RUBBER SOUL

'''Rubber Soul''' is the sixth album by The Beatles, first released in December 1965. Produced by George Martin, the album was recorded in just over four weeks to make the Christmas market. It was a major artistic achievement for the band, attaining widespread critical and commercial success, with reviewers taking note of The Beatles' developing musical vision.

Contents

History

Tributes

Track listing

UK release

Side one

Side two

U.S. release

Side one

Side two

Album artwork

Release details

U.S. release

Personnel

Reception

References

External links

History

The album was released on CD in 1987, using the 14-song UK track lineup. As with the CD release of the 1965 ''Help!'' album, the ''Rubber Soul'' CD featured a contemporary stereo digital remix of the album prepared by George Martin. This remix is somewhat controversial among Beatle fans — many purists prefer the 1965 mix. Strangely, a few Canadian-origin CD editions of ''Rubber Soul'' and ''Help!'' accidentally use the original mix of the album, presumably due to a mix-up as to which tapes were sent to the pressing plant. As of 2006, these "mistakes" sell for a fair amount in the second-hand market when properly identified.
Musically, the Beatles broadened their sound, most notably with influences drawn from the contemporary folk-rock of the Byrds and Bob Dylan. The album also saw the Beatles broadening rock n' roll's instrumental resources, most notably on "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)". This track is generally credited as being the first pop recording to use the sitar, an exotic Indian stringed instrument, and "Norwegian Wood" sparked a musical craze for the sound of the novel instrument in the mid-Sixties. The song is now acknowledged as one of the cornerstones of what is now usually called "world music" and it was a major landmark in the trend towards incorporating non-Western musical influences into Western popular music. Harrison had recently been introduced to Indian classical music and the sitar by David Crosby of the Byrds. He soon became fanatically interested in the genre and began taking sitar lessons from renowned Indian sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar.
Recording innovations were also made during the recording of the album — for instance, the keyboard solo in "In My Life" sounds like a harpsichord, but was actually played on a piano. George Martin found he could not match the tempo of the song while playing in this baroque style, so he tried recording with the tape running at half-speed. When played back at normal speed during the mixdown, the sped-up sound gave the illusion of a harpsichord. Other production innovations included the use of electronic sound processing on many instruments, notably the heavily compressed and equalised piano sound on Lennon's "The Word"; this distinctive effect soon became extremely popular in the genre of psychedelic music.
Lyrically, the album was a major progression. Though a smattering of earlier Beatles songs had expressed romantic doubt and negativity, the songs on ''Rubber Soul'' represented a pronounced development in sophistication, thoughtfulness, and ambiguity. In particular, the relationships between the sexes moved from simpler boy-girl love songs to more nuanced, even negative portrayals. "Norwegian Wood", one of the most famous examples and often cited as the Beatles' first conscious assimilation of the lyrical innovations of Bob Dylan, sketches a poetically ambiguous extra-marital affair between the singer and a mysterious girl. "Drive My Car" serves as a satirical piece of reverse sexism. Songs like "I'm Looking Through You", "You Won't See Me", and "Girl" express more emotionally complex, even bitter and downbeat portrayals of romance, and "Nowhere Man" was the first Beatles song to move beyond a romantic subject.
After completing the album and the accompanying single "We Can Work It Out" and "Day Tripper", the Beatles were exhausted from years of virtually non-stop recording, touring, and film work. They subsequently took a three-month break during the first part of 1966, and used this down time exploring new directions that would colour their subsequent musical work. These became immediately apparent in the next album, ''Revolver''.
Until very late in their career, the "primary" version of the Beatles' albums was always the monophonic mix. According to Beatles historian Mark Lewisohn, the group, producer George Martin, and the Abbey Road engineers devoted most of their time and attention to the mono mixdowns, and the band were usually all present throughout these sessions and actively participated in them. Even with their landmark ''Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'' LP, the stereo mixdowns were considered less important than the mono version and were completed in far less time than the mono mixdown.
While the stereo version of the original release of ''Rubber Soul'' was similar to that of their earliest albums, featuring mainly vocals on the right channel and instruments on the left, it was not produced in the same manner. The early albums were recorded on twin-track tape, and they were intended only for production of monaural records, so they kept vocals and instruments separated allowing the two parts to later be mixed in proper proportion. By this time, however, the Beatles were recording on four-track tape, which allowed a stereo master to be produced with vocals in the center and instruments on both sides, as evidenced in their prior albums ''Beatles for Sale'' and ''Help!''. But Martin was looking for a way to easily produce a stereo album which sounded good on a monaural record player. In what he admits was some experimentation, he mixed down the four-track master tape to stereo with vocals on the right, instruments on the left, and nothing in the middle.
The song "Wait" was initially recorded for, and then left off, the album ''Help!''. The Beatles chose not to include it on ''Help'' because they thought the song was dull . The reason the song was released on Rubber Soul was that that album was one song short, and with the Christmas deadline looming, the Beatles chose to release "Wait" instead of recording a new composition.
Alternate takes of the album appear on ''Anthology 2'' of ''The Beatles Anthology''.
Paul McCartney claims to have conceived the album's title after overhearing a black musician's description of Mick Jagger's singing style as "plastic soul". John Lennon confirmed this in a 1970 interview with ''Rolling Stone'', stating, "That was Paul's title... meaning English soul. Just a pun."^[1] Also, Paul says the words "Plastic soul, man. Plastic soul..." at the end of I'm Down take 1, on Anthology 2.

