I mentioned it fleetingly back in this post from 2023, but The Beatles -- more colloquially known as The White Album -- used to kind of freak me out.
As recounted in that old post, I’d spent a formative summer, in my early teens, with my friend Brad busily exhuming the apocryphal (let alone debunked) conspiracy theory that Paul McCartney had been killed in a car crash and covertly replaced with a doppelganger (William Campbell, a.k.a. “Billy Shears”), and that the whole scheme had allegedly been revealed to discerning Beatle fans via a series of cryptic clues scattered throughout the Fab Four’s celebrated catalog. Indeed, throughout the four, sprawling sides of The White Album (not to mention the inserted poster), there were numerous such “clues” which could give even the most incredulous skeptic pause.
Personally speaking, while I never bought the notion that Paul had actually died, I was still strangely intrigued by the whole concept and romanced by the accompanying atmosphere of dread that came with it. I actively enjoyed being disquieted by, say, the inexplicably funereal strings that suddenly list out of the speakers between “Glass Onion” and the indefensible “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” or the ghostly wail (Yoko’s, I’d later learn) in the mysterious coda of “Long, Long, Long.” To this day, the listening experience of The White Album still feels decidedly off-kilter or deliberately peculiar, at certain points. The whole thing leant the otherwise revered and comparatively squeaky-clean Beatles an air of mysterious menace. What young teenager could say no to that?
Then, of course, there was the whole association with The Manson Family, whose notorious leader, Charlie, touted The White Album as some sort of blueprint -- or prophecy -- of doom, assigning all sorts of frankly ridiculous connotations of a coming war between the races to the willfully bombastic “Helter Skelter,” which remains – at its core – a song ostensibly about a fairground attraction for children. While not at all part of the whole “Paul is Dead” narrative, the unfortunate connection to all things Charlie Manson imbued The White Album with an even greater aura of malevolence. As such, it was the type of record that I’d be seriously disinclined to spin whilst home alone, lest I completely freak out during the creepy sound collage of “Revolution 9.”
In any case, during my whole “Paul is Dead” fascination, there was one theory that I’ve honestly yet to hear corroborated anywhere else – I can’t remember where I first heard or read about it. Supposedly, the notion was that if you washed or scrubbed away at the album cover of The White Album, you would eventually uncover … something, although I don’t know what that something was supposed to be. As I type this, I’m wondering if this theory was actually birthed out of the notion of steaming off the re-released covers of Yesterday & Today that infamously covered up the original “butcher shot.” But who can say? I don’t recommend scrubbing your LP covers, incidentally.
The only reason I’m discussing this, however, is that I remember being wholly intrigued by the endeavor of this one gent who’d I’d heard was building an art installation out of as many copies of The White Album that he could put his hand to, amassing them into basically a record shop that appeared to sell nothing apart from The White Album. While, on the surface, that might sound a bit … well, monochromatic, it was actually more a study of how these tactile items slowly shed their uniformity, either by age or use, and took on individual characteristics of their own. Think about it. Your own copy of The White Album, this many years later, probably looks nothing like the copy that’s sitting on my shelf at home (we’re talking vinyl, here, not CDs or cassettes). I suppose he could have done it with any record, but I assume both the cultural significance and the stark visual presentation of The White Album best served this mission’s requirements.
It also reminds me of a comparable project wherein a guy named Marc Fisher was trying to collect as many images, at least, of the Piece, Man EP by my beloved Cop Shoot Cop. Only 1000 copies of it exist, and each was individually splattered in real pig’s blood. Fisher’s aim was to amass as many of them as possible and display them as part of a jigsaw puzzle-of-sorts. As the legend goes – and I could be entirely wrong – the full run of all the pristine, original Piece, Man 7” singles were arranged, face-up, across a floor over which a slaughtered pig was dangling from a chain. Someone cut into the carcass and set it spiraling, spraying blood all over the floor and, summarily, all over all those record sleeves. I know, I know …. how delightful!
In any case, I was saddened to learn that the gentleman behind The White Album art installation, one Rutherford Chang, just passed away at the tender age of 45. I was doubly shocked to learn, oddly enough, that he was the brother of someone I actually know. Back in the early `90s, I was friends with a girl named Christine (re-named as “Roxanne" on this post), who rented a tiny apartment on MacDougal Street that I could periodically be found hanging out in. Christine shared this apartment (which, today, I’m sure costs a mint to rent) with a young lady named Danielle. I think Danielle thought I was something of a pest, but she was perfectly nice, all the same. In any case, Rutherford is Danielle’s brother. Small world.
No greater a periodical than The New York Times just wrote a tribute to Chang this week, and it’s well worth your time. Turns out the White Album concept was just the tip of a very imaginative iceberg.
May he rest in peace.
Recent Comments