A Single ‘White Album’

Beatles producer George Martin was famously in favour of releasing the 30 track double LP ‘The Beatles’ (universally known as ‘The White Album’) as a single LP. For years Beatles fans have speculated as to which tracks would/should make the cut if this course had been followed. This is the best selection that I’ve seen to date, however naturally I have one that I like better! In my list there’s no need to shuffle the tracks around – just by removing selected tracks from the original sequence I think you get a pretty good mix. Here are my picks for a single LP ‘White Album’ (lead singer in brackets):

Side One

1. Back In The USSR (Paul)
2. Dear Prudence (John)
3. While My Guitar Gently Weeps (George)
4. Happiness Is A Warm Gun (John)
5. Martha My Dear (Paul)
6. I’m So Tired (John)
7. Blackbird (Paul)
8. Julia (John)

Side Two

1. Birthday (Paul)
2. Everybody’s Got Something To Hide Except For Me And My Monkey (John)
3. Helter Skelter (Paul)
4. Long. Long, Long (George)
5. Revolution 1 (John)
6. Cry Baby Cry (John)
7. Good Night (Ringo)

Two objections that might be made about this list are that it’s a bit John-centric and the only song written by Ringo has been removed. However, ‘Sgt. Pepper’s’ was quite Paul-centric, so this evens things out (and John’s tracks on this album were collectively better), and Ringo still gets to sing the closing track. And yeah, it’s basically just all my favourites, but isn’t that how we often play albums anyway?