In September 1965, The Beatles was released for the world to experience. Not the album, mind you, but the animated children’s television series. I mention this odd anomaly of history not just because its existence amuses me, but more than even their landmark performances at Shea Stadium, this is a way to encapsulate The Beatles in this period of time. The chances are, by the time you are made into a loveable cartoon, you are a comfortable part of the public consciousness. It should be the sign of a band who could forever be a safe presence in the world, who could forever rest on their laurels. One month after this cartoon’s release, the Rubber Soul sessions started.
The recording of Rubber Soul was, in some small way, a resting period for the band. They had finished all that year’s touring, and had a whole month without any other commitments. Calling making an entire album a resting position is obviously an exaggeration, but when you consider that this was the band that recorded their whole debut album in a single day, the band, Martin and Epstein having a whole month in the studio must have felt like child’s play. With that time came extra control and experimentation, and all those influences and ideas that were bubbling under the surface from Beatles for Sale and Help could finally could finally be fully explored. By which I mean pot and Bob Dylan.
The title Rubber Soul reflects the album’s stretching reach. As well as their traditional base of pop rock and the there was also soul, R&B, French bohemia, smidges of raga from Harrison’s newly acquired sitar, and of course the ever emerging world of psychedelia. That stretching quality also extends to cohesion of this album’s emotional output. This is an album – the UK release anyway – which begins with their most overtly funny songs to date, and ends with their most angry (which we will get to). The underlying glue that sticks the rubber together is melancholy, born of the Beatles mindset during his period of unwinding, from exploring their folk and international influences, and in a broader sense the affects of America entering the Vietnam War.
With this changing tide of the Beatles literal and figurative world, the four lads from Liverpool took to Abbey Road Studios to get the steps closer to expressing it. It was like its album cover; muted with bright colours about to burst out, stretched to an alien degree, but still very much recognisable. But that title, Rubber Soul, was derived from a derogatory term for white people singing soul music (plastic souls). This would be the equivalent of an artist today naming their album Poseur. Pre-Zappa, they were already willing to embrace the criticisms of being the top dogs dabbling in outsider pursuits. Blurring the line between art and pop, just as all those silly definitions were crumbling around them:
Track by Track
“Drive My Car”: I have not yet mentioned any records The Beatle released with Capital Records, but with Rubber Soul I think this is particularly important. The US version was more overtly a folk album, beginning with “I’ve Just Seen a Face” and not including either “What Goes On” or this opening track. It would be this version that would Brian Wilson that an album could beyond a vessel for singles, and he would write a little known album called Pet Sounds as response. Although I’m with the contingency of people who believe the US Rubber Soul to be the superior version (the only time this would be true, and because “Nowhere Man” is missing only just), this is nothing against “Drive My Car”, which is amongst the band’s most joyous songs. There’s an overt comic tone to Paul’s vocal, something that extends to even the tones of the guitar, but there is also that element of what would soon be called geek chic. The woman who is the subject of this song also presents a more mature representation of the changing world around them, with the rise of second wave feminism and women at the work place.
“Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)”: Other than being just a dark, sexy number from composition alone, this song is important for being the first time George brought his sitar into the picture. What perhaps make this song different to others is that for the majority of the song he plays the instrument as though he was playing just another form of guitar, creating solid chords with a bright, sparkling sensation. That’s definitely appropriate for this song, with ends with the implication that the narrator has set a house on fire after being basically denied sex. A bitterly funny pill, one that for John was apparently an oblique confession of his extra martial affairs. I think anyone who says they get this from the song alone is lying.
“You Won’t See Me”: This is the longest song on the album, at this point the longest of the band’s career, and examples like this show the growing track lengths for contemporary artists. This commitment to length helps to accentuate a drowsy and melancholy mood, particularly here in the soulful harmonies in the chorus. Here Ringo showcases some of the more busy playing he would do in iconic Beatles songs, particular with the overlay of hi-hats (a trend that modern pop music is just obsessed with). Oh, and I enjoy Mal Evan’s single note on the Hammond Organ. A note can make all the difference.
“Nowhere Man”: From the progression of “I’m a Loser” on Beatles for Sale and the title track on Help!, we have moved from the third evolved form of John’s tiredness and lack of self confidence within the first gorgeous harmonies of this song (using the newer 4-track technologies to their fullest abilities). As though directly seeking competition from the artists of the times, the guitars attempt to out-jangle The Byrds, and the harmonies are as complex as many a Beach Boys track. All the while John takes his own self deprecations about his artist abilities, and turns into a specific kind of existential dread. The kind where even you don’t exist.
“Think For Yourself”: The first Harrison song on this album is also the first from him not to be a love song, instead getting his starts into the political with what sounds in tone like a diatribe amongst the more selfish and self serving people, but it is really more to encourage an open mindedness as a result. There’s a certain kind of 60’s optimism to these lyrics, as well as a certain 60’s fuzzbox tone to the guitars, giving even the smoothest of notes a jagged edge (which is again counteracted by those positive harmonies).
