There's the group votes. What about the individual results?

The top 15 individual vote-getters are shown in blue; the bottom 15 individual vote-getters are shown in orange.

Total surveys submitted: 124

• "While My Guitar Gently Weeps": 118 (95%)
• "Blackbird": 111 (90%)
• "Dear Prudence": 105 (85%)
• "Back in the USSR": 104 (84%)
• "Helter Skelter": 102 (82%)
• "Happiness is a Warm Gun": 91 (73%)
• "I Will": 84 (68%)
• "Julia": 79 (64%)
• "I'm So Tired": 78 (63%)
• "Mother Nature's Son": 70 (56%)
• "Revolution 1": 68 (55%)
• "Ob-la-di Ob-la-da": 67 (54%)
• "Glass Onion": 66 (53%)
• "Birthday": 65 (52%)
• "Sexy Sadie": 59 (48%)
• "Yer Blues": 58 (47%)
• "Savoy Truffle": 57 (46%)
• "Rocky Raccoon": 56 (45%)
• "Martha My Dear": 56 (45%)
• "Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except for Me and My Monkey": 56 (45%)
• "Cry Baby Cry": 44 (35%)
• "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill": 43 (35%)
• "Good Night": 39 (31%)
• "Don't Pass Me By": 38 (31%)
• "Honey Pie": 34 (27%)
• "Piggies": 31 (25%)
• "Why Don't We Do It In The Road?" 29 (23%)
• "Long Long Long": 26 (21%)
• "Revolution 9": 19 (15%)
• "Wild Honey Pie": 7 (6%)​

So how do those results compare to each other?

Counting the three italicized songs that tied for the final two spots in the group vote as "kept", 13 songs were kept in both the individual and group votes:

• "While My Guitar Gently Weeps"
• "Blackbird"
• "Back in the USSR"
• "Dear Prudence"
• "Helter Skelter"
• "Happiness is a Warm Gun"
• "I Will"
• "Julia"
• "Ob-la-di Ob-la-da"
• "Revolution 1"
• "Birthday"
• "I'm So Tired"

• "Mother Nature's Son"

On the other hand, 12 songs were rejected from both votes:

• "Yer Blues"
• "Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except for Me and My Monkey"
• "Good Night"
• "Revolution 9"
• "Martha My Dear"
• "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill"
• "Don't Pass Me By"
• "Honey Pie"
• "Piggies"
• "Wild Honey Pie"
• "Why Don't We Do It In The Road?"
• "Long Long Long"

That leaves five tunes that were kept in one vote but rejected in the other. 3 were kept in the group vote, rejected in the individual vote:

• "Savoy Truffle"
• "Rocky Raccoon"
• "Cry Baby Cry"

And 2 were kept in the individual vote, but rejected in group vote:

• "Glass Onion'"
• "Sexy Sadie"

So what does it all mean? What macro conclusions can be drawn from all this data?

The first thing that stands out to me is that every song received at least 7 individual votes (and all but one received at least 19), while no songs received unanimous inclusion (the closest was "Gently Weeps", which scored 95%). In other words, every song is valued by someone, and no song is universally valued.

Building off of that premise, my personal fundamental conclusion is that The White Album really does need to be a double album. As Alan Pollack, author of the hugely popular Notes On... series once told me, "This variety and abundance has been argued pro (it’s a feature) and con (they lacked self-control/criticism to select and discard). If diversity is an asset, then it needs to be a double album; if it's a hindrance, then a single album is better." I fall into the former camp - I find the vast stylistic diversity to be the album's strength, and omitting half the songs undermines that diversity and therefore undermines the album's greatest offering.

That being said, if I had to pick 15 songs to keep based strictly on these results (based on objective statistics, as opposed to my subjective preferences and opinions), here's what it all comes down to.