Tributes

In 2005, the entire album was covered under the title ''Rubber Folk'' for the Mike Harding show on BBC Radio 2. Each song was arranged and performed by a different folk musician or group. While originally developed for radio, the venture proved popular with listeners and a CD release is forthcoming, although Amazon UK do not currently list a release date. Another tribute, entitled ''This Bird Has Flown - A 40th Anniversary Tribute to the Beatles' Rubber Soul'', was released in 2005. It featured a variety of artists, including the The Fiery Furnaces, Ben Kweller, and Yonder Mountain String Band, covering tracks from the album. It was produced by Jim Sampas and released by Razor & Tie Records.

Track listing

All tracks written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, except where noted.

UK release

Side one

#"Drive My Car" – 2:30
#"Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)" – 2:05
#
★ Featuring George Harrison on sitar
#"You Won't See Me" – 3:22
#
★ Featuring Mal Evans on Hammond organ
#"Nowhere Man" – 2:44
#"Think for Yourself" (Harrison) – 2:19
#
★ Featuring McCartney on fuzz bass
#"The Word" – 2:43
#
★ Featuring George Martin on harmonium
#"Michelle" – 2:42

Side two

#"What Goes On" (Lennon, McCartney, Ringo Starr) – 2:50
#"Girl" – 2:33
#"I'm Looking Through You" – 2:27
#"In My Life" – 2:27
#
★ Featuring George Martin on piano
#"Wait" – 2:16
#"If I Needed Someone" (Harrison) – 2:23
#"Run for Your Life" – 2:18

U.S. release

Side one

#"I've Just Seen a Face" – 2:04
#"Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)" – 2:00
#"You Won't See Me" – 3:19
#"Think for Yourself" (George Harrison) – 2:16
#"The Word" – 2:42
#"Michelle" – 2:42

Side two

#"It's Only Love" – 1:53
#"Girl" – 2:26
#"I'm Looking Through You" – 2:20
#"In My Life" – 2:23
#"Wait" – 2:13
#"Run for Your Life" – 2:21

Album artwork

The photo of the Beatles on the ''Rubber Soul'' cover appears stretched. McCartney relates the story behind this in Volume 5 of the documentary film ''Anthology''. Photographer Bob Freeman had taken some pictures of the Beatles at Lennon's house. Freeman showed the photos to the Beatles by projecting them onto an album-sized piece of cardboard to simulate how they would appear on an album cover. The unusual ''Rubber Soul'' album cover came to be when the slide card fell slightly backwards, elongating the projected image of the photograph and stretching it. Excited by the effect, they shouted, "Ah! Can we have that? Can you do it like that?" Freeman said he could.
Capitol Records used a different colour saturation for the U.S. version, causing the orange lettering used by Parlophone Records to show up as different colors. On some Capitol LP's, the title looks rich chocolate brown; others, more like gold. Yet on the official 1987 CD of the British version, the Capitol logo is visible, and the letters are not brown, nor the official orange, but a distinct green. The lettering was designed by Charles Front.
Coincidentally, if the album is held upside-down in front of a mirror, the title seems to read "ROAD ABBEY".

Release details

There were two different stereo versions released on vinyl in the U.S.: the standard U.S. stereo mix, and the "Dexter Stereo" version (a.k.a. the "East Coast" version), which has a layer of reverb added to the entire album. The standard U.S. stereo mix and the original mono mix are available on CD as part of ''The Capitol Albums, Volume 2'' box set.

