Rubber Soul was the turning point album in the Beatles catalog. Released in America and the UK on December 3, 1965 it brought them to the point, where it stood on it's own as a work of art, something that at this point had happened rarely in popular music. Almost all of the Beatles previous albums were quite good, but now feeling threatened by Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones and the Beach Boys, the Beatles started to up their game considerably. The album is notable for featuring the most accomplished set of John Lennon songs in his recording career. It was also the first Beatles album NOT have the group's name on the front cover, something that also occurred on Abbey Road and the Hey Jude compilation album.
Magically, most of the songs were written and recorded in a short period of time, because the Beatles had been too busy to build a backlog of songs. The album was also recorded over a short period of time in comparison to most of their albums, most of which took considerable studio time over many months (the later albums) or were recorded in quick sessions but over a few months ( their early albums). All but one of the songs for Rubber Soul was recorded between October 12 and November 17, 1965 But unlike other previous Beatles album the recording sessions were not interrupted by tours, film and TV work. and the group was now allowed to stay late in the studio, a practice not allowed at Abbey Road studios before the Beatles. The album was rushed along so as to be in time for the critical Christmas selling period.
The group had slowly been working away from recording covers of other artists songs on their albums to fill up albums and had been evolving musically quickly both lyrically and musically. Bob Dylan influenced the lyric improvement, and George Martin encouraged their musical eclecticism.
One of the things that hadn't quite changed at this point was the brevity of their songs, The Beatles, like all acts in the early sixties typically made of point of keeping the running time of all singles under three minutes. For some reason, American radio DJ's balked at playing songs over three minutes. It seems silly now, but this restriction on song length forced songwriters and producers to leave out extraneous stuff, and avoid too much repetition . Thus all but one song on the Beatles hits collection The Beatles 1962 -1966 is under three minutes. With Lennon and sometimes, McCartney now trying to write intelligent lyrics this put a premium on economical lyrics that somehow told a story quickly and succinctly.
On Rubber Soul, The group continued it's experimentation. Up to this point, Multiple lead singers, ballads alternating with rockers; covers of old show tunes and Motown songs had all made Beatles albums a varied experience. George Martin, had a classical background giving him a wide musical vocabulary and skills to draw on , and yet had recorded comedy records, and so was not a snob. Martin was uniquely placed to take advantage of the group's willingness to experiment. On Hard Day's Night it was the use of a classical guitar on "And I Love Her", on ?"I Feel Fine" John Lennon used guitar feedback, on Help, they incorporated strings and flutes. But on Rubber Soul, multiple songs had little sound experiments. The most notable new sound was the sitar in "Norwegian Wood" by George Harrison. The instrument had actually been used in George Martin's instrumental music for parts the Help soundtrack. But on Rubber Soul, Harrison used the sitar as an exotic guitar like instrument. This was partly because Harrison hadn't quite mastered it the sitar-but partly simply to serve the song. The Beatles generally used to exotic instruments to provide color, not to be a gimmick. Similarly, Greek style music styles were used in "Girl", the French language in "Michelle" and a harpsichord like sounding keyboard on "In My Life".
As stated before, this in some ways was the zenith of Lennon' career as a Beatle. Perhaps, on no other album, are their so many classic Lennon compositions. Lennon's work on the Sgt. Pepper sessions comes closet-on Sgt. Pepper he was responsible three great album tracks and one classic non-album single, but two of these four songs were co-written with McCartney. Up through this album, Lennon had been dominant songwriter in the Beatles. In all of the five Beatles British studio albums before this , Lennon had more lead vocals, and more compositions that were predominantly written by him. He also was the primary lead vocalist on more Beatles singles up to this point. This was to change- from 1966 onward, McCartney would never have fewer of his own compositions then Lennon on a Beatles album-and the majority of the remaining Beatles A-Sides would be McCartney vehicles.
What happened after this point, for Lennon was three things- LSD, Yoko Ono, and McCartney finally growing and exceeding Lennon as a commercial songwriter. The group dynamic in the early part of the career was that Lennon was the leader of the group-but a leader who listened a lot to Paul McCartney. However, by late 1967, McCartney had edged ahead of Lennon to be the driving force in the group partly because Lennon could not bothered to lead and some of the time didn't even care.
