The Beatles' "Rubber Soul" - Putting together the proper tracklist

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by yesstiles, Dec 23, 2017.

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  1. schnitzerphilip

    schnitzerphilip "Modern Dad" Unlocked Award

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    You've Got To Hide Your Love Away or You're Going To Lose That Girl would have been perfecto on Rubber Soul.

    I Should Have Known Better is Bug Music.
     
  2. hoggydoggy

    hoggydoggy Forum Resident

    Hear hear!

    I've boldened your last line, since it's important to note that there's two major musical influences at play here - yes, there's a continuation of the folk-rock first heard at the very tail-end of AHDN (Things We Said Today, I'll Be Back), running through BFS (most of the originals) and the rampant Dylanisms on Help! That bit is undeniable.

    The other key thing, though - well, the clue's in the title, innit?? ;) It's The Beatles' Rubber Soul album, for God's sake: Drive My Car has that groovy bass/guitar line, there's the four-to-the-floor beat of You Won't See Me and an Otis Redding-style bounce to The Word - this is even before we get to the aborted attempt to put a bluesy instrumental on there (12 Bar Original).

    "Plastic soul man, plastic soul..." :cool: (Though some folks don't want to listen)
     
  3. schnitzerphilip

    schnitzerphilip "Modern Dad" Unlocked Award

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    As I hire and manage people like you in the business world, you certainly know that contracts can be broken. Settlements happen all the time. If the Beatles bombed in America and UA offered Epstein a check for, say, $50,000 to make the film go away, he'd have taken it, that amount was probably what the band netted for 3 concerts.

    Using the film as leverage to get Sullivan appearances was just about the only smart business move Brian Epstein ever executed since signing the band to begin with.
     
  4. Bill

    Bill Senior Member

    Location:
    Eastern Shore
    How about using the film and Sullivan agreements to force Capitol to overrule its visionary Dexter and finally release the Beatles in the US? You gotta admit, Schnitz, that was a pretty good one, too, even to a titan of industry like you.
     
    Last edited: Oct 21, 2019
  5. Bill

    Bill Senior Member

    Location:
    Eastern Shore
    I will let someone else take the story from here....
    "Based in Hollywood, California, Capitol was owned 96 percent by EMI, but- like a serial juvenile-delinquent- had an entrenched pattern of middle-finger resistance to its parent across the Atlantic. Dave Dexter Jr., whose whim it was to take British product at zero up-front cost and only a few cents after that, had turned down 'Love Me Do,' then 'Please Please Me,' and even 'She Loves You' which in August 1963 was patently set to be (and certainly became) an immense record in Britain, a real game changer. But in November, word came down from the president's office: Capitol would take 'I Want to Hold Your Hand.' It was an act of business, not faith: despite the revolution happening in its owner's country, no one at Capitol believed in the Beatles or much liked their music. They were surely a fad, and Capitol would market them this way, crudely, on the gimmick of their 'long hair.' Capitol's connection to the Beatles could be the most fortuitous in the history of entertainment. Reject them once, then again, then again, take them under sufferance, then sit back-as suddenly the nation's new top record label-and rake in hundreds of millions of dollars."
    -Mark Lewisohn, A Hard Day's Night, A Private Archive (2016)
    So, where should that statue go?
     
  6. Evethingandnothing

    Evethingandnothing Forum Resident

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    Devon
    Oh I understand. What is unclear is why you think that the British music scene in 1965 was any less diverse.

    Motown, Soul & R&B was well known in Britain. We had what was called the Mod scene based around Soul and R&B. (Ringo was asked "are you a Mod or a Rocker" "I'm a Mocker" in A Hard Day's Night in 1964). What kind of music do you think The Who made? And there were "Northern Soul" clubs in the north of England (although it was yet to be called Northern Soul) where people danced to Soul and R&B.
    The British Blues boom was well under way and many US blues records were imported to Britain. US blues acts were somewhat forgotten about in the US until the British Invasion.
    The most popular British band before the arrival of The Beatles was The Shadows playing what was akin to Surf Instrumentals. There were lots of Jazz bands too.
    There was Pop a-plenty. Sandie Shaw, Dusty Springfield, Tom Jones, etc, etc. Also American acts like Gene Pitney were in the charts.