“The Word”: There are recordings of the Beatles writing instrumentals in an attempt to be more like Booker T & the MG’s. Well here they take that aesthetic of guitars, harmonium and especially that groovy bass line and get the most R&B track the band has recorded at that point (and, if I’m thinking now, probably ever). The band rides that grooves as though it was spreading, like “The Word” itself. Beatles would right much more memorable “love is all you need” tracks, but in the beginning there was the word.
“Michelle”: The Side One, a position that use to be occupied by rockers in the Beatles discography, is here replaced by lushness. Originally an instrumental that was meant to replicate the style of Chet Atkin’s style of playing, and a pastiche of French bohemia, this has become one of the most beloved love songs of the Beatles canon (or indeed any canon). It perfectly replicates the foggy Paris atmosphere with its combination of French folk and Jazz, in the middle eight also paying respects to Nina Simone in the coolest of ways. It’s just enough to make anyone swoon. Though, “je t’aime”, Paul. That’s not a particularly hard french term to learn and say.
“What Goes On”: The opening of Side Two is special for being the first Beatles song with a writing credit from one Richard Starkey (which amusing/sadly did not have his name on first printings. Give Ringo a break). It’s the also the only song which has those three names as songwriters, and from that and the stories of it being an assortment of abandoned piece, this might explain why it’s the only song on this album that I would call a tiny bit naff in the composition front. Though I do appreciate how it brings a certain country tinge to the album that wasn’t on there previously, and the solo is legitimately a highlight.
“Girl”: Similar to “Michelle” in its more international pursuits, though here if that last verses guitar part is anything to go by focused on pieces like Zorba the Greek, this song continues the Beatles adding complexity into what could have been simple love ballads. There are of course the not-so-subtle drug implications of the breathing in, but there are also lines that relate to John’s own complications with the Church’s enforcement of morality and lifestyles. Considering what would happen between him and that religions highest proponents but months later is prescient stuff, but you can forget all that when the harmonies continuously say “tit” and you sing along with glee.
“I’m Looking Through You”: Whenever I hear this song, I always picture steam trains and railways in the foreground of bright skies, much like that iconic shot from Days of Heaven. Because those first chord hits and Ringo’s chugging percussion have that same feel of elation, imagination and escape that shot does. Or maybe its the other way round. This embraces the folk elements of Rubber Soul to the point of practical pastiche, until the George guitar barges in and cuts through the whimsy, much like the narrator’s increasing frustration at the woman he thinks to have changed to the point of being unrecognisable. This is my favourite Paul contribution on the entire album…
“In My Life”: My favourite John contribution also happens to be in my Top Three Beatles Songs. There are many songs that I would describe as gorgeous or breathtaking, but as far as I know this is the only song I’ve heard where my pavlovian response is to breathe out when its first notes are played. This is pure audio nostalgia, and although John would go on to write even more inventive and imaginative lyrics, I don’t think he wrote many that just hit straight to the gut the way he writes here. John had already lived to see lots of life and lots of death: his mother, his uncle and original Beatles bassist Stuart Sutcliffe to name but a few. It’s here that this experience and this nostalgia seems to break out of every note, every hit, every pour. Everything from the creeping drums and bells, the quiet guitars and those vocals work together in perfect harmony. And when George Martin comes in with those sped up piano notes, a baroque noise to rival even that of Bach? It’s as good as music gets.
“Wait”: This song is really the only “filler” on the album, originally meant to be on the Help! album, but if that’s the case its mighty fine filler to me. In fact I would say, other than the subject matter of the lyrics. This song sounds more suited to here than the album it was created for, taking those pedal effects from the last album to the nth degree, and the busy drums/bells/maracas make this song a highlight for Ringo’s percussion.
“If I Needed Someone”: George’s second song on the album is a more overtly lush piece, with layers upon layers of guitars, sounding like bells (*wink*). The majority of the vocals is also exclusively George (the harmonies double tracked), and it really exemplifies how much he had progressed as a singular performer, and acts as a cross between Motown and country that could have honestly have served as the album’s closer.
“Run for Your Life”: Now, I’m definitely off the mind that this was the wrong way to end the album. Not just because the lyrics are pretty nasty and misogynist (Patrick Bateman could sing these lyrics), something that John Lennon would apologise for later on in his solo career, but because it doesn’t really have that sense of finality that most Beatles conclusions. But I can’t deny that the between the guitar licks, the organs and the incessant tambourine, this is one of Rubber Soul catchiest track. I also think this attitude and this song is easier to swallow when it acts as an unintentional symbolic gesture: if you were only it for the simple love songs, you better run away now, because it’s not going to be like that from now on.
The success of Rubber Soul in both a critical, commercial and artistic sense. Proved wonders for the band. The experimentations in the studio had finally created a vessel for them to explore the musical ideas they had only hinted at previously. But in 1966 They still had obligations to meet, what with being The Beatles, and the time between the band’s next two releases would change how the band worked forever.Many things would happen to the Beatles between Rubber Soul and Revolver. And not all of it is based on the LSD…
What did you think, though?
The Beatles Album Rankings
- Rubber Soul
- A Hard Day’s Night
- Beatles for Sale
- Please Please Me
- Help!
- With the Beatles