Chapter 18: The Beatles
On August 4, 1967, the Beatles attended a lecture on transcendental meditation given by Indian guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi at the London Hilton. Like many in the countercultural movement, the Beatles were beginning to turn away from psychedelic drugs and toward alternative paths to inner peace and enlightenment. They were captivated by the Maharishi’s philosophy, which promised mental clarity and spiritual growth through daily meditation.
Shortly after, they accepted the Maharishi’s invitation to a weekend retreat in Bangor, North Wales. Alongside the Beatles were several members of their inner circle: Paul’s girlfriend Jane Asher, John’s wife Cynthia Lennon, George’s wife Pattie Boyd (a former model), and Beatles press officer Derek Taylor. It was during this retreat—meant to signal a new phase of spiritual commitment—that devastating news reached them that Brian Epstein had died in London from an accidental overdose of sleeping pills mixed with alcohol.
In February 1968, the Beatles took their interest in Eastern spirituality a step further by traveling to Rishikesh, India, to study under the Maharishi at his remote ashram on the banks of the Ganges River. This time, they were joined not only by their partners but also by several other celebrities drawn to the spiritual atmosphere. Among them were Mike Love of the Beach Boys, who had long been interested in meditation and would later integrate its principles into his music; Donovan, the Scottish folk-pop singer known for his gentle, psychedelic sound; and Mia Farrow, the American actress, along with her sister Prudence Farrow, whose intense commitment to meditation inspired John Lennon to write the song “Dear Prudence.”
Life at the ashram included vegetarian meals, early mornings, long meditation sessions, and daily teachings from the Maharishi. For a time, the retreat served as a peaceful and creatively productive environment—the Beatles wrote dozens of songs, many of which would appear later on The White Album and other future projects. But the experience gradually soured. Ringo Starr, unaccustomed to the food and plagued by India’s insects, returned home after ten days. Paul stayed a few weeks longer before also leaving, citing business obligations. John and George, who had taken the teachings more seriously, remained the longest. However, their faith was shaken by rumors (later denied) that the Maharishi had behaved inappropriately with some of the women at the retreat. Disillusioned, Lennon and Harrison abruptly left.
While in India during the spring of 1968, John Lennon was quietly building a deeper connection with artist Yoko Ono through regular correspondence. He found her unconventional outlook and conceptual artworks both puzzling and compelling. By the time she met Lennon, Ono had exhibited her work at the Indica Gallery in London and was well-known in avant-garde circles, though not widely understood or embraced by the mainstream. Her letters to Lennon included ideas about peace activism, conceptual art, and the merging of art with everyday life. Though he sometimes joked about her avant-garde sensibilities, Lennon increasingly saw her as someone who could help him break from convention and push past the limitations of his past life.
After returning to England, Lennon’s relationship with Yoko became increasingly visible. He had long been open with his wife, Cynthia, about his many extramarital affairs, but this time was different. Yoko wasn’t just another brief encounter—she became a consistent presence at his side. Whether in the studio, at business meetings, or during rehearsals, Yoko accompanied John everywhere. Her involvement in the band’s inner circle, especially during recording sessions, disrupted the Beatles' long-established dynamic. The other members began to view her not as a visitor or a distraction, but as a permanent fixture—one who challenged the group’s unspoken rules and routines.
Public awareness of their relationship grew by mid-1968, and the backlash was swift and often ugly. John and Yoko were met with heckling in public, and racist and sexist slurs became common in the press and in their mail. Many fans, unable to accept the changes in Lennon’s personal and artistic life, turned on him. Cynthia, meanwhile, found herself pushed to the margins. She had tolerated years of John’s unpredictability—from harsh verbal outbursts and extended absences to heavy drug use and emotional distance. Still, it came as a shock when John initiated divorce proceedings, accusing her of infidelity. Cynthia contested the charges in court, presenting her own evidence of John’s long history of unfaithfulness. Initially, Lennon’s legal team denied her claims, but when news surfaced that Yoko was pregnant, their argument weakened significantly. In November 1968, the court granted Cynthia the divorce, awarding her custody of their son, Julian. The breakup marked the end of Lennon’s family life as it had been known and ushered in a new chapter in both his personal identity and artistic direction—one in which Yoko Ono would play a central and often controversial role.
In 1968, the Beatles released their most ambitious and polarizing record to date—a self-titled double album simply called The Beatles, now widely known as the White Album. Its stark, minimalist cover of a plain white sleeve with no artwork, no song titles, and only a stamped serial number, stood in dramatic contrast to the colorful explosion of imagery on Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The packaging itself signaled a shift: a retreat from psychedelic spectacle toward something more raw, fragmented, and personal.
