitive qualities in February’s “Lady Madonna” and in “Hey Bulldog” also fit Lennon's drive for gut-level realism. But of all the rock-band White Album tracks mentioned above, only the elemental “Yer Blues” was given no instrumental overdubs. Harrison’s friendship with one of music’s hardestrocking guitarists, Eric Clapton, led to this giant’s searing contribution to “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” and to the Beatle’s acquisition of a new Les Paul that would lend a hard, bluesy edge to many late group tracks, It’s rewarding to trace the development of new lines for bass, guitar, and piano in the White Album’s hardest-rocking songs (particularly those played on the new Fender equipment: the Jazz Bass, the Bass VI, and two Telecasters). Although McCartney would typically add highly creative keyboard parts to Lennon songs, as in “Strawberry Fields Forever,” “Lucy in the Sky,” and “Sexy Sadie,” he blossomed on his bass in overdubs to Harrison songs such as “Something,” “Old Brown Shoe,” and “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.” That last song, like McCartney's “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da,” required several remakes of basic tracks before a proper arrangement was agreed upon. This song is among several White Album tracks for which we have tapes monitoring preliminary mixing sessions, often showcasing “Easter egg” material present on four- and eight-track working tapes that would later be replaced (and otherwise lost), or simply muted out of released mixes. In one mixing session (Beatles 2002), an early attempt at a bass line for “Weeps” can be heard; it sounds like something Lennon might have played on the Bass VI (on September 5), before McCartney was to devise his celestial bass melody (recorded the next day along with Clapton’s solo, probably erasing Lennon’s early attempt). As another example of documents showing how songs could change during the re- cording process, take 4 of “Ob-La-Di” (heard on Beatles 1ggia) is cen- tered on acoustic guitar strumming and hand percussion much more in line with the ska feel the Beatles later credited (otherwise inscrutably) for the song’s inspiration.64 THE BEATLES THROUGH A GLASS ONION One of the Beatles’ simplest constructions ever, “Rocky Raccoon,” is a rarity in having as its basis an endlessly repeated, never relieved, four-chord loop. Set in a nineteenth-century western saloon, this India composition might well be a direct answer to John Wesley Harding. While the recording backs McCartney's acoustic guitar with a rhythm section (simple bass and drum parts) and backing vocals, it also features a har- monica, harmonium, and tack piano (this last recorded at half speed by Martin), all redolent of the gin-mill setting, plus an overdubbed snare to mark the single gunshot. Lyrics It is not remarkable that eight Kinfauns demos (such as those for “Revolution,” “Glass Onion,” and “Rocky Raccoon”) lack verses heard in released recordings, or that others include lyrics that were altered later; since their earliest days, the Beatles routinely changed or added lyrics to each other's songs in the studio. So Lennon changes Harrison’s origi- nal “pork chops” (heard in the Kinsfauns tape) to “bacon” in “Piggies.” McCartney polished “Honey Pie” by adding the “weak in the knee” line after it was sung at Kinfauns. In fact, lyrics would change throughout a song’s development: the title of the White Album’s opening track be- gan life as “I'm Backing the U.S.S.R..” but took its final form before the group left India. A discarded final verse of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” (“Ilook from the wings of the play you are staging . ..”) is among a number of the manuscript’s later-altered lines (G. Harrison 1980, 121— 92) heard in audio performances surfacing among Kinfauns demos and on the shelved project Sessions (Beatles 19934). The verse was cut amid studio takes. More remarkable is the fact that one line appearing in the finale of “Happiness Is a Warm Gun” (“when I hold you in my arms”) had originally been part of an Elvisike spoken verse in “I'm So Tired” (Beatles 1999a). Sometimes an inadvertent error is deemed inspired: from early performances (Beatles 19914), we know that Desmond and Molly originally represented more predictable genders than those final- ized on the White Album. While taping “Sexy Sadie” at EMI, Lennon shares the song’s original malevolent intent (“Maharishi, . . . who the fuck you think you are?”