The Beatles' White Album
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50 free The Beatles' White Album trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Officially it is called simply The Beatles, but hardly anyone uses that name. The LP that arrived in November 1968 in a blank sleeve is the sound of the world's biggest band pulling in four directions at once: tender acoustic ballads sit beside pastiche, proto-metal and several minutes of tape experiments. Fans have argued ever since about which half they would keep. This quiz covers the whole story. There are questions on where the tracks were written and who inspired them, on the famous guest who played without a credit, on the rows and walkouts during the sessions, and on the sleeve and the title that was dropped. Later questions follow the music out into the world, from chart-topping covers to the people who borrowed its nickname. It is written for anyone who knows the big tunes from the radio as well as for listeners who can recite the running order. Each answer comes with a short explanation, so you can play straight through or print the set for the music round at your next pub quiz.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which friend of George Harrison played the guest lead solo on the Beatles' While My Guitar Gently Weeps?
Eric Clapton
Eric Clapton overdubbed the solo without a formal credit, on a Les Paul he had given Harrison. Harrison said having a guest in the room put his bandmates on their best behaviour.
Q 02Which cult leader is said to have heard coded prophecies of an apocalyptic war in the Beatles' White Album?
Charles Manson
Charles Manson heard the record within weeks of its release and played it to his followers over and over. Prosecutors later argued that his reading of its songs lay behind the 1969 murders.
Q 03Paul McCartney named Martha My Dear, recorded for the White Album with no other Beatle, after whom?
His pet sheepdog
Martha was his pet sheepdog, an Old English Sheepdog, though the rest of the words have nothing to do with her. A brass and string arrangement backs McCartney's music-hall piano.
Q 04In which country did the Beatles write most of the White Album while studying Transcendental Meditation in early 1968?
India
India left them with nothing to play but acoustic guitars for weeks, which is why so much of the record is unplugged. They came home with around forty new songs.
Q 05Dear Prudence, from the Beatles' White Album, was written for the reclusive sister of which Hollywood actress?
Mia Farrow
Mia Farrow was on the same meditation course, where her sister Prudence shut herself in her room for so long that John Lennon was asked to coax her out. The song was his way of doing it.
Q 06After Ringo Starr briefly quit the White Album sessions, what covered his drum kit as a welcome back?
Flowers
Flowers were George Harrison's peace offering after the other three had pleaded with their drummer to return. Starr had walked out feeling his part in the group had become peripheral.
Q 07Which song did Ringo Starr begin on a boat off Sardinia after walking out of the White Album sessions?
Octopus's Garden
Octopus's Garden grew from a chat with the boat's captain, who told him how the animals collect shiny objects on the seabed. The boat was on loan from the actor Peter Sellers.
Q 08Ringo Starr packed a whole suitcase of which food for the Beatles' 1968 meditation retreat?
Baked beans
Baked beans, the Heinz kind, filled one of his two cases because his allergies made the retreat's vegetarian meals impossible for him. He went home after ten days all the same.
Q 09Which star's solo stole a 2004 Rock Hall tribute performance of the White Album's While My Guitar Gently Weeps?
Prince
Prince, who was being inducted the same night, closed the song with an extended solo alongside Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne. The tribute marked George Harrison's posthumous induction as a solo artist.
Q 10Danger Mouse's 2004 mashup The Grey Album set samples of the Beatles' White Album under which rapper's vocals?
Jay-Z
Jay-Z had put out a cappella versions of The Black Album to invite remixes, and black plus white made grey. When EMI tried to block the mashup, 170 websites hosted it for a day in protest.
Q 11The plain sleeve of the Beatles' White Album was meant as a deliberate contrast to the cover of which earlier LP?
Sgt. Pepper
Sgt. Pepper had an elaborate, brightly coloured collage for a cover, so this sleeve went blank: no picture, no colour, only the band's name embossed faintly on the card.
Q 12What did every early copy of the Beatles' White Album carry stamped on its plain front cover?
A serial number
A serial number made each copy unique, an ironic numbered edition of millions in its designer's words. The band took the first four, and Ringo Starr's No. 0000001 sold for $790,000 in 2015.
Q 13The White Album was the first Beatles LP to appear on which record label, launched only months earlier?
Q 21Which White Album tribute to John Lennon's late mother is the only Beatles track he performs alone?
Julia
Julia is named for the mother he lost at seventeen, knocked down by a car driven by an off-duty policeman. It was the last song taped for the record, with only his voice and acoustic guitar.