At thirty tracks spread across two LPs, the White Album was an unprecedented undertaking for a pop group. Double albums were still rare in popular music and usually reserved for compilations or live performances. Here, however, the Beatles used the format to stretch their creative boundaries—and, unintentionally, to highlight their growing internal divisions. Although released under the band’s name, the album reflects four increasingly independent voices. Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, and Starr were each moving in their own artistic direction, and many of the songs were conceived and recorded with little input from the other members.
The eclectic nature of the album—ranging from acoustic ballads and proto-metal to musique concrète and music hall pastiche—has made it both revered and criticized. Some fans hail it as the band’s most daring and diverse work, while others view it as disjointed and overindulgent. The album’s breadth is undeniable: John’s contributions were often abrasive, experimental, and defiant of commercial expectations (“Revolution 9,” “Happiness Is a Warm Gun”), while Paul leaned into melodic whimsy and pop craftsmanship (“Martha My Dear,” “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da”). George, increasingly confident as a songwriter, delivered some of his strongest material yet, including “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” and “Long, Long, Long.” Ringo contributed two songs, including the fan-favorite “Don’t Pass Me By,” but temporarily quit the band during the sessions, exhausted by the conflict and feeling marginalized in the studio.
Tensions ran high during the recording process. The collaborative spirit that once defined the Beatles had given way to isolated recording sessions, creative clashes, and personal resentments. Despite the chaos—or perhaps because of it—the White Album emerged as a cultural and commercial triumph. It topped the charts in both the UK and the US, holding the number-one position for nine weeks and remaining on the Billboard 200 for nearly three years.
The White Album is often viewed as a sprawling musical mosaic, seemingly pieced together by four artists rather than a single cohesive band. Critics like Rolling Stone’s Jann Wenner described it as a “history and synthesis of Western music”—a sweeping, if exaggerated, claim that nonetheless captures the album’s stylistic scope. From baroque-inspired chamber pop to early hard rock, avant-garde tape experiments to country pastiche, the Beatles used the album as a sprawling canvas for their collective and individual musical vocabularies.Its sheer range of styles—some reverent, others irreverent—suggests a deep well of musical influences, many of which had shaped the Beatles’ evolution since their earliest days. Whether intentional homage or unconscious synthesis, the songs feel like nods to the musical pioneers who laid the groundwork for the Beatles’ own innovation. In contrast to the unified aesthetic of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, this album feels more like a patchwork quilt—diverse, at times contradictory, yet rooted in a shared history of popular music.
One clear example is “Back in the U.S.S.R.,” the album’s explosive opener. Its structure and lyrical premise draw directly from Chuck Berry’s “Back in the U.S.A.,” but its harmonies and vocal style echo the lush, sun-drenched sound of the Beach Boys, particularly their early 1960s California anthems. During the bridge, the Beatles even reference “Moscow girls” with a doo-wop-inspired flourish that mimics the Beach Boys’ layered harmonies—specifically reminiscent of “California Girls.” This tongue-in-cheek Cold War-era pastiche playfully imagines a Soviet twist on American teenage fantasies, blending rock ‘n’ roll with satire. It’s especially fitting given the long-standing musical interplay and underlying rivalry between the Beatles and the Beach Boys. Brian Wilson, leader of the Beach Boys, had been deeply influenced by Rubber Soul in 1965, which pushed him to create Pet Sounds (1966), an album that in turn inspired the Beatles to experiment further on Sgt. Pepper. By 1968, the rivalry had become more of a mutual admiration society, though creative competition still lingered.
While many British bands of the 1960s built their sound around the familiar 12-bar blues form, the Beatles typically explored a broader range of structures and styles. However, the White Album features a rare trio of straightforward blues-based tracks: “Yer Blues,” “Birthday,” and “Why Don’t We Do It in the Road?” The latter stands out for its stripped-down minimalist instrumentation. Driven by pounding piano chords and a shouted vocal delivery, it evokes the raw spirit of early rhythm and blues.
Elsewhere on the album, McCartney again turns to the past, but in a very different way. With “Honey Pie,” he crafts a loving pastiche of early 20th-century popular music, echoing the sound of the 1920s British music hall and American Tin Pan Alley. The track begins with a brief introduction designed to sound like it’s playing from an old 78-rpm record, complete with scratchy fidelity and rubato phrasing. Once the chorus kicks in, the song settles into a steady, nostalgic rhythm accompanied by clarinet-heavy orchestration that mimics the sound of pre-swing dance bands. Every element—from the melody and harmony to the arrangement and vocal tone—is carefully constructed to pay tribute to a bygone era of popular entertainment.
