3. The BeatlesThe Beatles
I used to listen to ‘The White Album’ at school every day in the library. Endlessly! And I had an obsession with Charles Manson and the Tate Murders, and of course ‘The White Album’ was the thing that fired Manson’s imagination when he was on LSD playing ‘Helter Skelter’. I just think that it’s a masterpiece.
There’s so much freedom on it and I found this album to be much more free than anything they’d been doing. There’s an honesty to it.
I think that the reason that America took The Beatles to its heart is because of the perception of how cool the UK is. It’s part of the identity of the UK and it’s part of everything like Big Ben. We just thought they were the cutest things ever. We loved all of them and all of their characters. Their music was so accessible and it was clever and it was also old fashioned in some weird way. Some of their songs were so cringey and old fashioned and so weird.
‘The White Album’ was towards the end of their career and it’s almost as if they’re… ‘bored’ is too strong a word but you can feel disillusion within the unit of what they were and the fact that these four guys were beginning to move into other directions. This album is a musical expansion with no fear of experimentation and not giving a fuck because it was all falling apart anyway. I’m imagining that’s what was happening.
And it’s so fascinating! I mean, ‘Rocky Racoon’! What? What a weird thing! And all that rumoured stuff like ‘Revolution 9’ and playing it backwards: y’know, ‘Turn me on, dead man!’ is what you’re supposed to hear if you play that track backwards. And how many hours did I spend playing that record backwards on my turntable! Everyone loves a conspiracy theory like that whole ‘Paul is dead’ rumour.
