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Meet the Beatles (Again) - Rubber Soul

Posted at 2:14 AM on September 9, 2009 by The Current (2 Comments)
Filed under: Meet the Beatles (Again)

Rubber Soul
Originally released in 1965
By Mark Wheat

Rubber Soul America, this is your Beatles album. Recorded in the months following their first trip here, which ended with the massive Shea Stadium gig, it reflects the effect this country had on the loveable mop tops...you blew their minds!

As a Brit born in a small town in the '60s I can appreciate the seismic shift that occurred just before these tunes were trapped on vinyl. In those days, it would be beyond the wildest dreams of any young working class Scouser (Liverpudlian) to even travel as far as America ever in their life. When the trip included screaming receptions at airports and the Ed Sullivan Show, it was obviously far above anything these young boys could have fabricated in their own very fertile imaginations.

The album title is a direct reference to the trip. In those days soul music only came from America. Rubber or plastic soul was a way that the English musicians used to describe their own attempts at reaching the high of their heroes. Even though they had always been influenced by the music coming from the US, seeing the faces of the real soul and folk musicians and better understanding where that soul came from was a sobering experience for this young band. And the soul they could achieve in their own work was drowned out by the screaming adulation of the audience they had created. Forced to internalize these lessons, to decide how to foster a unique version of their own soul exploration, they would retreat to the studio for the rest of their career, making the albums that are usually thought to be their best. So this is a cusp record, the end of an era and the early beginnings of a new one,

So what are the American influences? Well, Ringo sounds like he was born in Nashville on "What Goes On" and George is wearing a cowboy hat on the new CD sleave. When they came here they famously held up a copy of a Koerner, Ray & Glover album and said that this is who they had come to find. Hobofolk musicians in Minneapolis' West Bank? They left having been hugely inspired by another, Bob Dylan. Maybe the long intake of breath at the start of "Girl" was the residue of this? When you hear the first sitar they used on "Norweigen Wood" you know for sure that they had definitely had their minds expanded if not completely blown...yet!

"Michelle" was one of those songs that my dad used to sing around the house. My parents weren't big fans. Rubber Soul is the only one we owned. But growing up in '60s England meant being soaked in The Beatles all the time, from everywhere. It was muzak. Our parent€™s muzak. Stamped on my musical DNA. Later I would mildly rebel against it with my own glam pop faves, but the first album I bought with my own money was Wings' Band on the Run. The Beatles were done by the time I was pickin' faves, but they have influenced me in ways I can't even understand for my entire life. As a young lad I experienced this, their third Christmas No. 1 album in a row. They'd made six albums and 11 singles in three years. Just think of how much new music that was to consume from ONE band!? Even when I came here for the first time 25 years ago, a American shop cashier asked me where I was from and when I said England she said right back: "Oh, do you know Paul McCartney?"

As a music fan from that Little Continent, it is always assumed that I love and respect them as much as my Yankee peers do. I don't. But I cannot dislodge them either. They're ingrained. As much a national institution as the Royal Family. Perhaps loved by more folks because of their working class credentials. They are the English epitome of the American Dream come true before we even knew what that meant. It's a very special relationship for artists to have with the public of an entire country. It is interesting to re-hear this album with the new perspective of my own American experience of the last 25 years. It's the musical mirror of what their American trip, which stamped them upon the minds of this nation, did to their young minds. Appropriate then that it ends with Beach Boy harmonies and Monkees' tambourines on "Run For Your Life" and the lyric, "That's the end little girl."

It was the end of one era, when all they wanted was to be in a buddy band that played live and had a few laughs. They started here to ask the question of what does a band do if it doesn't keep going on tour? The answer was: create some classic art through pop music. The question was asked by you, America. This is your Beatles album. Enjoy.

Mark Wheat is The Current's Evening Host and no, he doesn't know Macca!

Comments (2)

This album shares the "Favourite Beatles Album" title with Revolver. For me, this album and Revolver are to the Beatles what Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and A Ghost Is Born are to Wilco (my other favourite band). Rubber Soul is the Beatles really trying to break out of the mold the world had tried to fit around them. The Beatles are the soundtrack to my early teenage years, and no album is more so than Rubber Soul. I clearly remember learning to play bass by jamming along with "Think For Yourself" and "If I Needed Someone." Like Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, this was the album where the Beatles decided to try some new things without totally abandoning the formula that had made them so successful in the first place. And like A Ghost Is Born, Revolver would be a more solid step in that direction.

Great blog post, Mark! I love listening to your show and your great segues! :)

Posted by Scottish Grahame | September 9, 2009 10:13 AM

I'll have to agree with the Scotsman above, this and Revolver are my two favorites. There's a great mix of old Beatles and new Beatles. A good combination of classic pop and enough psychedelic experimentation that makes every song on this album a great one. While albums before and after had overly-bubble gum or overly-weird tracks in between the hits, this one is great straight through.

Posted by Brian | September 21, 2009 1:17 AM

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