Happy 60th Anniversary to The Beatles’ sixth studio album Rubber Soul, originally released December 3, 1965.
I think it’s a musical truism that every lover of music ultimately finds their way to The Beatles.
As a teen having heard but not particularly paid much attention to their songs on oldies radio, I came to focus my ear on them during the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967) 20th anniversary CD reissue. From there I began a journey of discovering The Beatles music I would identify with and be captivated with. And as catchy and foundational as their initial albums were, I always found myself gravitating to their post-Beatlemania era when they started to focus on songcraft and artistry that could come from the recording studio.
1965’s Rubber Soul is the turning point for a band feeling less and less fulfilled by touring and more interested in the musical landscapes they could create with a more nuanced and layered style of recording. Their sixth studio album, in an astounding three-year period, was recorded over four feverish weeks and displays a band sharpening their pens and pushing the production envelope forward. It’s a turning point where they pivot from pop phenom to fearless studio explorers, with curiosity guiding the way. Feeling less inclined to succumb to the pressures of pursuing and producing singles, the band found themselves free to look at crafting richer long-form artistic expressions.
Opening with a playful and confident wink, “Drive My Car” is all swagger powered by a rubbery baseline that hints at the funkier grooves Paul McCartney would later embrace. Propelled with soul inspired piano and constant cowbell, “Drive My Car” is a shifting of gears where songwriting allowed for humor to ride along with the hustle. Anchored in catchy refrains and infectious riffs, “Drive My Car” was proof positive that The Beatles had lost none of their hit-making potential.
If “Drive My Car” was a step forward, the musicality of “Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)” was an ambitious leap. With a ¾ swing, John Lennon’s tale of romantic misadventure is rendered with sly melancholy, while George Harrison’s inclusion of the sitar announces a quite unexpected fusion of Eastern instrumentation and Western folk, creating a quiet moment of revolution for popular music.
Having built a career on boy-meets-girl songwriting, the album broadens the lyrical narrative. McCartney’s “You Won’t See Me” explores the effects of emotional distance set against a Motown influence, and Lennon’s “Nowhere Man” delves into deep introspective reflection, finding the kind of existential ache that would define much of his later work. With rich, gorgeous harmonies and poetic lyrics, the song surrounds the listener, providing a place of comfort.
Listen to the Album:
Elsewhere on the album, layered production comes to the fore. On “Love,” there’s a brightness and buoyancy to the instrumentation, with harmonies bending and twisting as they invite you into what would become a thesis statement, elevating “love” from a romantic notion to a life philosophy, a concept further solidified a few years later when it appeared to be all you need. Later in the album, its twin “Wait” revisits the lyrical melody and groove established in “Love.”
And while songs like the country inspired and Ringo Starr-fronted “What Goes On,” McCartney’s double dip into relationship isolation “I’m Looking Through You,” and album closer “Run For Your Life” feel a little like album filler, they justify their place with interesting moments of composition and production, clashing feel with expression.
Part of what makes Rubber Soul so interesting is the growing divergence in the Lennon-McCartney songwriting. This is no more evidenced than in the McCartney penned “Michelle,” which is wistful, romantic, and delicate. Lennon’s “Girl” by contrast is almost erotic, achingly beautiful with a now iconic sharp inhale between his teeth, the song walks the line between infatuation and frustration. These two songs show us quite pointedly the two sides of the songwriting partnership.
But the album is all Lennon-McCartney pushing The Beatles sound forward. Harrison’s “If I Needed Someone” embraces the jangly influence of The Byrds, creating a track that allows for beautifully layered harmonies and the cross-pollination with the wider folk-rock movement.
For the album’s many high points, the pinnacle comes on the Lennon penned and pioneered “In My Life.” As the lyrical and artistic apex of the record, “In My Life” is a song filled with melancholy, lament, celebration and love. A meditation on memory, the song fuses perfectly all the elements The Beatles had been and creates a blueprint for where they could go next. With Lennon’s lyrics forming the basis of the track, McCartney is credited as helping shape the melody and crafting the middle-eight. A point of studio wizardry is evident in George Martin’s Baroque inspired solo, first played on a piano and then sped up to give it more of a harpsicord feel. With Ringo’s sparse but efficient drumming, and Harrison’s lead guitar and added harmonies, the song stands as one of the greatest ever produced.
Rubber Soul is the moment when the fab four ditched their charming mop-top persona and stepped out of the gilded cage of global stardom to venture into a new sonic space and explore where studio production could take them. The result is an intoxicating blend of folk-rock introspection, sonic experimentation and melodic brilliance.
Listen: