The Beatles - A Doll's House (1968)

The Beatles released the "Lady Madonna" b/w "The Inner Light" single in March 1968, through EMI Records. A stopgap release, it came out when the band was going on a retreat to learn Transcendental Meditation in Rishikesh, India, and would be away from the studio for a couple of months. Once there, they were under the tutelage of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, attending lessons, meditating, and spending time with their wives in bungalows. Away from the thrills London had to offer, they found themselves with a lot of free time on their hands, which then turned into songwriting time, especially for the ever-prolific Lennon and McCartney. With fellow Yogi alumnus Donovan, they learned how to fingerpick, something they would put to very good use in the nearly forty songs they wrote while in the retreat. However, after settling in, the band slowly started to lose interest in the retreat. The first to leave was Ringo two weeks in, as the food there upset his sensitive stomach, shortly followed by Paul a few weeks later. John lingered for a few weeks, before an unfounded accusation of sexual misconduct on the part of the Maharishi got to him, which infuriated him and prompted him to leave as well. That left only George, clearly the most interested in meditation of the bunch, to be the last to leave at the course's end. Once they were all back in London, they reunited at George's house in Esher and recorded demos for nearly thirty of the songs they had written, with an eye on recording them in the studio shortly.

The recording sessions finally begin in June, with one of the first things the band actually records being the "Hey Jude" single. From there, they take a more fragmented approach to recording than they had done before, with the four Beatles only appearing on half of the finished album. When they did appear, takes went up to the hundreds as the songs were recorded mostly live in the studio, and sessions started spanning the whole night up until the early hours of the morning. Further complicating things, Yoko is at John's side at every session, after the two had gotten together and recorded Two Virgins that May, and the sessions become tense and fraught with infighting. Things get so tough that their engineer since 1966, Geoff Emerick leaves in August as he's no longer able to deal with the situation. Worrying, Ringo then becomes the first Beatle to leave the band, after having a row with Paul over a drum part, coming back two weeks later to find his drumkit decorated with flowers. From there, the recording thankfully transpires more smoothly, and the decision to make a double album is made. They also decide on the working title A Doll's House, after a Henrik Ibsen play, only to find out that the title had already been taken by the group Family earlier in the year. The album finally was released in November 1968, a double album titled simply The Beatles with a totally white cover. It received massive critical acclaim, being hailed as the great follow-up to Sgt. Peppers fans had been waiting for a year and a half.

Once some time went by, however, the massive critical and commercial acclaim it received slowly began sharing space with some criticism, claiming the record was way too long and inconsistent. This criticism was even echoed by producer George Martin, who later claimed to believe they should have simply selected the strongest material and released a single album. That stance was later criticized by Beatle Paul McCartney in the Anthology interviews, where he famously said "It's great, it sold. It's the bloody Beatles' White Album, shut up!" to try to put an end to all of the controversy. However, this feeling that the White Album is a "flawed masterpiece" has led to a trend where fans all around the world select their fourteen favorites from the album and create their own custom single White Album. And what's interesting about that is that there tends to be very little overlap between one beatlemaniac's list and another, as it seems no one can decide which ones the strongest songs on the album actually were! What's also surprising is that there are a whole lot of songs that were written around the same timeframe but that were rejected from the White Album, meaning not only did they make a huge, sprawling, indulgent record, but they didn't even include all they had in hand on it, leaving many great songs such as "Child of Nature" and "Junk" on the cutting room floor. So what if they did release everything they had written that year? What if the White Album was a triple album instead of a double?

This reconstruction is an upgrade to my old A Doll's House reconstruction from 2017, which has sadly been deleted since. In it, we will try to expand the already double White Album into an absurd triple, going in the opposite direction of the "it should have been a single!" criticism. Instead of adding the new songs to the tracklist, we will make a third disc out of them, so that they don't interrupt the flow of the album (one of its biggest strengths, in my opinion), and that we maintain the original tracklist as much as possible. Given that the double LP was 30 songs long, we will be aiming to make this new disc about 15 songs long as well, averaging out the sides. There'll be a quota of three songs for George and Ringo, and twelve for John and Paul, making sure those two get roughly the same amount of songs. Only songs from the India songwriting spurt and later will be considered, meaning that as great as "Across the Universe" is, it sadly won't have a place in our album. Not to worry, however, as we have more than enough quality material to fill a record as it stands. We will prioritize recordings made by the Beatles themselves while the band still existed, but solo recordings where a Beatle plays all the instruments are fair game as well. That means there will be times when we'll be forced to use Esher demos on the album, but we can just explain those away as The Beatles inventing lo-fi twenty years before it was invented, right? With that out of the way, here's what our reconstruction looks like:

Back in the U.S.S.R. (The White Album)

Dear Prudence (The White Album)

Glass Onion (The White Album)

Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da (Anthology 3)

Wild Honey Pie (The White Album)

The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill (The White Album)

While My Guitar Gently Weeps (The White Album)

Happiness is a Warm Gun (The White Album)

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Martha My Dear (The White Album)

I'm So Tired (The White Album)

Piggies (The White Album)

Blackbird (The White Album)

Rocky Raccoon (The White Album)

Don't Pass Me By (Anthology 3)

Why Don't We Do It in the Road? (The White Album)

I Will (The White Album)

Julia (The White Album)

-

Revolution (Past Masters)

Circles (The White Album)

Maxwell's Silver Hammer (Abbey Road)

Child of Nature (The White Album)

Teddy Boy (McCartney)

What's the New Mary Jane? (Anthology 3)

Look at Me (Plastic Ono Band)

The Long and Winding Road (Anthology 3)

-

Sour Milk Sea (The White Album)

Let it Be (Let it Be)

Mean Mr. Mustard (Abbey Road)

Polythene Pam (Abbey Road)

Junk (McCartney)

Not Guilty (The White Album)

Hey Jude (Past Masters)

-

Birthday (The White Album)

Yer Blues (The White Album)

Mother Nature's Son (The White Album)

Everybody's Got Something to Hide (The White Album)

Sexy Sadie (The White Album)

Helter Skelter (The White Album)

Long, Long, Long (The White Album)

-

Revolution 1 (The White Album)

Honey Pie (The White Album)

Savoy Truffle (The White Album)

Cry Baby Cry (The White Album)

Revolution 9 (The White Album)

Good Night (The White Album)

Download link:

The Beatles - A Doll's House (1968)

George Martin, Paul, Ringo, John & George recording at EMI, October 1968

The first disc of the White Album remains virtually untouched, with only "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" being replaced by the superior Ronnie Scott take (which would have saved them a couple of days of work!) and "A Beginning" being reinstated as the intro of "Don't Pass Me By". The second disc also doesn't have any changes to it, but it now becomes disc three, so that the album still ends with "Good Night" and that the bonus disc can be accommodated snuggly in between them. So with that, we're left to figure out what's gonna be on the bonus disc. The first two inclusions are rather obvious, the "Hey Jude" b/w "Revolution" single, which was a part of the WA sessions but released a few months in advance of the album. Songs that were actually recorded by the band and considered for inclusion, but left on the cutting room floor include George's "Not Guilty", "Sour Milk Sea" (which was recorded with Jackie Lomax on vocals but featured the Beatles minus John), and John's "What's the New Mary Jane?", easy additions for us. There are also the songs we know were written in India but not recorded by the band for some reason or another, we have "Child of Nature", "Teddy Boy", "Junk", "Polythene Pam", "Mean Mr. Mustard", "Circles" and "Look at Me". And finally, there's a group of songs that were written in October 1968, which were simply late arrivals and there wasn't enough time to work on them for the White Album: "Let it Be", "The Long and Winding Road" and "Maxwell's Silver Hammer".