Country	Date	Label	Format	Catalog
United Kingdom	December 3 1965	Parlophone	mono LP	PMC 1267
			stereo LP	PCS 3075
United States	December 6 1965	Capitol Records	mono LP	T 2442
			stereo LP	ST 2442
Australia	Unknown	EMI	Stereo 8-track cartridge	8X-PCSO-3075
Worldwide reissue	April 15 1987	Apple, Parlophone, EMI	CD	CDP 7 46440 2
Japan	March 11 1998	Toshiba-EMI	CD	TOCP 51116
Japan	January 21 2004	Toshiba-EMI	Remastered LP	TOJP 60136
Worldwide	April 11 2006	Apple/Capitol/EMI	CD reissue of U.S. LP	CDP 0946 3 57501 2 6

U.S. release

''Rubber Soul'' came out in the United States three days after the British release, and began its 59-week long chart run on Christmas Day. It topped the charts for six weeks from January 8 1966, before dropping back. The album sold 1.2 million copies within nine days of its release, and to date has sold over four million copies in America.
Like other pre-''Sgt. Pepper'' Beatles albums, ''Rubber Soul'' differed markedly in its U.S. and UK configurations; indeed, through peculiarities of sequencing, the U.S. ''Rubber Soul'' was deliberately reconfigured to appear a "folk rock" album to angle the Beatles into that nascent and lucrative American idiom during 1965, thanks to the addition of "I've Just Seen a Face" and "It's Only Love" (leftovers from the UK ''Help!'') and the deletion of some of the more upbeat tracks ("Drive My Car", "Nowhere Man", "If I Needed Someone", and "What Goes On"). The tracks missing on the U.S. version would later surface on the ''Yesterday . . . and Today'' collection. The track variation resulted in a shorter album length, clocking in at 29:59. In addition, the stereo mix sent to the U.S. from England has what are commonly called "false starts" at the beginning of "I'm Looking Through You." The track is also slightly shorter at the end. The false starts are on every American copy of the album from 1965 to 1990 and are also on the CD boxed set, Capitol Albums, Vol. 2. The US version of "The Word" is also recognizably different.
The U.S. version of the album also greatly influenced the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson, who "answered" the album by releasing ''Pet Sounds'' in 1966. In turn, ''Pet Sounds'' greatly impressed the Beatles and served as inspiration for ''Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band''.

Personnel

★ John Lennon – vocals, rhythm guitar, slide guitar, harmonium, electric piano on "Think for Yourself"

★ Paul McCartney – vocals, bass guitar, piano on "Drive My Car", "You Won't See Me" and "The Word", fuzz bass on "Think for Yourself", lead guitar on "Drive My Car" and [perhaps] "I'm Looking Through You"

★ George Harrison – lead guitar, vocals, sitar on "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown),

★ Ringo Starr – drums, percussion (tambourine, shaker, maracas, O/D hi-hat, cowbell, finger-cymbals), vocal on "What Goes On", organ on "I'm Looking Through You"

★ George Martin – producer, piano on "In My Life", harmonium on "The Word"

★ Mal Evans – organ on "You Won't See Me"

Reception

The album was a major artistic leap for the group, and is often cited by critics, as well as members of the band, as the point at which the Beatles' earlier Merseybeat sound began to be transformed into the eclectic, sophisticated pop/rock of their later career. John Lennon later said this was the first album on which the Beatles were in complete creative control during recording, with enough studio time to develop and refine new sound ideas.
''Rubber Soul'' is often cited as one of the greatest albums in pop music history. In 1998 ''Q'' magazine readers voted it the 40th greatest album of all time, while in 2000 the same magazine placed it at number 21 in its list of the 100 Greatest British Albums Ever. In 2001 the TV network VH1 placed it at number 6. The album had a 42-week run in the British charts starting on December 11, 1965, and on Christmas Day took over from ''Help!'', The Beatles' previous album, at the top position in the charts, a position the album would hold for eight weeks. The album became a classic — on May 9 1987, it returned to the album charts for three weeks, and ten years later made another comeback to the charts.
In 2006, the album was chosen by TIME Magazine as one of the 100 best albums of all time.^[2]

References

1. Wenner, Jann S. ''Lennon Remembers: The Full Rolling Stone Interviews from 1970''. Da Capo Press; New edition (October 2000).
2. [1]

External links

★ Beatles comments on each song

★ Recording data and notes on mono/stereo mixes and remixes