The 15 keepers:

• "While My Guitar Gently Weeps"
• "Blackbird"
• "Back in the USSR"
• "Dear Prudence"
• "Helter Skelter"
• "Happiness is a Warm Gun"
• "I Will"
• "Julia"
• "Ob-la-di Ob-la-da"
• "Revolution 1"
• "Birthday"
• "I'm So Tired"

• "Mother Nature's Son"

• "Rocky Raccoon" (this gets in due to the unanimous inclusion in the group vote)
• "Cry Baby Cry" (gets in due to the higher total percentage of the two votes)

And the 15 rejects:

• "Yer Blues"
• "Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except for Me and My Monkey"
• "Good Night"
• "Revolution 9"
• "Martha My Dear"
• "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill"
• "Don't Pass Me By"
• "Honey Pie"
• "Piggies"
• "Wild Honey Pie"
• "Why Don't We Do It In The Road?"
• "Long Long Long"
• "Savoy Truffle"
• "Sexy Sadie"
• "Glass Onion"
• "Savoy Truffle"

Aaron: Hi Brian! Thanks for taking the time to discuss your new book!
Brian: Thanks Aaron for the opportunity to answer questions about the book.

Is this your first book?
It’s actually my second book, the first one is a technical book about Data Profiling, but that’s neither here no there for this chat.

You're a first-generation fan, who grew up listening to Beatles music. Do you have a particular memory or pivotal moment from your formative years that The Beatles helped articulate?
Yes, I have dozens of memories about the Beatles and the time period. The first is of course Ed Sullivan’s show, but after that, I’d have to say seeing A Hard Day’s Night at a local drive-in, hearing their first US album Introducing the Beatles, learning the riff to I Feel Fine on my canary yellow Epiphone Cornet - my first electric guitar - and many other memories that are described in the book.  

What's your musical background? I understand you're a performing musician, as well as an analytic one and an author? You're also an expert on Celtic music. How does that expertise inform or influence your understanding of The Beatles? Is there any cross-over between those styles?
I’ve played the guitar since I was 8 years old, so that’s quite a while ago. I’ve also played lots of other instruments and musical styles, blues guitar and harmonica, Appalachian fiddle and clawhammer banjo, classical guitar, keyboards - obsessions with Couperin and Satie - Strumstick, and a whole lot of Irish Session tunes, on fiddle, bouzouki, and tenor banjo, and most recently, acoustic and electric tenor guitar, with arrangements for cello thrown in. And I’ve learned the chords to many a Beatle song, so it’s all mixed in together, and many years of playing music does really help you appreciate how very special the Beatles were. One thing I enjoy doing that brings it all together is arranging what I call ‘morphs’, which are instrumental renditions of Beatles and other rock/pop music, in a Celtic or Americana style, and often with changes in time signature. I’ve put a few CDs of these types of things out over the past 10 years.

What did you find most surprising/enlightening/rewarding as you worked on this book?
I was always so taken with the Beatles’ vocal harmonies – I think combined with their special energy it’s such a defining characteristic of their music – so the book started as totally focused on that, but after a few years, the whole idea of Blue Notes and Sad Chords, the mixing of genres within the same song, and particularly bluesy rock n roll with emotional pop, really became so much clearer. It was always something you’re sort of aware of in the background, but after detailed study, it really stands out. You can hear this style mixing very definitely in early hits like 'Can’t Buy Me Love', 'A Hard Day’s Night', and 'I Feel Fine'. And then it just feels so good to feel like you’ve answered such a basic question – namely What makes the Beatles’ music so incredibly popular and lasting? This contrast between parts of the same song has also been pointed out by Beatles musicologists like O’Grady, but maybe not given a specific name, as I’ve done in the book.  

You told me music is your hobby and passion, but not your profession. What's your day job? How does that professional experience inform your musical experiences?
I’m a computer programmer, databases and GIS (computer mapping), by day, with lots of visualization thrown in. It involves a lot of abstract thinking that doesn’t map perfectly to the world of music, but I’m sure I’m influenced by some of those things, in both directions.
It’s also why I really tried to balance the highly simplified color-coded music theory in the book with lots of nostalgic, memory-laden passages – like what else was charting at the time, and my Proustian boyhood memories of being a young guitar player, or for example, recalling my boyhood idol, a rhythm guitar player for a great local band, who had this incredibly beautiful yellow-to-red sunburst Rickenbacker guitar, and lots of things like that.  

