Rubber Soul

Untitled

Rubber Soul is the sixth album by English rock band The Beatles, first released in December 1965. It was recorded in just over four weeks to make the Christmas market, and was a major achievement, with reviewers taking note of The Beatles' developing musical vision. Like most Beatles albums, the record was produced by George Martin and achieved widespread commercial success.

Overview

The album was a major artistic leap for the group, and often cited by critics, as well as members of the band, as the point where The Beatles' earlier Merseybeat sound began to morph into the eclectic, sophisticated pop/rock of their later career. 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.

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 exotic Hindustani stringed instrument, the sitar and "Norwegian Wood" sparked a musical craze for the sound of the sitar 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 — the harpsichord solo in the middle of "In My Life" is actually not a harpsichord, but George Martin playing the piano, with the tape running at half-speed. When played back at normal speed during the mixdown, the speeded-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" expressed 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 color their subsequent musical work. These became immediately apparent in the next album Revolver.

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.

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. Template:RS500

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 a bit 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.

Until very late in their career, the 'primary' version of The Beatles' albums was always the monophonic mix. According to Beatles historian Mark Lewison, 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 that the mono version and were completed in far less time than the mono mixdown.

The so-called "stereo" version of the original release of Rubber Soul was produced by simply splitting the two halves of the original two-track master tape across into the left and right channels, leading to the often disconcerting separation of voices and instruments across the stereo spectrum -- an effect the group themselves undoubtedly never intended.

Alternate takes of the album appear on Anthology 2 of the Beatles Anthology.

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 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.

The cover photo

The photo of The Beatles on the Rubber Soul cover looks stretched. Paul McCartney describes the story behind this in Volume 5 of the documentary film Anthology. The photographer was Bob Freeman, and he had taken some pictures of The Beatles at John Lennon's house. Bob was showing the photos to The Beatles in London; he was projecting the photos onto a cardboard of album size so they could imagine exactly how it would look like as an album cover.

They came across a photo that they liked. Just about when they were about to switch photos, the slide card fell backwards a little bit, which elongated the photo and it stretched. Then they shouted: "Ah! Can we have that? Can you do it like that?". Bob told them: "Yeah, I can print it like that." And that was how the unusual Rubber Soul album cover came to be.

American release

File:RubberSoulUSalbumcover.jpg

Rubber Soul was the first US Beatles album to share its cover art with its UK counterpart; however, Capitol Records used a different color saturation, causing the orange lettering used by Parlophone Records to look like gold lettering, instead.

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 in America.

Like other pre-Sgt. Pepper Beatles albums, Rubber Soul differed markedly in its US and UK configurations; indeed, through peculiarities of sequencing, the US Rubber Soul became something of a "folk-rock" album, 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 US 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 US stereo version has a "false start" at the beginning of "I'm Looking Through You."

The American 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.

There were two different stereo versions released on vinyl in the US: the standard US 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 US stereo mix is available on CD as part of The Capitol Albums, Volume 2 box set.

Track listing (UK release)

• All tracks written by Lennon-McCartney, except where noted.

Side one

1. "Drive My Car" SAMPLE (123k)
2. "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)" SAMPLE (136k)
   • George Harrison on sitar
3. "You Won't See Me"
   • Featuring Mal Evans on Hammond organ
4. "Nowhere Man" SAMPLE (144k)
5. "Think For Yourself" (Harrison)
   • Paul McCartney on fuzz bass
6. "The Word"
   • Featuring George Martin on harmonium
7. "Michelle"

Side two

1. "What Goes On" (John Lennon-Paul McCartney-Richard Starkey)
2. "Girl"
3. "I'm Looking Through You"
4. "In My Life" SAMPLE (217k)
   • Featuring George Martin on piano
5. "Wait"
6. "If I Needed Someone" (George Harrison)
7. "Run For Your Life"

Track listing (US release)

• All tracks written by Lennon-McCartney, except where noted.

Side one

1. "I've Just Seen a Face"
2. "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)"
3. "You Won't See Me"
4. "Think For Yourself" (George Harrison)
5. "The Word"
6. "Michelle"

Side two

1. "It's Only Love"
2. "Girl"
3. "I'm Looking Through You"
4. "In My Life"
5. "Wait"
6. "Run For Your Life"

Release history

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 Release	April 11 2006	Apple/Capitol/EMI	CD reissue of U.S. LP	CDP 0946 3 57501 2 6

Personnel

• John Lennon - vocals, rhythm guitar
• Paul McCartney - vocals, bass guitar, piano on "Drive My Car", "You Won't See Me" and "The Word", fuzz bass on "Think for Yourself"
• George Harrison - lead guitar, vocals, sitar on "Norwegian Wood (this Bird has Flown)
• Ringo Starr - drums, vocal on "What Goes On", organ on "I'm Looking through you"

with

• George Martin - producer, piano on "In My Life", harmonium on "The Word"
• Mal Evans - organ on "You Won't See Me"

See also

• The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time

Rubber Soul Surf Shop in Tynemouth, Tyne and Wear, ENGLAND. Named after the great Beatles album.

External links

• Album Lyrics
• Beatles comments on each of the songs
• Recording data and notes on mono/stereo mixes and remixes
• Podcast that offers free remix of Rubber Soul with vocals centered