Phony Beatlemania: "I Will"

Follow along in the book HERE. Today's song is at #30 and is featured on pages 197-201.

 

 

"I Will"

The White Album

1968

 

The White Album is my favorite Beatles album. A defense of The White Album does not begin with "I Will."

 

Not a bad song, of course, but an absolutely baffling pick for #30 on this list, and the sixth-best White Album song, as chosen by our esteemed authors (previous White Album picks: "Revolution" at #9, "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" at #10, "Blackbird" at #17, "Martha My Dear" at #18, "Happiness Is a Warm Gun" at #24). I did my own ranking of the songs from this album back in 2018, and I more or less stand by the list—"I Will" at 25 out of 30 seems right. Definitely wouldn't make my personal Beatles Top 100. But, ya know, that's not really why we are here.

And we're not here to talk about "best Beatles albums" either, but I feel like it warrants mentioning here, since this is The White Album we're talking about, and I fucking love this thing. The best part about my love for this particular album is that the love persists despite the fact that there are so many subpar and straight-up bad songs here. The joy of The White Album is that all the amazing songs and all the strange and middling songs are jammed on the same goddamn disc, in a seemingly random order. It's a journey, and one that I've always appreciated.

So when I say that I don't really like "I Will" because it's lame and lightweight and nonessential, I'm not really all that upset about it. It's not a great song but it's an important function of The White Album. Were it not for songs like "I Will," then The White Album would just be an album filled with top-tier Beatles songs. Instead, it has "I Will," and so the album gets to be something even better.

And hey, this Beatles project sometimes provides me with little morsels of trivia to make even the second-rate Beatles tunes sound a little better to my ears. I know I complain a lot about the placement of some of these songs on Spignesi and Lewis's list, but I really do appreciate the way that they give some inside-baseball tips about even the one's I disagree with. It might not even be their intention in doing so, but knowing something new about a song really does improve its standing in my own mind.

For "I Will," I learned that there is no bass guitar being played at any point in the song. There are bass notes that you can hear, but those notes are being made by Paul McCartney's voice. Interesting! (And it makes even more sense now that Bobby McFerrin's Simple Pleasures featured a Beatles cover.) It also states that the percussion isn't even Ringo, but instead is John hitting a piece of wood with a stick. I agree that this particular piece of trivia is interesting since it's difficult to imagine John Lennon hitting a piece of wood with a stick for 67 takes in a row. (Where was Ringo at the time, you might ask? I suppose he was working on his masterpiece: "Don't Pass Me By" (not ranked on Spignesi and Lewis's Beatles Top 100).)

The authors try to make this the "reason" why it's #30, as they are wont to do, but I smell bullshit. I also think that the hundreds of words spilled on what this song is "about" is a bit overblown, since you can sum up the song's overall theme with two words—"unrequited love"—and you wouldn't lose much in the process. No, the actual reason why these two dudes chose a nothing of a song in "I Will" as the 30th-best Beatles song is embedded in a clue in the very last sentence of the write-up, in Michael Lewis's personal explanation for the song's placement. "I overdubbed 'I Will' onto my wedding video..."

Of course! There's nothing wrong with liking a song for personal reasons. Even if it's kinda weird that you might choose a song about unrequited love for a moment that features the kind of love that is very much requited, it doesn't matter! I just take issue with the fact that Lewis tried to toss the info off at the very end like we wouldn't notice. It's okay, dude. I understand that the assignment is totally subjective. If you want this song high on the list because it reminds you of your wife, then you gotta foreground that shit. Don't try to bullshit a bullshitter.

BEATLES TRIVIA: This is allegedly the very first song written about the future Linda McCartney, which I guess is kinda nice. It rings true that even a Beatle might find that love in its beginning stages would feel "unrequited." Still, I do find the "what is this song actually about" trivia to be less interesting than others might. I remain steadfast in my belief that a song means exactly what each listener wants it to mean. Besides an intensely gruesome gag at the very end of Infinite Jest, I feel nothing toward Linda McCartney. Love is nice, though, so I'll let it be.

BETTER BEATLE: "Julia" arrives right after "I Will," and they provide a pretty nice contrast between Paul McCartney's version of a love song, and John Lennon's version of a love song. I appreciate "Julia" more for reasons that I'm sure we'll touch on when we get to it at #51.

NEXT TIME: "Eight Days a Week" at #31