—heard on Beatles 2002; see also Winn 2005, reel £106141, July 19, 1968).Released Children of Nature 65; Tonality, Harmony, and Melody In terms of tonality, several songs were transposed from one key to an- other, either to accommodate a new vocal melody, as when “Me and My Monkey” was taken from its original A major to D, or to attain a faster tempo, as when the tape of the same song was sped up from D to E. A capo brought C-major fingerpicking in “Julia” to E> major for at least one draft, and ultimately to D major, where Lennon’s voice settled in just right."! George Martin left perhaps his most indelible fingerprints on a Beatles track in “Good Night”—not only its orchestration, but also the baroque chromatic harmonic sequence written into the instrumental passage just prior to the final verse. Much more understated were most melodic modifications wrought by a song’s composer through the com- posing process. “Julia” furnishes one such example: as shown in example 2a, Lennon's Kinfauns demo (Beatles 1993a) includes vocal ornamenta- tion in the returning motto and third verse that would be simplified for the definitive version, excerpted in example 2b.!? (transposed from performance in C major) a) {can on-y speakimy mind, oh yeah; b) io Ju- fea Ju = tea, morn = ing moon 1 can ony speak my mind, Ju Figure 2.2. “Julia”: (a) compositional draft (b) released version Throughout the Beatles’ career, alterations to chord changes would frequently occur early in a song’s conception. In a 2006 video, McCartney and classical guitarist Carlos Bonell demonstrate how the opening paral- lel tenths of “Blackbird” were adapted from a misheard Bach lute piece that McCartney and Harrison played at parties c. 1963-64 (Bramwell 2006). Example ga shows the opening of the Bach original, gb as played by McCartney, and gc as recomposed in “Blackbird.” In other songs, individual chords were changed to alter colors later in a song's history. Instances from Lennon include Kinfauns drafts of both “Sexy Sadie” and “The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill” that contain chords for which substitutes were later made. It’s likely that, in the bridge66 THE BEATLES THROUGH A GLASS ONION Figure 23. Evolution of “Blackbird” opening: (a) Bach Bourée, Suite in E minor, BWV 996 (b) McCartney's 2006 demonstration of his mishearing of Bach (c) released version of “Sadie” as well as in earlier cases (“Strawberry Fields Forever” and “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” among them), McCartney smoothed out Lennon’s original progression. Whereas John plays a Lennonesque chord succession, G-E minor-B minor-C major in the Kinfauns demo (see, ¢.g., the opening of “Across the Universe"), this becomes a smooth- er G-A minor-B minor-C major passage (which also better supports the A sung over the second chord) in an EMI rehearsal take (Beatles 1996) and in the final version. Not only is this progression featured in the same key in McCartney's “Here, There and Everywhere,” but as further evi- dence, McCartney can be heard working through different chord com- binations on piano and Pianet in various takes of “Sadie” (Beatles 2002), settling on the A-minor chord by the third verse of the Anthology 3 take. In “Bungalow Bill,” in the phrase-ending that accompanies the line characterizing the “Saxon mother’s son” Lennon's harsh A major to F minor succession (Kinfauns), in which each of the three triadic pitches moves a half step between chords, is rewritten at EMI as A minor to F minor: two chords joined by a common tone, C. (Note how the re- sulting progression at “Saxon mother’s son” rhymes with the same har- monic and vocal idea as transposed for the phrase ending, “fix myself a drink” in “I’m So Tired.”) Similarly, at the end of the bridge of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” Harrison gives up a dissonant augmented triadChildren of Nature 67 he’d originally played on harmonium (Kinfauns), to substitute a gentler major triad for the released master. The results of all of these examples were smoothed out quite a bit, made less garish and more natural. Rhythm The Beatles brought many rhythmic improvements to songs in the course of the White Album’s evolution through simplifying ideas that had been overly complicated. Listen to the complex meter with which “Cry Baby Cry” ends in the Kinfauns demo; there is little perceptible regularity in the numbers of beats. Each line has an odd seven bars of triple meter, for