It should be explained that while "Lennon-McCartney" were a songwriting team, but a team that wrote BOTH apart and together. Many of their early singles were written together with them sitting eyeball to eyeball, both contributing -which is reflected in the unison vocals. Typically the primary writer of a Lennon-McCartney song sang the lead vocals. Most of Lennon-McCartney later songs were written separately, but right up to the end of the group they would bring their songs to the other partner to see how he could improve it, by adding a bridge, changing or approving of a word, and helping with a intros and structure. Both Lennon and McCartney were good lyricists and melody writers, though Lennon was a better lyricist, and McCartney a better musician. Working together improved their songs dramatically, because each often writer erased the weaknesses of the other.
LSD and other later drug use slowed Lennon's productivity, and now having conquered the world, Lennon no longer felt driven by commercial success as much-it was only the competition with McCartney that kept him on his toes. Lennon met Yoko in 1966 and eventually saw a life outside of being a Beatle. McCartney, of course was always doing great work-but it wasn't till 1966's Revolver album that McCartney composed a group of songs that would be more successful then the songs that Lennon took the lead on.
For Rubber Soul , John Lennon was the primary writer of "Norwegian Wood", "Nowhere Man", "Girl" and "Run For Your Life" Lennon got help from McCartney on "In My Life". A non-album single- Day Tripper/We Can Work It Out was also recorded during the Rubber Soul sessions to be a stand alone single. "Day Tripper" was mostly written by John" and "We Can Work It Out: was written by Paul with a bridge by John. Finally, there was "What Goes On" a song written for Ringo to sing the album that was the work of Lennon, McCartney and Starr. So Six of the songs Lennon worked on for these sessions are well known Beatles classics.
For many folks, "In My Life" is the most exquisite non single in the Beatles oeuvre. Lennon clearly wrote the direct but meaningful lyric. It is still disputed how much McCartney helped with melody. It is understandable that each might want to claim the melody.
McCartney also did some good work on the sessions. His "Michelle" is smarmy, but is one of the most performed and played of the Beatles songs despite having only been released as a single outside the US and the UK. McCartney was the primary writer of "Drive My Car" the latest in a serious of fast, upbeat "beat music" songs that would dominate the Beatles songs up to this point, til the final one-"Paperback Writer" in 1966. McCartney's other songs were the acoustic number -"I'm Looking Through You" the beat number "Wait" and "You Won't See Me' which later became an American hit in a what was actually a better version by Ann Murray.
George Harrison was given space for two of his songs-the mediocre but lyrical "Think for Yourself" and the Byrd's inspired "If I Needed Someone".
In total 16 songs were finished in Rubber Soul sessions. The song "Wait" had been started during the Help sessions, but finished during the Rubber Soul sessions. Further more , a unfinished song called "12 bar Blues" was recorded, as well as alternative different versions of "Norwegian Wood" and "I'm Looking through You". These three rarities showed up on the second Anthology collection in 1996.
A different version of "Rubber Soul" album was released in the USA market, due to their American's label habit of having ten to twelve tracks on a album instead of the British standard of fourteen songs. Thus, between 1964 and 1966 the US label released 12 Beatles albums instead of the 8 released by the Beatles British label.
The US version of Rubber Soul featured "I've Just Seen A Face" and "It's Only Love" which had been on the British version of Help. The Americans removed four songs from British version of Rubber Soul – "Drive My Car", "Nowhere Man", "What Goes On" and "If I Needed Someone" – all of which were instead issued on the Beatles' next North American album, Yesterday and Today, in June 1966. Still stylistically both versions are similar enough but the American version sounds a little more acoustic then the previous Beatles albums.
The First set of Rubber Soul sessions
| Wait June 17,1965, November 11, 1965 | |||
| Run For Your Life October 12, 1965 Drive My Car October 13, 1965 | |||
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| In My Life October 18, October 22, 1965 | |||
| If I Needed Someone October 16, October 18, 1965 |
Norwegian Wood October 21, 1965
| Nowhere Man October 21-22, 1965 | ||||
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| 12 Bar Original November 4, 1965 | ||||
| What Goes On November 4, 1965 The Beatles Third Christmas Record November 8, 1965 | ||||
| Think For Yourself November 8, 1965 | ||||
| The Word November 10, 1965 | ||||
| I'm Looking Through You November 10-11, 1965 | ||||
| You Won't See Me November 11,1965 | ||||
| Girl November 11, 1965 | ||||
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Songs Beatles changed instruments on
Rolling Stones -Aftermath sessions
Written by J.C.Bernhardt, July 2019