In contrast, “Helter Skelter” charges in with a completely different kind of energy. Inspired by critics who accused the Beatles of becoming too soft, McCartney set out to create one of the loudest, most aggressive tracks in the band’s catalogue. The result is a raw, chaotic burst of proto-heavy metal, built around distorted guitars, shouted vocals, and relentless drumming. Its title, drawn from a British amusement park slide, becomes a metaphor for emotional turbulence and descent into disorder. The track’s wild intensity challenged expectations of what a Beatles song could sound like and anticipated the harder-edged rock styles that would emerge in the 1970s.
Meanwhile, McCartney’s “Blackbird” offers a quieter, more introspective counterpoint. While its lyrics can be interpreted as a metaphor for personal growth or a reflection on racial justice, they also seem to suggest McCartney’s awareness of shifting dynamics within the group. The song’s elegant fingerpicking pattern and minimal arrangement evoke both political urgency and quiet resilience, standing out as one of the album’s most poignant and understated moments.
“Julia,” is one of John Lennon’s most tender and introspective songs. Written in tribute to his mother, who died when he was a teenager, the track is sparsely arranged, featuring only Lennon’s fingerpicked guitar and voice. Its lyrics also quietly reference Yoko Ono, blending memories of maternal loss with the influence of his new partner. The result is an emotionally layered ballad that reveals a more vulnerable side of Lennon’s songwriting.
Another Lennon track, “Sexy Sadie,” was originally a pointed critique of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, whom the Beatles had followed to India earlier in 1968. Although Lennon ultimately masked the subject’s identity by changing the song’s title from “Maharishi” to “Sexy Sadie,” the lyrics still convey his sense of betrayal and disillusionment after the band’s time at the ashram. The song’s tone is laced with sarcasm and regret, as reflected in lines like “Sexy Sadie, what have you done? / You made a fool of everyone” and “You broke the rules, you laid it down for all to see.” Musically, “Sexy Sadie” features a distinctive piano sound created through double-tracking and slight detuning, giving the instrument a woozy, off-kilter quality that underscores the song’s mood of disillusionment
If the eclecticism of the White Album surprises listeners, nothing prepares them for Lennon’s “Revolution 9.” This eight-minute sound collage pushes the boundaries of what a Beatles song—or even a pop song—could be. Constructed from a mix of tape loops, voice snippets, reversed audio, sound effects, and eerie repetitions of the phrase “number nine,” the piece draws heavily from the avant-garde traditions of composers like John Cage. Lennon and Yoko Ono, both admirers of Cage, were deeply influenced by his philosophy of chance operations and non-linear form. While “Revolution 9” baffled many fans and was met with resistance from the other Beatles and producer George Martin, it reflected Lennon’s growing interest in experimental and conceptual art. The recurring “number nine” motif held special significance for Lennon, who associated the number with pivotal moments in his life.
John Lennon’s “Revolution 9” remains one of the most debated pieces in the Beatles’ catalogue. Departing entirely from conventional song form, the track unfolds as a sprawling, nearly nine-minute sound collage composed of layered recordings, found audio, and disjointed fragments. The repeated phrase “number nine” anchors an otherwise abstract sonic experience, which includes overlapping voices, reversed tape loops, erratic bursts of sound, radio static, and distorted breathing sounds. Its non-linear structure and fragmented audio textures challenge traditional expectations of what pop music—or even Beatles music—should be.
Despite the group’s internal tensions and the experimental nature of many White Album tracks, the Beatles scored a massive commercial hit later in 1968 with their single: “Hey Jude” backed with “Revolution.” McCartney’s “Hey Jude” defied radio conventions with its seven-minute length and slow build, starting with solo piano and gradually layering vocals, orchestration, and a repeated chorus that stretches over four minutes. The song became one of the Beatles’ most successful releases, topping charts around the world.
On the B-side, Lennon’s “Revolution” offered a more direct and lyrical take on the political unrest of the era. Unlike the abstract “Revolution 9,” this version featured a distorted guitar riff, clear structure, and pointed lyrics. Lennon acknowledged the need for societal change but expressed caution about the use of violence, famously singing, “But when you talk about destruction / Don’t you know that you can count me out.” The song divided listeners—some saw it as a retreat from revolutionary politics, while others praised its message of nonviolent resistance. This nuanced stance would later become central to Lennon and Ono’s public activism.