Rubber Soul - The Beatles

I’m sick to death of stories about the 1960s. Every burnout who lived through that decade has some story about Woodstock, waking up naked in a stream, protesting over anything and everything or other such rot. I hate the bell-bottoms, drug use, refusal to bathe, flashing peace symbols, folk music and most of the things that people who live like they’re stuck in the 1960s like to babble at people they manage to corner.

Truth be told, there are only a few bands from the 1960s I can listen to without getting sick. And, oddly enough, my favorite band of all time is the Beatles. Huh? The very band that is credited with influencing a lot of that silliness that took place in the 1960s? That band? Yes, indeed, that band. And, I’ll tell you why.

The lads in the Beatles, simply put, were head-and-shoulders above their peers and haven’t been matched since. The Beatles put music above everything else and managed to write some of the most compelling songs the world has ever heard.

Rubber Soul marks a significant transition for the Beatles -- they went from being a damn good band to the best group of all time on this one. It’s hard to overestimate the brilliance and importance of this disc.

In terms of craftsmanship, you just don’t get better than this. The harmonies are fantastic, as always. The Beatles experimented with various instruments on this one (most notably George Harrison’s use of a sitar in ’’Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)’’) and wrote lyrics that were cryptic and introspective at the same time.

For example, ’’In My Life’’ is one of the most revealing things John Lennon ever wrote, and that’s a fairly slow, beautiful in which Lennon thinks back on people, places and things that had an impact on him. On ’’If I Needed Someone, ’’ Harrison puts together a nice little loved song on a guitar riff stolen from the Byrds (unlike the Byrds, though, the Beatles don’t sound like a pack of limp-wristed sissies when playing jangly, chiming guitars). ’’Drive My Car’’ is a nice little rocker based on some blues riffs and fantastic harmonies, while ’’Nowhere Man’’ is another rocker which Lennon wrote as kind of a poke at himself. The chorus in that one is:

He’s a real nowhere man

For nobody

Kind of speaks for itself, huh? By the way, there’s not a ’’dud’’ on this disc at all, and that was unusual at a time when albums were, typically, made so that you had one hit single surrounded by a bunch of filler and junk songs. The 14 tracks on Rubber Soul are all very good.

Another thing that’s unique about this disc is that the Beatles, for the first time, wrote all the songs on it. Rubber Soul was released at the end of 1965, and all of the band’s albums prior to that had some ’’cover’’ songs that were mostly American rock n’ roll classics from the 1950s. While it’s obvious the band still drew heavily on those influences, it’s equally clear that the Beatles managed to become substantially more than those influences and write some songs that were unlike anything else that had been heard before this album.

Also significant is that the Beatles had evolved to a point where the band was no longer considered to be one that only teenagers would like. The Beatles, with this one, started to gain a following with adults. While I love the early stuff from the Beatles, the music on Rubber Soul is far removed from the days when the band members wore matching suits and sang ’’yeah, yeah, yeah’’ to a crowd of screaming girls.

So, if you want to get an idea about why the Beatles have become absolute legends, pick up a copy of Rubber Soul. You’ve probably heard most of the songs here, but I’ll list them, regardless:

Drive my Car

Run for Your Life