This book just came out a few months ago. What's next for you? Any more books under construction?
I’m working on a late 60’s coming of age novel – it will be far less filtered then my reminiscing in the Beatles book, but similar in tone, except in third person – with plenty of sex, drugs, and rock n roll – it certainly won’t be allowed on high school reading lists - lots of song descriptions of the Beatles’ music, but also lots of other artists, and it will have many more pages, to describe growing up in those crazy times. I went to high school in a college town, Northampton, Mass., and there was a lot going on in the 1968-70 time period. That book won’t be done for a couple more years. I’ll keep the title under wraps for the time being.  

Where can people buy the book?
It’s up on Amazon and Barnes and Noble, and quite a few other websites.

Great! I hope the book goes platinum!
​Thanks again Aaron and hats off to you for all your great work. 

The individual survey will continue at least into November (Nov 22, 2018 is the 50th anniversary of The White Album's release), and the next group vote will take place in Lake Zurich, IL next month:

Wednesday, 8 August 2018, 7:00-8:30 p.m.
Ela Area Public Library, 275 Mohawk Trail, Lake Zurich, IL
Carte Blanche: The Beatles' White Album
The Beatles' only double-album, The Beatles (a.k.a. The White Album) is the band's most individualized and stylistically diverse work. Many people argue that The White Album should have been released as a single-album, but no two people seem to agree on which half should be kept and which half should be discarded. In this 90-minute program, two Beatles experts (Richard Mills and Aaron Krerowicz) will make the case for why all thirty tracks should be kept, then the audience will vote on which fifteen should be kept and which fifteen should be discarded in order to distill the double-album down to a single disc.

Last night being the fifth time I've done this program, here are the updated cumulative voting totals.

5 of 5 votes: eight songs

• "Back in the USSR"
• "Dear Prudence"
• "While My Guitar Gently Weeps"
• "Blackbird"
• "Rocky Raccoon"
• ​"Julia"
• "Helter Skelter"
• "Revolution 1"

​
4 of 5 votes: two songs

• "Ob-la-di Ob-la-da"
• "I Will"

3 of 5 votes: five songs

• "Happiness is a Warm Gun"
• "I'm So Tired"
• "Birthday"
• "Yer Blues"
• "Cry Baby Cry"

2 of 5 votes: five songs

• "Why Don't We Do It In The Road?"
• "Mother Nature's Son"
• "Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Monkey"
• "Savoy Truffle"
• "Good Night"

1 of 5 votes: two songs

• "Don't Pass Me By"
• "Sexy Sadie"

0 of 5 votes: eight songs

• "Glass Onion"
• "Wild Honey Pie"
• "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill"
• "Martha My Dear"
• "Piggies"
• "Long Long Long"
• "Honey Pie"
• "Revolution 9"

Round 6 will take place on Monday:

​Monday, 16 July 2018, 6:30-8:30 p.m.
Newton Free Library, 330 Homer St, Newton, MA 
Carte Blanche: The Beatles' White Album
The Beatles' only double-album, The Beatles (a.k.a. The White Album) is the band's most individualized and stylistically diverse work. Many people argue that The White Album should have been released as a single-album, but no two people seem to agree on which half should be kept and which half should be discarded. In this 2-hour program, three Beatles experts (Candy Leonard, Aaron Krerowicz, and Daniel D'Addio) will make the case for why all 30 tracks should be kept, then the audience will have to discuss and debate the merits of each song in order to distill the double-album down to a single disc.

While this concludes the White Album presentations for June, I have two more non-White-album events next week:

Monday, 25 June 2018, 6:30-7:30 p.m.
Kokomo-Howard County Public Library, 1755 E Center Rd, Kokomo, IN
The Beatles & The Rolling Stones
Ask anybody to name two English rock bands from the 1960s and the response will likely be, "The Beatles and The Rolling Stones." This 60-minute multimedia presentation will compare and contrast the two through musical examples and interviews with the band members.

Wednesday, 27 June 2018, 6:00-7:30 p.m.
Tippecanoe County Public Library, 627 South St, Lafayette, IN
The Influence of American Rock 'n' Roll on the Beatles
Before the Beatles ever wrote their own songs or performed on stage, they were inspired to do so by American rock 'n' roll records. This 90-minute multimedia program illustrates the influence of Carl Perkins, Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, and other American recording artists from the 1950's on the Beatles through side-by-side comparisons and musical analysis of Beatles covers and original recordings.