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David Quantick on The Beatles’ Rubber Soul

The 1965 album, track by track

By david quantick

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David Quantick on The Beatles' Rubber Soul
© Apple Corps

Rubber Soul, the sixth Beatles album, was released in December 1965. Its predecessor, the soundtrack to Help!, had only come out in August, which for most bands would have meant no chance to regroup and work on new ideas. But Rubber Soul is a masterpiece, a flowering of new directions, musically, lyrically and sonically for the band: it’s leagues away from the Beatlemaniac sounds of previous records.  If Help! was the first Beatle’s film in colour, then Rubber Soul was the first Beatles album in colour.

The signs were already there, in the form of the band’s 1965 singles, ‘Day Tripper’ / ‘We Can Work It Out’, and ‘Ticket To Ride’: two riff-heavy rock songs and a contemplative folk-rocker: the Beatles were both competing with their new guitar band rivals – The Kinks, The Who, The Stones – but also evolving in their own way. And now with studio time away from touring, they were able to spread out and experiment: not the full-on experiment of ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ or ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’, but tentative new directions.

Rubber Soul begins with the song that justifies its punning title, ‘Drive My Car’, a Staxy stomper that cries out for a brass section, its lyric a story with a punchline (“I found a driver/ And that’s a start”) and its hook a “beep beep yeah” that Bowie nicked for ‘Fashion’. It’s exuberant and cocky, the sound of a band doing what they want and doing it brilliantly: and it’s followed, somewhat contrastingly, by another story song with a punchline, ‘Norwegian Wood’: this time the mood is dark and distant, almost sociopathic, and perfectly complemented by the sound of a sitar, an instrument that would become part of the Beatles’ sound armoury on their next two albums. ‘Norwegian Wood’, with its exotic instrumentation and its Dylanesque melody, was an indication that The Beatles were leaving Gerry and the Pacemakers and the “Mersey Sound” far, far away.

That said, ‘You Won’t See Me’ is the kind of perfect Beatles song that would have fitted on any of their earlier albums – and with its “oo la la la” harmonies, is clearly the inspiration for the Rutles’ perfect parody ‘I Must Be In Love’.  Conventional but brilliant, it’s followed by another signposting song, the self-pitying jangle of ‘Nowhere Man’, whose Byrdsian guitar, droll guitar break (“ting!”) and swooning harmonies put the song next to Help! as an early John-is-depressed number. It’s also, being a Lennon song, gorgeous and haunting.

Which cannot be said of ‘Think For Yourself‘, the first of two George Harrison songs, and one most notable for its fuzz bass and its lyrical content, in which (as would be common in his later work) George delivers himself of a stern lecture, telling the subject of the song that they need to think for themselves. “Thanks George,” you imagine the subject of the song saying, “From now on I will do as you told me and think for myself.” The song’s minor chords, or whatever they are, do nothing to lift the dour mood of a song that’s more finger-wagger than toe-tapper.

Joy is prevalent on ‘The Word’, notable for being one of the first Beatles songs which is not about girls per se. Upbeat and energetic, Lennon’s vocal almost trips over itself to deliver his message, which is that “the word is love.” Its urgency is matched only by its vagueness, but that doesn’t matter: the song’s enthusiasm and positivity carry the day, while its subject predates the hippy era by at least two years ( and its theme would be a constant in The Beatles’ work for the rest of their careers, from ‘All You Need Is Love’ to ‘Silly Love Songs’). There’s also an exuberance to the song which suggests that, in actual fact, the word is “marijuana.”

And then there’s ‘Michelle’. Is ‘Michelle’ the most divisive Beatles song? For some it’s a clever little ditty in which Paul turns a party piece into a slightly meaningless love song with French bits in, for others it’s just horrible doggerel that sacrifices meaning and rock ’n’ roll for showing off (you can imagine Paul at parties, his spaniel eyes going goo goo as he sits on the sofa at parties next to a blushing girl). In reality it’s a lovely little pastiche ballad, one of several excursions into unusual, almost European ballad writing on Rubber Soul: better was to follow, on the same record.

The Beatles, who’d always loved soul and R&B even before they went to the States, had now spent a lot of time in America, where they had been exposed to a great deal of country and western, an influence that ran through Beatles For Sale, re-emerged on Help!, and would be most obvious here in ‘What Goes On’, a snappy country tune with a perfect Ringo vocal and a twistily bizarre lyric about waiting for the tides of time to turn. It’s catchy, cool and rockin’ and would be the last song in this style the band would ever attempt (discuss).

