I drove myself into work a few times last month, mostly so that I would have my car to drive myself home after the myriad office holiday parties I went to. Since Houston's local NPR station stops their NPR programming at 7:00 PM, I got a Beatles CD to listen to on the way home. I picked the Beatles Anthology, Volume 2
This compilation of rough cuts reminded me of some of the more avante garde songs on the White Album. I instantly recalled a summer evening when I was about 12...
I was staying with my family at my cottage on the Chesapeake Bay, like we did every summer of my youth. I had a friend visiting at the time - Andy Carlson, I believe. Mom said it was OK if Andy and I went down to the beach after dinner.
It was dark, and that was part of the fun. Andy had his collection of cassette tapes with him, and he brought them along with a tape player down to the beach. I was just being introduced to The Beatles. I had the "Red Album" and the "Blue Album" and just barely knew about the White Album (which I thought completed the set). I asked Andy to play the White Album, which I hadn't heard.
Some of the songs were pretty, but most of them were edgy. At the time, I didn't realize that the two Beatles albums I had were compilations of their most popular songs. The White Album presented the Beatles in the middle of their experimental stage, with all of the tracks that would never hit the pop charts.
It was kind of creepy anyway, being out there on the beach by ourselves. It was a quiet, remote part of the bay, and after dark there was no one to wander by. The small waves lapped invisibly on the shore, and we could see the lights on the opposite shore. But we didn't see any people.
Then Helter Skelter came on. It's a song that is filled with dissonant chords and screaming vocals, which trail off into a mash of overlapping instruments. It was rather frightening for a 12-year-old alone on a dark beach.
Then came "Revolution #9". This was not the Beatles I knew, expected, or, in fact, wanted. It was a long "song" with no melody - even more scary than "Helter Skelter". We ended the evening and returned to the cottage at this point.
I don't remember what happened after we listened to the songs. Did I admit to my "cooler" friend (he had the White Album, after all, and I didn't) that I was scared? Did we leave right after that song or stay to the end of the tape? Did I stay up that night recovering from the creepy songs? I don't remember. But that memory of sitting on the darkened beach listening to the Beatles' White Album is very vivid, and that memory is still my mental backdrop for many of the songs on the White Album.