|
Well, for the Beatles, "psychedelic" meant a few things. It meant that their sound had gotten more sophisticated through studio experimentation led by John and the exemplary production expertise of George Martin. And it meant that they specifically were setting out, as they had in the past here and there, to not only reflect the culture but to impact it as well. So they borrowed concepts from the cultural zeitgeist and lexicon...."I love to turn you on," and so on. They had already seen how Pepper became more than just a good Beatles record, and eclipsed their expectations to become a pop phenomenon for the ages in the "Summer of Love." So they set out to once again attempt to one-up themselves with other songs they had been working on. Specifically, they went wild with "I Am The Walrus" and "Strawberry Fields Forever" and also devoted one song to the peace message, (as a message song) with "All You Need Is Love."
And since psychedelia is tied-up with the visual aspect as well, they made a really bad one-off "surrealist" art film (John really wanted to be an actor too) to go along with the MMT album.
Their spiritual quest led them to India where instead of finding enlightenment, they discovered deep disillusionment. Their manager Brian had died, Yoko had come on the scene, and there were other internal problems and squabbles that came along with setting up Apple Records; they were on the verge of self-destruction and splitting up. Apple had been a dream, a vision of truly sponsoring the arts and emerging artists, but the financial aspect of it all took its toll, and their disillusionment grew greater. But somehow, they managed to make their best album amid all this tumult in The White Album. Their lives had become miserable, (although they didn't quite hate each other just yet---Ringo's quitting briefly helped the situation) and work on The White Album from the songs they had composed in India was the only thing at that time that kept them going. Because they are artists, they lost their worries in the art. In their mutual world-weariness, as a group they honestly got to a point that they no longer cared what people would think about their music anymore. And there you have the source of the intense beauty in that particularly fine work.
|