'The Beatles(The White Album)' by The Beatles
The above picture says a lot about how the relationships between the members of the most successful band in popular music deteriorated in their final years. In one snapshot it captures the relationship of the four Beatles in the latter years of the band. Lets analyze it a bit.
All the way to the left we have George Harrison, barely in the picture and the most isolated out of all the members in spacial terms in the photograph. Notice the white beam literally separating him from the others. George was definitely the most isolated, treated like the 'little brother' despite his talent in songwriting being practically equal to John and Paul. This was reinforced by the fact he was the youngest, and John and Paul had known him since he was 16. George Harrison had to fight tooth and nail to get his songs onto the album and done the way he wanted them to be done. For instance, while recording 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps', lots of people know that the guitar solo was actually played by Eric Clapton, but what is less known is the only reason Eric was brought in was when Paul and John played on the song, they put no emotion into it and could care less about the song, each one consumed in their own personal lives and songs. So George brought in Eric, because the theory was a family puts aside their fighting and tries to act nice, if for no other reason but to prevent embarrassment when company is there. Even if a family hates each other, none of them would like it if
other people knew they didn't like each other. The result is one of the classic songs by The Beatles, atop many fans favorites lists.
Poor Ringo. Out of all the people in the picture, he looks the most melancholy. Many people don't give him enough credit. It was his personality, easy-going way and peculiar phrases that inspired their songs(some phrases of his: eight days a week, a hard day's night, and tomorrow never knows) kept the band together. You could always count on Ringo being the one trying to break the tension and crack a joke. If not for him, I doubt the band would have lasted as long as they did. Notice those things behind him, rolls and loops of tape, overwhelming him. In interviews, Ringo would comment that he learned to play chess during Sgt. Pepper's, that's how much free time he had. He would lay down a drum track, and then sit back as the other three obsessed over dubs and such. After they stopped touring, the amount of work Ringo would put in would literally be the amount of time it took to play the drums, then they'd shove him aside and start dubbing, importing exotic instruments, etc. Sure, during this the other three were busy being pioneers, but that left Ringo out in the cold. A warning sign that the band was cracking up was when, during the White Album sessions, Ringo quit. In fact, on the song 'Back in the USSR', Paul played the drums. Eventually, the members got him to rejoin as they flooded his mailbox and his doorstep with notes like 'Ringo is the best!', until finally he relented. Why did he quit? He felt like the other members didn't like him, that the other three were really good friends and he felt like he wasn't apart of things. Amazingly, as he admitted that to the band, they all admitted that
they felt like the isolated one and that the other three were really good friends. A bad omen if there ever was one.
Then there's John. People blame Yoko too much. Although, Yoko's arrival was what unleashed all of their pent-up tension and resentment, if Yoko was never there, they still would've broke up, because once Brian Epstein died, it was only a matter of time. But, I'm not trying to say Yoko wasn't a manipulative person. She was. During that time period, John had a real problem with heroin(later talked about in his solo song, 'Cold Turkey'), and while they both shot up, Yoko would tell him how much better he was than the others, that they were holding him back, all that, almost cliché sounding jazz. Isn't it interesting, how Yoko seems almost to be growing out of John, and how his glasses and posture make him look like a kid, and her an overbearing mother. I'm not even going to get into the whole John and his mother issues thing. That would warrant an entire essay by itself.
Next is Paul. Look at how he's the only one with his hands on the console. In the latter years, Paul took on the role as leader and for a while they stayed together just by Paul's sheer force of will. It was Paul who wanted to invite the cameras in and film a documentary about them, and coincidentally, Paul looks like the only one interested in giving the fans a good show. Look at how annoyed Paul looks too. When Brian died, they had two choices for a manager, there was one who Paul supported, and one guy who the others supported, a friend of John's, Allen Klein. Allen did things that Epstein refused to, such as rerelease the Beatles songs as compilations. Paul felt that this was diminishing their artistic accomplishments, the death nail was when Paul sued the other three Beatles, in what he called a 'divorce'. The Beatles as a business unit were dead.
As an album, The White Album is their most dis-unified, it almost seems like a bunch of songs they had thrown together in the form of a double album, and contrary to the logic of the first two things I just mentioned, it's probably their best. It's size was an ambitious statement back then, and it's reputation has become almost monolithic. If Ahab had a white whale to chase, then I submit a theory that bands these days chase a 'white album', with the challenge of: can you make a giant, ambitious artistic statement and keep the quality of material consistently excellent? Most bands don't have a 'white album', and in my mind only two albums really hit that mark of sheer size combined with quality, 'The Wall' and '69 Love Songs'.
Look at the lines on the wall, they almost look like prison bars. The Beatles were trapped inside their own fame. It was a good thing they broke up. My grandma says that you like your children much more when they leave, and they like you more. The Beatles were stuck together for ten straight years. They had to be. Their fame came pretty quick, and stayed that way until they broke up. They couldn't go outside without being mobbed by people, and as a result spent most of their time together in the same rooms. When the band started, they were boys, and they couldn't really reach that last step of growing up unless they went out on their own, away from the 'family' if you will, and carve their own paths. And the band had to break up for that to happen. I personally find it to be a miracle they had such a consistently high quality of songs during their time together, and it's probably a good thing they didn't keep on making records. For all we know, they could have turned into The Rolling Stones. I'm glad they weren't together long enough for fans to go: God, these guys are way too old to still be doing this, just give it up.
I guess the only thing you can say is, ob-la-di, ob-la-da, life goes on.