Friday, 9/10

 Which songs would you choose?

I had mentioned a few days ago that while we were down visiting Loraine's parents that we got into a rather thought provoking conversation with Loraine's youngest nephew Jeremy, who's an amazing kid (well, 20-year old) with an incredible grasp on pop culture. Specifically, Jeremy knows a lot about music from the latter half of the 1960s. So when I put forth a question that I've put forth before, he tackled it head on.

That question? If you were to cut down The Beatles “White Album” from a double to a single album, which songs would you keep?

I've long thought that “The White Album” was one of the group's lesser efforts, if only because there is a lot of filler on those four sides of music. When they returned from their sojourn to India they had a bunch of songs written, and apparently recorded each and everyone one of them for the album. Some of them, sadly, didn't really need to be recorded. I've always thought that if the group had only released the material as a single disc, if they had just used the strongest songs, that “The White Album” would have been one of their best. Not everyone agrees with me (hi, Loraine!), but that's my opinion.

And I'm sticking to it.

Anyway, Jeremy took the discussion seriously. He stayed up a good chunk of that night listening to the album several times, and then came up with his version of the one-disc “White Album”. I have to admit that he did rather well, too, re-sequencing the songs into such a coherent order that even “Ob-La- Di Ob-La-Da” sounds like it belongs (which it never has on any of my versions). As with everyone else we had disagreements about which songs should stay and which should go, but that's what makes it such a fascinating thought exercise.

Well, at least fascinating if you're a music geek, which apparently several of us are.

So there you go. If you get bored this weekend, try your hand at your version of a one disc “White Album”. If you do, you'll join the fine company of some of the biggest music geeks in the world. Or, at least, the biggest music geeks sitting around a kitchen table last weekend in Reese, Michigan.

(jim@wmqt.com)