    Protest, Folk and Beatnik come under the same banner.

    The early 60’s folk scene in Britain and more specifically London was where some US artists came to try and make a name for themselves. Ramblin’ Jack Elliott & Peggy Seeger for example. Bob Dylan had little success in the US with his first album and came to London in 1962. He had his first television appearance in the UK, and sang four songs. He picked up English folk tunes like Scarborough Fair that he reworked for Girl From The North Country and went back to the US a much improved performer. Paul Simon similarly came to London (in 1965), and similarly pinched Martin Carthy’s arrangement of Scarborough Fair.

    The Beatles were a rock’n’roll band and had absolutely nothing to do with any of that until they heard The Freewheeling Bob Dylan album from 1963, met and smoked some pot with Dylan in 1964, introduced a folkier element to their music and traded riffs with The Byrds in the latter half of 1965.

    Dylan, Joan Baez and The Byrds were popular in Britain in 1965 and graced the charts. If The Beatles had felt the need to cash in on that (rather than merely having an interest in it) they would have made Rubber Soul a more folky album than it already was. They did not. Their interests were many and varied and they made an album that reflected it.

    Whatever Dave Dexter Jr did at Capitol, I don’t really care. I’m interested in what The Beatles did. If Dexter had the bright spark to make the US Rubber Soul album more folk rock than it already was, it was not because there was no folk scene, singer-songwriters or folk rock interest in Britain in 1965 to compare to that of the US. The UK Rubber Soul was made with certain knowledge of it.

    The electric Blues and Beat boom which was not diminishing in any way would continue to grow throughout the 60’s both in the UK and the US. The Beatles weren’t overtly interested in that, but most of those bands crossed over into Pop and R&B and were in competition with The Beatles. The Beatles were mostly exploring the possibilities of music on their own terms, taking and incorporating what they liked as and when they saw fit. Most bands do.

    I'm well aware that it took until The Beatles for Brit bands to "crack" America. But by '65 it was well cracked. I have not once denied Capitol's part in that, but you talk to me as if I have. I'm trying to give you a flavour of the swinging sixties. Swinging London, which you appear to not acknowledge ever existed.
     
    Last edited: Oct 21, 2019
  7. drad dog

    drad dog A Listener

    Location:
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    If you saw Don't Look Back, filmed just before the time of RS (?), The UK was a year or two behind in it's Dylan fandom. Remember how he had to adjust his sets?

    The Who weren't competing with the fabs in 1965. They couldn't get out of Britain.

    Rubber Soul by sound and by reputation, is the furthest thing from soul music even in the UK version. We all get they were fans but who actually hears "soul" in rubber soul? The whole point of the title is it's not soul, it's rubber soul.
     
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  8. Evethingandnothing

    Evethingandnothing Forum Resident

    Location:
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    We were talking about Britain. Any popular British band would be in competition with The Beatles in Britain. We were talking about musical diversity. I was not talking about the specific things you mention. I don't consider Rubber Soul a Soul album.
     
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  9. simond9x

    simond9x Forum Resident

    Location:
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    "The UK version of Rubber Soul is an insignificant album".
    Not in the UK, Europe, Australia and most of the world outside the US, it wasn't.

    "Every UK Beatles album up through Rubber Soul was a poorly conceived and constructed lesson in British pop music debauchery".
    Or maybe they were just what a fledgling group recorded at those times in their development?

    "Make the band record American covers".
    No, they LOVED those American songs as evidenced by their stories of the US records coming into Liverpool with American sailors. Most groups would cover the A-sides but the Beatles took the B-sides to be different. Check out the Star Club tapes and their BBC sessions.

    "Its a miracle the Beatles made it in Europe, did so on their novelty, but they were so badly represented musically".
    Did so on their 'novelty'? No suggestion of their musical talent and innovation then?

    "The Beatles didn't take their 1962-1965 albums seriously".
    Based on what? 'Seriously'? It was still a novelty to be recording LPs. They didn't get a contract from EMI and think 'OK, lads, what's the concept going to be for the first LP?"