a pattern that repeats only every twenty-one beats. The released pattern, repeating every fourteen beats, is still unusual but a bit more easily ap- preciable. An alteration to meter was necessary to take “Bungalow Bill” from demo to studio track: for a singalong at Kinfauns, each two-phrase chorus had an irregular metric pattern, with bars of 4 + 4 +5 beats, then 4+4 +4 beats. With everyone clapping backbeats in the final chorus, the “extra” fifth beat led to confusion, with singers uncertain where to enter for the second phrase. As an aid, Lennon adjusted the phrasing to 4 + 4 +6, 4 +4 +4 in the studio, permitting an uninterrupted flow of strong and weak beats. In the studio, McCartney adds a measure to extend the deceptive cadence that had graced the end of the “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La- Da” Kinfauns demo. Irregular rhythms of nonsense gibberish in multiple voices bring the second and third verses of “Glass Onion” to a dead stop in the Kinfauns demo; the third verse slows suddenly and radically from 112 beats per minute to 80; none of these disorienting effects survives to the odd-enough final recording. In only a very few other cases, complexity crept into a previously simpler rhythmic structure as arrangements took shape in the studio. One such example is the introduction to “Me and My Monkey,” which lacks the inscrutable syncopated guitar chords that distinguish the song's introduction and that were incorporated only after Kinfauns play- throughs. One of the most compelling moments of “Yer Blues” comes when Lennon leads his mates from a slow driving dirge into a moderate rock ’n’ roll shuffle (after “even hate my rock and roll”). But the shuffle had made no appearance in the Kinfauns performance. Changes in tem- po from original to final conception are occasional: “Sexy Sadie” speeds up over the months, but “Ob-La-Di” slows down.'*68 THE BEATLES THROUGH A GLASS ONION Formal Structure Right from 1962, the formal structure of many Beatles songs took shape during home and studio sessions, when they would rearrange verses, insert transitional vamps and entire bridges between sections, and— frequently—add intros or codas. So the introductory guitar tattoo and transitions of “Blackbird” were devised gradually in the studio (Beatles 1997). The two opening bars of “Mother Nature's Son” were still not present as of take 2 (Beatles 1996). The Kinfauns tape of “Julia” (Beatles 1999a) reveals that sections were reordered at a later time. Sometimes passages originally intended for one song were transferred to another. One idea apparently conceived as part of “Cry Baby Cry” (aside from the line that, we've already noted, ends up in “Happiness Is a Warm Gun”) was used for “Across the Universe”: the chant, “Jai Guru Deva Om,” leads directly into the chorus of “Cry Baby Cry” in piano demos recorded in late 1967 (Beatles 1993b). Such cannibalization js notable in many of Lennon's home demos, right through his work of 1980. By 1968, the Beatles often ended their performances with long jams; “Hey Jude” retained its superlong coda, but “Something” lost its similar repetitious freeform ending. The original mono master of “Sexy Sadie” (RMs) ended with a largely instrumental jam, most of ‘which was excised before release. Listeners would recognize the beginning and ending of this passage (as heard on Beatles 1993¢), but most have probably never heard the middle part (beginning at 2:57 in RM), which was edited out of the released master. (No ending had been worked out for the Kinfauns demo of “Sadie,” which concludes uneasily on a tonic added- sixth chord.)'* The Beatles also limited their compositions in ways other than such edits. For “Blackbird,” Martin asked McCartney to record a demo so he could study the song and consider expanding it: Lennon disagreed with the premise and wanted the structure to stay just as it is: it's a minute long, that’s enough . .. it doesn't get boring then” (Beatles 1997). The final take clocks in at a modest 2118", ajewellike miniature. ic had been common for the Beatles to bring a song's core ideas into the studio, only to have Martin create an introduction. A few years later, they got pretty good at this on their own, but the perfect intro was still often elusive in writing the White Album songs. The half-spoken, half sung intonation with which McCartney opens “Rocky Raccoon” (“Now somewhere in the Black mountain Hills of Dakota . - .”) was not present at Kinfauns. Similarly, his “Honey Pie” as released gets much ofits charm from the stanza-tempo opening (“She was a working girl. .."). This pas- sage was an afterthought, as we learn from the bare-bones Kinfauns tapeChildren of Nature 69 of four months previous. Not only was the slow intro nowhere to be heard in the May run-through, but McCartney began then with a line (“Aw, Honey Pie, my position is tragic . ..”) that he found worked much better at a later point in the final lyric. It’s conceivable that the period- correct slow-intro approach (not used in “Good Day Sunshine,” “When I'm Sixty-Four,” or “Your Mother Should Know’—McCartney’s obliga- tory and self-distancing music-hall tunes for prior Beatles projects) was inspired by the very parallel intro to Nilsson’s “Little Cowboy,” which appeared on the album Aerial Ballet, released in July 1g68—between the recordings of the Kinfauns demo and the “Honey Pie” studio work of October. In an early home recording, “Happiness Is a Warm Gun" lacks both its obscurantist, cold-opening “she’s not a girl who misses much” verses and its final title-bearing doo-wop passage. Numerous experiments for a spoken intro by Ringo for “Good Night” were ultimately scrapped for a simple six-bar orchestral lead-in. Substitute producer Chris Thomas added the odd Mellotron-based beginnings and endings of “Bungalow Bill.” Similarly, “Blackbird,” “Piggies,” and “Glass Onion” were all pack- aged with appropriate new endings worked out in the studio. Engineering Just as song styles vary widely on the White Album, so does the sonic landscape. While heavy reverb is indeed not characteristic of the album overall, the drums in “Mother Nature’s Son” (played in a hallway), pi- ano in “Sexy Sadie,” and vocals for bridges of “Yer Blues” (as at 1:01+) are far from dry. A very unnatural overdriven acoustic guitar sound is heard in “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” (Lewisohn 1988, 11). In an online video, Andrew Lubman demonstrates how engineer Ken Scott manipulated the discrete three-way “tone selector” switch on a Vox Conqueror amp to give the piano part in “Birthday” very strange filter changes, particularly noticeable in the fade-out (Lubman 2012). This is not the place to discuss some key aspects of White Album en- gineering; the many differences between mono and stereo mixes are covered elsewhere and relate to final, not original, compositional deci- sions.'? Whereas it would be appropriate to discuss the interwoven ori- gins of “Revolution 1” and “Revolution 9,” a proper examination would require a chapter of its own. But some aspects of this topic work against the back-to-nature thesis: Foley-like effects—jets panning between speak- ers as the album’s opening salvo, suggestions of a tea in “Cry Baby Cry,” 78-:p.m. shellac surface noise in “Honey Pie,” hog grunts in “Piggies”— may range from bucolic to jet age, yet they all remain artificial simulacra,70 THE BEATLES THROUGH A GLASS ONION and thus far from natural. Perhaps better to set up “Revolution 9,” we know that a number of incongruous and quite unnatural effects were muted from the released mixes of “Glass Onion” (they are heard in take 2; Beatles 1996). While some sounds do not sound natural, perhaps one could argue that the Beatles satisfied a different sort of authenticity by including everything under the sun. So the Beatles employed more than a touch of craft in this back-to- nature project. In many other ways, though, they convey their message absolutely directly—through the simply repeated pitches of Lennon's vo- cal melody in “Julia”; in the long-sustained drones of “Dear Prudence”; through the pleading for peace of mind in “I’m So Tired”; via the child- like request, “won't you come out to play?” as Desmond and Molly's kids run in the yard with unflagging joy, for a lark; and with the straightfor- ward suggestion that we do it in the road. The group's rebirth with an innocent new purpose that embraces authenticity does not stray from an ethic always notably plumb true, but it brings an emphasis on the acous- tic not heard since Rubber Soul and sets the stage for the unvarnished bar band of Let It Be. Whereas the multiply overdubbed Abbey Road—an elec- tronic marvel—would never be considered simple, it has an antipsyche- delic realism at its core that never could have been possible without the Beatles’ having wiped the slate clean as they did with the White Album. Gee, it’s good to be back home! Notes 1. A brief version of this essay was presented at Skidmore College in 2008. 