At The Atlantic, journalist James Parker writes about The Beatles’ self-titled ninth studio album (the one we call The White Album). This November marks the 50th anniversary of the record that took five bitter months to make, the same one that saw an exit from legendary studio engineer Geoff Emerick (who’d been on board since Revolver‘s first session, for “Tomorrow Never Knows”) as well as Ringo Starr’s week-long departure midway through.