Rubber Soul album cover art [Wikipedia].
Rubber Soul, the album that marked the beginning of the Beatles’ transition from adorable moptops to psychedelic rock music icons, was released fifty years ago today.
If you wanted to pick the album that best demarcates the “old Beatles” sound from that of the “new Beatles,” this would be the one. The discs that bookended it - Help! and Revolver - could not have been more different.
Over the years, I’ve had my favorites amongst their many albums, but with the passage of time I grow stronger in my personal conviction that Rubber Soul is the best Beatles album of all. Rolling Stone has referred to it as their “accidental masterpiece,” and perhaps it was. Even after a half-century it doesn’t seem dated, and pretty much every tune is not merely good, but excellent. Check out the menu:
Drive My Car
Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)
You Won’t See Me
Nowhere Man
Think for Yourself
The Word
Michelle
What Goes On
Girl
I’m Looking Through You
In My Life
Wait
If I Needed Someone
Run for Your Life
Not a dud in the deck.
Back in April, 1993, Dee and I had the good fortune to see Paul McCartney play at the Astrodome in Houston... and, yes, we took the girls along as well. The first song he played was “Drive My Car,” and I cannot begin to tell you, Esteemed Reader, what emotions boiled up in me as we heard that voice singing that song. It was as though almost three decades had peeled away almost instantaneously... incredible. It sounded new... and it still does.
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