2. Still, one of Brian Epstein’s last wishes as Beatle manager was that Pepper be marketed in a plain brown paper bag, an idea not realized until Lennon and Ono's November 1968 release of Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins. 3, In its way, this progression from drab past to future promise is another instance of the waxworks-to-rainbow representation of the eight Beatles posing for the Pepper cover. 4. John Winn (2003, 184) identifies the tapes’ sources as both Kinfauns and Lennon's Surrey home, Kenwood. 5. The Kinfauns demo of the Rishikesh song “Sour Milk Sea” features acous- tic and electric guitars, bass, Harrison’s double-tracked vocal, tambourine, ma- racas, and congarlike percussion. After the performance ends, Harrison and Lennon can be heard talking briefly; the track is heard on Beatles 1999a. Later, on June 26, 1968, Harrison (on rhythm guitar), McCartney (bass), and Starr (drums), along with Eric Clapton (lead guitar) and Nicky Hopkins (piano), re- corded the track for singer Jackie Lomax. “Sour Milk Sea” was among a small group of songs with which Harrison (perhaps considering his own release of theChildren of Nature 71 composition) warmed up his own band on June 26, 1970, to begin sessions for All Things Must Pass. See notes on the John Barrett cassettes in Winn 2005, 6. In the last song dropped from the album, Harrison sings “Not guilty for leading you astray on the road to Mandalay,” citing the major Buddhist center in coyly adapting a line from Kipling that romanticizes British colonial misadven- ture in India. 7. Lennon's quotations are found in Golson 1981b, 210. “Child of Nature” is also known by its first line, “On the Road to Rishikesh,” which itself is a trope of the refrain in Kipling’s poem, “Mandalay.” Perhaps Harrison's “Not Guilty” is actually a reference to Lennon’s song rather than to Kipling’s poem. The Marrakesh version was aired on January 2 and 24, 1969, in various “Get Back”-era bootlegs. 8. Maharishi 1963, 80. Another statement, “Any unnatural manner of behay- ior only strains the mind, but when one behaves innocently and naturally on all levels the stream of life flows smoothly and in accord with the laws of nature” (99), chimes with “Within You Without You” (“life flows on . ..”). Pattie Harrison can be credited for George’s and the Beatles’ growing interest in this area, which began with his sitar playing and carried through the appearance of gurus’ im- ages on the cover of Sgt. Pepper. 9. For further details, see Everett 1999; Everett-Riley forthcoming; and Winn 2003 and 2005, 10. Quotations are from Wenner 1971, 78; see also Gould 2007, 522-23. Lennon channels Plato here—he says blues “is a chair, not a design for a chair or a better chair or a bigger chair or a chair with leather or with design”—and in doing so, he gets back to the spiritually innate as well as to primordial basics. u1. Lennon's fingerpicking in “Julia” and “Look at Me” was in a style Donovan taught him in Rishikesh. See chapter 3 in this volume for details about this style and the Beatles’ adoption of it. 12, Naturally, the live demo does not include the overlaps of Lennon's su- perimposed vocals that give the final recording such a surreal quality. The term “motto,” as defined in Everett 2009a, 151, is a short phrasal unit not part of a verse, chorus, or bridge “that may reappear as if to bring the song back into focus [or] to make it seem as if we are off to a fresh start.” 13. McCartney performs the Kinfauns demo at 120 beats per minute. The ver- sion released on the White Album begins at 114, but settles into a tempo of 10 bpm. The change here is due to Lennon’s impatient frustration at McCartney's insistence that they work on the track repeatedly. (This story is recounted in Lewisohn 1988, 141, and repeated in Emerick 2006, 247.) An intermediary per- formance, take 4 (heard on Beatles 1991b), is played at 124 bpm. Complicating these tempos is the possibility of tape-speed adjustment, but because the two earlier versions sound in A major and the released version in Bs, it’s most likely that the disparity is even greater than noted here, the earlier performances be- ing faster still. 14. Icompare the hypermetrical playfulness in the eventual coda of “Sadie” to that of “Because” in Everett 2009, 195-97. 15. The White Albums many differences between mono and stereo masters are discussed in Lewisohn 1988; Everett 1999; and Winn 2003 and 2005.