Now, all that's left is to sequence this album accordingly. And we begin the only way possible, with "Revolution", right off Past Masters, the second version of the song to feature on the album. Following it is a song radically different in tone, the spooky Esher demo of "Circles". The lo-fi nature of it actually works toward making the song better, making it a haunting song, in the same way "Long, Long, Long" manages to be. Up next is the controversial "Maxwell's Silver Hammer", in its regular Abbey Road studio version. The only difference I see is the absence of the Moog synthesizer on the bridge, as the Beatles had yet to acquire one in 1968. Another Esher demo, John's "Child of Nature" would have been one of the highlights of the album, but was inexplicably left off before being turned into "Jealous Guy", which is way too different to be included here. Paul's solo "Teddy Boy" fits in rather well here, given that there are one or two one-man-band recordings in the White Album. John's outtake "What's the New Mary Jane" taps into the weirdness of "Wild Honey Pie" and "Revolution 9" with ease, but we've edited it down to a more manageable three minutes here, to make sure side one doesn't run long. "Look at Me" is next, a solo John recording that is eerily similar to "Julia" in arrangement and in lyrical content, which means it feels right at home on the album. And closing off the side we have the overdub-less version of "The Long and Winding Road", a nice ballad to finish off proceedings on side five.

Opening up side six is the outfake of "Sour Milk Sea", combining George's demo vocal with Jackie Lomax's backing track to create another Beatle song that never was. Given that we don't have any Ringo songs in the running, I figured it was only fair if we gave his slot to George, which means he'll get one last track further down the road. It is followed by Paul's "Let it Be", a loose version of which even made it to the White Album Deluxe Edition box set. We won't be using that, however, we'll use Take 28 of it from the Let it Be sessions, its superior version. The medley of "Mean Mr. Mustard" and "Polythene Pam" is up next, featured in its regular Abbey Road studio version. The only difference is that instead of segueing into "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window", "Polythene Pam" simply fades out. Would these two songs have been made into a medley had they been recorded for the White Album? Probably not, but it works pretty well musically and keeps us from having two full-blown lesser songs. Paul's solo "Junk" is next, another song that fits in well on the album. There's a Beatle-era demo of it on Anthology, however, its unfinished lyrics mean we'll have to stick with the McCartney version. Finally vindicated after 100+ takes is "Not Guilty", featured in its original 1968 mix running a full 4 minutes, one of the best songs on the new disc and the one that deserves most to be here. As the album closer, we have the only possible song to end it, Past Masters' "Hey Jude" in all of its glorious 7 minutes.

With the bonus disc clocking in at nearly 47 minutes with two 23-minute sides, the entire monstrous triple album is now a two-hour-plus affair, a massive undertaking not unlike the Clash's Sandinista. Then again, a triple album is really excessive and probably not even the Beatles could have done that at the time, but this is a great imaginary exercise nonetheless, and really shows on how much of a roll the three songwriters of the band were. The two sides we've put together rival the original four in quality, but lose out in consistency as the sound quality and recording dates are all over the place, which of course wouldn't be the case in this timeline. Them having to record this many new tracks would probably also delay the album by about a month, making it a very nice Christmas gift, even if prohibitively expensive. One other thing we'll do is to reinstate the White Album's original working title of A Doll's House and its original cover, just to differentiate our efforts from the real album. Notable absences you might be noticing are "Step Inside Love", as it's a Magical Mystery Tour-era song, and "Cosmically Conscious", as it was recorded 25 years too late. Also, the download link includes only the bonus disc, because that's what this reconstruction is really about, isn't it? It's insane that the Beatles could release 45 songs in one go with the vast majority of them being very high-quality material, and given the sheer amount of outtakes available, we're not guilty if we took matters into our own hands.

Sources:

- The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions: Mark Lewisohn

- The Way to White: Kevin Howlett

- The White Album Track by Track: Kevin Howlett