Q 22Which fiddle-driven White Album track was the first song Ringo Starr wrote alone for the Beatles?
Don't Pass Me By
Don't Pass Me By had been around since soon after he joined in 1962, six years before it reached a record. On the session tapes it was labelled Ringo's Tune and then This Is Some Friendly.
Q 23Which White Album rocker did Paul McCartney write to outdo the Who after reading a Pete Townshend interview?
Helter Skelter
Apple Records
Apple Records was the band's own label, one arm of a business venture that drained their money on a string of failed projects. Its first Beatles LP arrived as the group was pulling apart.
Q 14Which producer wanted the Beatles to cut weaker songs and make the White Album a much shorter record?
George Martin
George Martin lost the argument, and midway through the sessions he went on holiday without warning, leaving a young assistant in charge. The band kept all thirty tracks.
Q 15Whose constant presence at the Beatles' White Album sessions broke the band's rule against partners in the studio?
Yoko Ono
Yoko Ono came in with John Lennon for the very first session and rarely missed one afterwards. Until then the four had worked in near isolation, with wives and girlfriends kept out.
Q 16Which hit single did the Beatles record during the White Album sessions but release three months ahead of it?
Hey Jude
Hey Jude stayed off the LP because British practice then treated singles and albums as separate things that should not share songs. It became the band's most successful single in America.
Q 17The White Album, holding thirty songs, is the only studio release by the Beatles in which format?
A double LP
A double LP was not what their producer had in mind, and Ringo Starr later joked that it should have been two separate records. Paul McCartney's verdict: it sold, so leave it alone.
Q 18Which solo acoustic song on the White Album has Paul McCartney linked to the American civil rights movement?
Blackbird
Blackbird also owes something to a bird call he heard on the meditation retreat, and its guitar part reworks a Bach piece he had learned as a teenager to show off.
Q 19Which lullaby, written by John Lennon for his young son and sung by Ringo Starr, closes the White Album?
Good Night
Good Night began as a quiet guitar piece, but the finished track swaps the guitar for a full orchestra and choir. Lennon wanted his drummer to sing it from the start.
Q 20Which sound collage on the White Album is the longest track the Beatles released during their years together?
Revolution 9
Revolution 9 runs for more than eight minutes of tape loops, speech and effects. Paul McCartney was abroad when it was made and was reportedly unhappy that it went on the record.
Helter Skelter was his bid for the loudest, rawest track he could make, and it is now seen as an early influence on heavy metal. In Britain the title means a spiral fairground slide.
Q 24Which White Album opener, a Chuck Berry parody, starts with the sound of an airliner landing?
Back in the U.S.S.R.
Back in the U.S.S.R. was taped as a three-piece because Ringo Starr had just walked out, so its drum track is a patchwork of the other three. Elton John closed his 1979 Soviet concerts with it, ignoring an official request to drop it.
Q 25Which ska-flavoured White Album song gave the Scottish band Marmalade a UK number one in 1969?
Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da
Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da took days of retakes that wore out everyone but its writer, Paul McCartney, and the others refused to release it as a single. Marmalade's cover filled the gap in Britain.
Q 26Sexy Sadie, on the Beatles' White Album, was John Lennon's parting shot at which spiritual teacher?
The Maharishi
The Maharishi was named in the original title until George Harrison talked Lennon into disguising it. Lennon had left the retreat believing rumours that his bandmates later found to be untrue.
Q 27Which Scottish folk singer taught John Lennon the finger-picking guitar style of the White Album's Dear Prudence?
Donovan
Donovan showed him the pattern as they sat playing under a jacaranda tree on the meditation retreat. Lennon, a fast learner, had mastered it within two days.
Q 28Mike Love, a fellow student on the meditation retreat behind the White Album, sang with which American band?
The Beach Boys
The Beach Boys' singer was one of about sixty people training there as meditation teachers, alongside the jazz flautist Paul Horn. He later took his own group on tour with the course's leader.
Q 29On the White Album's I'm So Tired, John Lennon curses which Elizabethan explorer for bringing tobacco to England?
Sir Walter Raleigh
Sir Walter Raleigh takes the blame in a song born of insomnia: after three weeks of constant meditation, Lennon could not sleep. He later called it one of his favourite tracks.
Q 30The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill, on the White Album, mocks an American visitor who shot which animal?
A tiger
A tiger was shot from elephant-back by a young American visiting his mother on the meditation retreat. John Lennon could not square the hunt with a camp devoted to communing with God.