Most of the Album titles never make sense anyway
That's true. They make sense to
someone, though. I remember some years ago, Miroslav saying he never got the meaning of Wishbone Ash's album title, "There's the rub." But once one of us English guys had explained the cricketing connotation, he understood it.
They may have a relation to one track that is obvious but in some cases you would never find it
That's often the case. Many album titles have some kind of meaning to the artist and are factual or conceptual, for example, Bob Marley & the Wailers' "Uprising" or "Exodus" or "Kaya." But they're just lame in the sense of an album title even though they're pregnant with deep seated meaning that their audience would catch straight away.
Gil Scott Heron & Brian Jackson's "The first minute of a new day" and "From South Africa to South Carolina" are both heavily saturated with meaning.....but are lame titles.
'A night at the opera' was a good title for that album. 'A day at the races' had no relation at all to what was on vinyl
Ah, but when one considers that "A night at the opera" is the title of a Marx Brothers movie and so is "A day at the races" then the connection starts to make sense. It even can be stretched to the next Queen album, "Jazz", when one considers that Chico Marx had a swinging jazz band for a couple of years.
Titles often bear no relation to what's on the album. In 1970, John Lennon said of "Rubber Soul" that it was just 4 boys trying to work out what to call an album, nothing deeper. But by 1996 when "Anthology 2" came out it transpired that the title was a dig at Mick Jagger and by extension, their major rivals at the time, the Rolling Stones. Paul was heard talking about how Black artists used to laugh at Mick behind his back, referring to him and his aped "black" styles as 'plastic soul'. So "Rubber Soul" was a Scouse {ie, native to Liverpool} play on words {conflated with the rubber sole of a shoe or boot} that took on a more pointed dig at the Stones. They were to do it with the song titles "And your bird can sing" and "Dig a pony."
'Shang-a-lang' ............... What the f*** does that mean?
It means the same as "Ummagumma" ~ sex.
The white album is the best album title ever |
Well, it's maybe a contender for best "album title that isn't even the name of the record" ever. Better than "Led Zeppelin 4."
The irony is that it's another title that's pregnant with deep seated meaning. It's supposed to be a contrast with the psychedelic long-windedness and colour of "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and "Magical Mystery Tour," a kind of "we're leaving all that stuff behind."
When one considers all that was going on with the Beatles in '68 and them striking out on their own, having rejected the Maharishi, sidelining George Martin, regretting not having more input in the "Yellow Submarine" film, both John & Paul ditching the longstanding WAGS they'd had since the Beatlemania period and hooking up with new partners and getting Apple together in the aftermath of Brian Epstein's death and them putting out a double album that George Martin believed should have been a single one, one can also see the album title as a two fingered salute to anyone that was seemingly standing in their way of doing what
they wanted to do. It was them saying "we are no longer the Beatles for sale, we don't need 'help', we're not Sergeant Pepper's Lonely bloody Hearts club band nor are we the wizards on some mystery trip or in need of an Indian guru ~ we are
the Beatles, pure and simple, and both the title and the cover reflect this."
Ironically, it was the fans that started calling it the white album.
But either way, it's a lame title.