![who sings the lyrics to let it be the beatles who sings the lyrics to let it be the beatles](https://media.newyorker.com/photos/61607e5f59460a2dfe693542/3:4/w_1266,h_1688,c_limit/211018_r39178.jpg)
The sole Ringo Starr songwriting credit on the White Album (and his first solo writing credit), the bones of the countrified “Don’t Pass Me By” are solid enough, but it’s the performance that sells this song. Similar to “Rocky Raccoon” with its fixation on blustering American masculinity, “Bungalow Bill” is a serviceably catchy folk sing-along that benefits immensely from a theatrical vocal from Lennon (and a hilarious assist from Yoko Ono) as he cheekily skewers a gun-toting mama’s boy. Not McCartney’s best piano-pounding homage to Little Richard, “Birthday” is nevertheless a breathless, unpretentious jolt of soda fountain sugar that tips to where the Beatles came from even as the bulk of the White Album revealed their (divergent) futures.Ģ0.
![who sings the lyrics to let it be the beatles who sings the lyrics to let it be the beatles](https://imagesvc.meredithcorp.io/v3/mm/image?q=85&c=sc&poi=[733%2C360]&w=1333&h=1777&url=https%3A%2F%2Fstatic.onecms.io%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2Fsites%2F20%2F2021%2F10%2F13%2Fthe-beatles-6.jpg)
The song itself is fine, but it’s McCartney’s flamboyant vocal – alternating between a falsetto yelp and a growly challenge – that makes “Road” a fucking good time. Whether this song is a cry for help, sly parody or some combination, the grungy authenticity of the jam at the end justifies its presence on the White Album.Īs much a dirty joke as a rhetorical cosmic question, “Why Don’t We Do It In the Road?” is a straightforward piece of twelve-bar blues that doesn’t overstay its welcome. But this one benefits from a searing, muddy guitar solo at the song’s end. The plodding “Yer Blues” demonstrates that the Beatles didn’t excel at composing blues tunes. Still, it has an alluring bitterness that sticks with you. The lyrical barbs are sharp, but the ambling ivories and backup la-la-la’s fail to match the punch of the lyrics. When Lennon asserts “You know it’s gonna be alright,” he sounds less like a fired-up counterculture seer and more like a zonked out junkie repeating platitudes.ĭisillusioned by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi after the Beatles spent time with him in India in February 1968, Lennon penned this scathing kiss-off to the religious guru. Not as exhaustingly pretentious as “Revolution 9” or as unfettered and vital as “Revolution” (the searing hard rock version that appeared as the “Hey Jude” b-side), “Revolution 1” – with its hazy strumming and lazy shoo-be-doos – is a great composition that suffers from a lackadaisical delivery. While it’s a cute sequencing touch to put what might as well be a Disney tune after eight minutes of “Revolution 9” experimentation, it doesn’t save “Good Night” from being a sweet but slight entry in the Fab Four’s catalog. One of two Ringo lead vocals on the White Album, this stately lullaby came from Lennon’s pen for Starr to croon at the close of the 93-minute album. It wouldn’t be until Wings’ “Jet” that Paul would create a true classic named after a pooch.
![who sings the lyrics to let it be the beatles who sings the lyrics to let it be the beatles](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/W2JOpJapHJc/maxresdefault.jpg)
You can’t reasonably expect a music hall-indebted song named after a sheepdog to be the standout track on any album, and sure enough, “Martha” is jaunty, affable and disposable. But this also speaks to how peerless the Beatles were at this point – their filler was twice as lively as most bands’ throwaway songs. Not a bad treat by any stretch of the imagination – the lively brass section is especially savory - but it’s obvious that had the Beatles sliced this double LP down to one disc, “Savoy Truffle” would’ve been the first lightweight number to get canned. The 50th anniversary edition of the White Album presents a ten-minute version of “Revolution 1” that wraps with a few minutes of tape loops that would eventually be expanded into “Revolution 9,” suggesting an alternate reality where the Beatles grounded their avant inclinations in the structure of a malleable rock song and created a thrilling concrète coda instead of a concrete chore. Like “Wild Honey Pie,” the music doesn’t back up the concept. With none of the hypnotism of a Karlheinz Stockhausen experiment or layered complexity of a Pierre Schaeffer collage, the end result comes across more like ‘The Fabs Get Arty’ than an impressive composition that rewards repeated listens. It’s too bad, then, that this is not good musique concrète. It’s hard to understate the cultural impact and importance of the biggest rock/pop band of the ’60s forcing the public to sit through eight minutes of musique concrète in 1968. It adds flavor, sure, but it’s one you want to spit out politely when the chef has turned away. While the under-one-minute “Wild Honey Pie” helps set up the ‘anything goes’ spirit of the White Album as the double LP’s fifth track, there’s just no getting around the fact that the wigged out guitar chords and yowling McCartney vocals are plain irritating after several listens.