Review Summary: Don't forget about Rubber Soul
I feel sorry for
Rubber Soul sometimes. Anyone who really understands the magic of The Beatles knows it's a masterpiece, and yet it seems to be consistently overshadowed by the band's other albums that followed. This is truly a shame, because if anything,
Rubber Soul actually has a leg
up on the band's other towering albums. It may not be as sonically experimental as
Sgt. Pepper's, but it is certainly clearer. It may not be as instrumentally diverse as
The Beatles, but it is certainly less cluttered and more memorable. And it may not be as ambitious or expansive as
Abbey Road, but it is certainly more concise and much more tightly organized. And in addition to all this, it is just as compositionally and aesthetically perfect as
Revolver.
The first thing I noticed when I really began to understand the music of The Beatles was the profoundly simple, yet undeniably distinct approach they seemed to take to their songwriting. Most music I was familiar with was built by laying down the riff or the bass line first, and then fitting a vocal melody in on the top. But Beatles songs aren't like that. The meat of a Beatles song is the melody; the other sounds are there, but they never intrude. They swirl around in the direction of the melody (which is never the same direction as the preceding song), making each song sound like its own little world, and creating a sound more
alive than, quite frankly, anything else I've ever heard.
Rubber Soul makes use of this aesthetic for its entire length, and in the process creates some of the most beautiful and thought-provoking songs ever written. The sound of the album is a grounded, earthy one; instead of
Revolver or
The Beatles' psychedelic madness,
Rubber Soul stays within the realm of airy folk and driving pop. But that's precisely what makes the album so comfortable, and ironically, so intoxicating. The harmony of guitar and sitar in "Norwegian Wood" reminds me of the crunching of leaves and twigs, of the warm, alluring smells of autumn.
"So, I lit a fire/Isn't it good?/Norwegian wood." "In My Life" combines the most timid instrumentation with loud, grandiose vocals, creating an especially affecting ballad. And opener "Drive My Car" starts the show off right with all of its rockin' twang and infectious rhythm. The songs are all remarkably distinct from each other, but they clearly all belong on
Rubber Soul.
Every song on this album will be stuck in your head at some point. That's the thing about Beatles melodies. They're so ridiculously simple, and yet you've never heard them before. When other bands will go two notes down and three back up in a verse melody, diluting the verse's memorability, The Beatles will just go one note up and one note down. Listen to the verses of "You Won't See Me." There's so few notes, and yet they're full of dynamic and rhythm that you just can't help but sing along to. The band shakes it up even more in songs like "Think For Yourself," using an eerie, oddly timed melody for the verse and quickly switching to a catchy, almost bluesy chorus. Every melody goes to an interesting, unexpected place, and yet the songs remain perfectly symmetrical. Look at "If I Needed Someone;" how the title line is tacked on to the end of each verse. You could say that that one line,
"if i needed someone," is the chorus, or you could say that the song doesn't really have a chorus, and that each verse simply ends with that line. No matter how you slice it,
Rubber Soul is totally free of wasted moments and not one inflection seems out of place.
The Beatles seem to understand the power of music more than any other band I can think of. People are actually listening to our music, they thought, so why don't we take advantage of that as much as we can and really give them something to think about? And boy, did they ever. What better thing to complement perfect melodies that anyone can remember than perfect lyrics that anyone can understand? There's not a word on
Rubber Soul that doesn't mean something, and every line has a stunning ironic edge. Let me reference "Think For Yourself" again, for its scathing attacks on conformity make it the perfect place to look for good lyrics. Look at this line:
"I left you far behind/the ruins of the life that you have in mind." Remember, he said "
have in mind", not "
had in mind." "The Word" is a stunning lyrical work as well, for it shows the connection between the word for something and the thing itself. In this case, the "thing" is the most important thing of all, love.
"Say the word and you'll be free/Say the word and be like me/Say the word I'm thinking of/Have you heard the word is love." The idea is emphasized even more toward the end of the song, with a repetition of the command
"Say the word love." Even the token Ringo-penned track, "What Goes On," possesses a masterful lyrical acuity. It asks one of humans' eternal questions in the simplest way, and doesn't attempt to answer it. The chorus is the
question. "What goes on in your heart?/What goes on in your mind?/You are tearin' me apart/When you treat me so unkind/What goes on in your mind?" This song also has one of the best jabs you could throw at your ex-girlfriend I've ever heard:
"It's so easy for a girl like you to lie."
However, the album's closer, "Run For Your Life," provides perhaps the sharpest, most twisted ironic edge to
Rubber Soul. The whole song is from a rather sardonic, sarcastic perspective, ending an otherwise pretty optimistic album on a bitter, but just as memorable note. Aside from its tone though, it actually presents a very good point that I'm guessing a lot of men weren't considering back in 1965, when this album was released. If a woman was caught cheating on her husband with another man, that was the end. But if a man was caught cheating with another woman...well, he was given a bit more sympathy. The Beatles, a band made up of four men, completely flipped the perspectives around with this verse:
"I'd rather see you dead, little girl, than to be with another man/You better keep your head, little girl, or I won't know where I am." Why does she have to keep
her head just so
he knows where he is? This song provides a load of insight into modern gender roles, and its themes still resonate today.
In fact, all of
Rubber Soul still rings with truth today. The only aspects of the culture and time it was made in that it reflects are the ones that we can still relate to. The lyrics aren't about
things, they're about
feelings. Much like every other album the band put out after this,
Rubber Soul is a masterful, memorable document of the human experience. But it's more consistent than
The Beatles. It's more symmetrical than
Abbey Road. And it's more mysterious, yet at the same time, more digestible than
Sgt. Pepper's. Don't forget about
Rubber Soul, folks. It hasn't forgotten about you.
yeah, i guess the personal slant just came from a combination of being excited that i finally understand why everyone loves the Beatles and the fact that this was my first review in forever. and yeah, the first time i listened to the album, Run For Your Life stuck out like crazy, but in such a brilliant, memorable way. 