By way of contrast, as they say, ‘Girl’ is not country, western or rocking: it’s an extraordinary song with a non-rock’n’roll beat, a sneaky drugs reference  (the inhaling hiss in the choruses) and a naughty backing vocal (“tit tit tit tit”) in which John lays out his favourite mid-‘60s stall of misogyny and blaming women for stuff. This time round the subject of the song gets off lightly (no arson or death threats) with just a few caustic comments. That said, the song is light years away from something like, say, ‘Under My Thumb’ with lyrics like “Was she told when she was young that pain would lead to pleasure?”.

We now return to Paul who continues You Won’t See Me’s theme of invisibility as sign of a relationship in trouble with ‘I’m Looking Through Me’, a song powered by pep and a ridiculously basic organ riff. It’s the kind of song that, had it been released by a Detroit garage band, would be a cult classic: here it’s just another great song on a great album.

Now we come to what has to be the centrepiece of Rubber Soul: inarguably the best song here, and the cornerstone of the Beatles new direction – ‘In My Life‘. This is one of John Lennon’s most beautiful songs, and a brilliant deceiver, in that he claims to be singing a love song to a woman who by her very presence erases the past and offers love and a future: but really the song is about the pleasure of memory, and looking back at the “friends and lovers” who make up our personal history. Add to that a gorgeous, wistful melody, George Martin’s sped-up piano and the best vocal of Lennon’s career so far and the result is one of the truly great Beatles songs, and a song none of them could have written two years ago.

‘Wait’, on the other hand, is a song that could have been on any Beatles album since 1963: its driving beat and shared vocal would be a good fit on With The Beatles, which is no criticism. A return to romance (“And if your heart’s strong/ hold on, I won’t delay”) and a rare song of devotion and yearning: which cannot said be of George’s second number, ‘If I Needed Someone‘. Despite a great melody and those chiming guitar (George being The Byrds being The Beatles), the lyric is once again a bit patronising “Carve your number on my wall and maybe you will get a call from me” ) as well as grammatically appalling. Still, it’s also George’s best song to date and those chimes are irresistible – and it’s a lot more fun than the album’s finale, the memorably unpleasant ‘Run For Your Life’, a song that not only steals its opening couplet from Elvis’ ‘Baby Let’s Play House’ (“Well, I’d rather see you dead, little girl/ Than to be with another man”) but uses them as a template for the rest of the song. It’s a weird choice for the last song, and ends the album on a slightly odd, is-that-it note.          

But in 2026 Rubber Soul doesn’t end there, it goes on to present us with an impressive plethora of extra material, American mixes, backing tracks, mono versions – and a new song. ‘Little Girl’ is a Lennon demo notable for its very Lennon title (cousin to ‘Hello Little Girl’, ‘Little Child’ and indeed ‘Run For Your Life’), its somewhat weak lyrics (“Little girl I’ve come to say / That this has been a lovely day / I love you”) and its rather striking use of the phrase “sweet FA”, which means either “Sweet Fanny Adams” or “Sweet Fuck All.” It does however have a charming melody and it’s a shame it was abandoned. Still it’s here now, as are Paul’s famed home demo of ‘We Can Work It Out’ – ruined by John taping over the end – and an awful lot of instrumental backing tracks (12 compared to the Revolver boxed set’s three). A mixed bag, but the bad bits are tolerable and the good bits… are amazing.

By David Quantick. The Rubber Soul reissue is out now.

Tracklisting

Rubber Soul The Beatles / Blu-ray Audio

    • All tracks below in Dolby Atmos (48/24) and 96/24 stereo (both newly mixed by Giles Martin and Sam Okell). The stereo version is the same non-limited file(s) used to cut the vinyl.
      2026 Atmos & 2026 Stereo
      1. Drive My Car
      2. Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)
      3. You Won’t See Me
      4. Nowhere Man
      5. Think For Yourself
      6. The Word
      7. Michelle
      8. What Goes On
      9. Girl
      10. I’m Looking Through You
      11. In My Life
      12. Wait
      13. If I Needed Someone
      14. Run For Your Life
      BONUS TRACKS (2023 Atmos & 2023 Stereo)
      1. Day Tripper
      2. We Can Work It Out
      VIDEO CONTENT (sync’d to 2023 Atmos & 2023 Stereo)
      1. Day Tripper
      2. Day Tripper (Alternate Version)
      3. We Can Work It Out
      4. We Can Work It Out (Alternate Version)

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