Beatles enthusiasts have admitted to a peculiar fear, revealing there’s one song from the iconic White Album that they dare not play after dark, claiming it’s “haunted”. The legendary Liverpool band, celebrated for their myriad of classic songs, apparently included a track on this particular album that has even the most ardent fans feeling spooked.
While many remember the album for its beloved hits like Back in the USSR, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, and Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, a closer inspection might reveal some rather eerie undertones that were previously missed. A recent revisit by some has led them to describe The Beatles’ The White Album as possessing a “fever dream”-like aura, with certain individuals pinpointing one song as particularly disconcerting.
Reddit user WillingAntelope0 shared their thoughts: “Every song has something disturbing or ‘off’ about it. From the screaming airplane sounds that open the album, to the jarring transitions on Happiness is a warm gun, George wailing ‘Paul, Paul, Paul…’, John’s ‘ghost verse’ and the single most disturbing track ever put out by a mainstream artist. There is not a single song here that doesn’t have something creepy about it.”
“The lyrical themes in the album include suicide, car crashes, existentialism, decay, seances, drugs, and death. The album opts not to have a cover, instead containing images of the band members, some of which are incredibly mysterious and eerie. And all of this is disregarding the other baggage associated with this album. It’s a very creepy album. I can’t listen to it at night.”
Others were quick to respond, with one saying: “Now that you mention it, the whole album almost has a fever-dream vibe to it. Not every song sounds ‘spooky’, but many of the songs sound… just a tad off, hazy, and/or dream-like. I never thought of it this way but I like that perspective.”
It seems Revolution 9 is the scariest of all – a dizzying sound collage from John Lennon and Yoko Ono that has left many unnerved. Another fan added: “Revolution 9 is the epitome of off, hazy and dream-like. Probably the most bizarre song the Beatles ever released.
They elaborated: “I wanna read something about that song because it just seems like a collage of random noises and there isn’t melody (a tad bit of melody, like the guy saying ‘number 9, number 9, number 9’, if that counts). Considering all of the other songs released by the Beatles, R9 is the biggest oddball of them all.”
Another wrote up their thoughts, adding: “I feel like the end of the album is like a child’s nightmare. Cry Baby Cry is an adult telling the child a fairy tale at night, confusing and fantastic as any tale, then the child falls asleep and has a scary nightmare, that’s Revolution n.9, than they wake up in the middle of the night and the parent calms the child with a lullaby, Goodnight.”
Yet another added, reflecting on their own spooky experience, writing: “It’s funny you say this because when I was a teenager, I used to fall asleep to Beatles albums. The White Album always gave me nightmares.”