TheBeatlesOnline

When the Beatles had put the Magical Mystery Tour project behind them, they almost immediately headed for new adventures. In February 1968, the band traveled to Rishikesh in India to study Transcendental Meditation under the Indian meditation guru Maharishi. Some have also said the purpose of the stay was to clear their minds after some heavy use of chemicals drugs, which had persisted over time.

Staying in the Rishikesh community was also folk singer Donovan. Interestingly, he taught the Beatles a particular finger picking guitar style, which can be traced in many of the songs they wrote in India, such as Lennon's Dear Prudence and McCartney's Blackbird.

The first Beatle to leave India was Ringo, who returned to London in early March. McCartney soon followed, while Lennon and Harrison left in April.

Some say Lennon lost trust in Maharishi, because he allegedly had made sexual advances to a female member of the community (This apparently inspired Lennon to write the song Sexy Sadie).

Nevertheless, the Beatles returned from India with plenty of new material, and in May 1968 they began recording their next album, which would be given the title The Beatles (AKA the "White Album" because of its white cover).

Before the White Album sessions, the Beatles had been very careful of inviting outsiders to the studio. They would sometimes invite guests on very special occasions, such as on June 25 1967, when they performed All You Need Is Love in front of 400 million TV viewers worldwide. On that occasion, friends such as Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Marianne Faithfull, Eric Clapton, Graham Nash and Keith Moon of the Who were invited to join in.

But that was an exception. There were rarely guests in the studio during ordinary sessions. The only people who were present on a regular basis, in addition to George Martin and his engineers, was Mal Evans and Neil Aspinall, who acted as roadies, carrying and setting up equipment.

But that was before John turned up with his lover, Yoko Ono.

John Lennon had first been introduced to the Japanese artists at an exhibition in November 1966. By June 1968, when the recording of the White Album began, Yoko was in the studio every minute John was there. The two were inseparable.

Although Yoko never said much, the constant presence of an outsider annoyed the other three members. Or perhaps it was more the fact that John gave her a lot of attention and sometimes asked for her musical opinion. Nevertheless, things would never be the same again after that, as Beatles engineer Geoff Emerick points out in his book:

"We recognized the impact of her being there from the very first day. And from that point, everything was different."

Emerick describes how the atmosphere in the studio gradually got worse and worse, until he one day had enough and walked out. He did not return before the recording of Abbey Road.

Even Ringo got fed up and left the band, but he came back a few days later. On his return, he was greeted by a studio decorated in flowers, and a message on his drum kit which read: Welcome Back Ringo.

Still the tense atmosphere continued. As George Harrison later summed it up: "[By 1968] the rot had already set in."

Consequently, the four Beatles were now working more separately in the studio, often in different rooms. They also became shy of offering opinions and suggestions to each other. Songs like Martha My Dear and Mother Nature's Son were sheer solo recordings by McCartney, and only Ringo was asked to help out on Why Don't We Do It In The Road?

By October 1968, the Beatles had recorded 30 songs which they decided to release as a double-album, despite producer George Martin's suggestion to cut it down to one single LP.

Martin's view is shared by many, and perhaps not all the songs on the White Album are up to the high standard expected from the Beatles. Others hold the album as their all time favorite, because of its incredible diversity and unusual mix of songs.

It is also worth to mention that Paul McCartney has spoken highly of the album in recent years.

The Beatles (AKA the White Album) was released in November 1968, to mixed reviews from the critics. It was a best-seller around the world, however, and sold nearly two million copies within the first week in the US alone.

>> Next Chapter - Get back

Back to chapters