    ".....the type of albums the Beatles themselves would have made if they weren't so terribly mismanaged by the comedy producer and the shopkeeper who only cared about singles and tours".
    Just disrespectful! George Martin nurtured them, encouraged them, educated them, challenged them, responded to their requests to innovate. He cared about far more than singles and probably found tours an irritation.

    "And I don't think the Beatles cared how the long players were composed at all until Revolver".
    Based on what? The interview(s) where they profess their frustration with Capitol for 'butchering' their LPs were recorded well before Revolver so I think maybe they did care.

    "No one said "Whoa!" Did you hear that new Beatles album?" in the UK because the albums were blah".
    Breathtakingly arrogant!! I think most people did in the UK (and probably most of Western Europe, Australia, etc). I know, I was there, but you were only one (if indeed you were actually born then). Please don't lecture us on what you must only have read about, assumed or been told by your big sister.

    "I'm denigrating all the UK versions of all Beatles albums pre 1966. Because they weren't made as 'themes' or 'artistic statements'".
    See earlier comment. You're retrofitting the idea that LPs should have been 'themes' or 'artistic statements' at a time when the new generation of 'pop' musicians were still finding their feet.

    "America wasn't England. The Beatles weren't the only show in town....
    I didn't say there was 'no' music in England. Just that your own brand of music was very narrow and limited with far less competition".

    Everythingandnothing has captured this perfectly above. I think that the UK produced a whole host of different types of music that the US was only too happy to embrace and build on (and I do admit vice versa of course, there was a LOT of cross-pollination).

    "Singles were the priority, have to rip the fans off there. And then follow those money-makers up by shipping a long player without the hits".
    Er... maybe I've misunderstood. Sell the fans the singles and then include 'the hits' on the LPs? Not sure which rips them off more.

    "It is not "fiction" to say that the Beatles were toiling away playing two-a-day's in a French movie theater, recording novelty tracks in German, and unsure what their futures held".
    Well I think that, whilst their cherished dream was to break America, they weren't too badly off selling to the rest of the world outside America. Which reminds me, why DO you call it the "World Series"? Can we all come and join in?

    "You don't have to agree with me. But it is fact. Dave Dexter Jr. is responsible for US Beatlemania".
    So that wouldn't be the Beatles then?

    "There should be a statue of Dave Dexter Jr. in Liverpool. Brits should be naming their children after him. The world owes the man a huge debt".
    ROTFL!!

    "Remember, over here we didn't need John, Paul, George, Martin, Epstein, Aspinall, Evans, Kelly, or Starkey. ..... Once the Beatles themselves followed Dexter's lead and learned how to do it right, they just built the albums the American way from the start".
    No, they just carried on recording and making LPs they way they had for years. They just continued to develop as artists. Tell me of a single interview where they say "you know what, we got it wrong until Capitol showed us how to do it properly". I'm quite sure that the Revolver sessions didn't revolve around "how will this go down in America?"

    "It's an interesting thing to consider. Remember, the Beatles had 2 years of success in the UK and not much elsewhere, they were holed up playing gigs twice-a-day at a movie theater in France as 1964 was beginning".
    Er.... "not much elsewhere"? You mean EVERYWHERE apart from the US (and maybe Greenland)?

    By the way.......

    Did your big sister burn Beatles records in 1966?

    'pivot' is an overused word.
     
  10. dsdu

    dsdu less serious minor pest

    Location:
    Santa Cruz, CA
    Lewisohn - Pffft! Business magnates like him chew up and spit out people like Lewisohn for breakfast. :blah:
     
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  11. edrebber

    edrebber Forum Resident

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    Interesting. LMD was certified platinum in the US while IWTHYH was not. The B side of LMD, PSILY was also a top 10 hit.
     
  12. slane

    slane Forum Resident

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    Merrie England
    He didn't.
     
  13. simond9x

    simond9x Forum Resident

    Location:
    UK
    Well, I can think of somewhere! ;-)
     
  14. GAW Jr.

    GAW Jr. Forum Resident

    Location:
    Long Island, NY
    Rubber Soul - DEC 1965
    Here's a go...Using the 'same' UK 14 LP tracks (Day Tripper/We Can Work It Out - remains 45RPM only).

    Of course, the album is fine as is, but since we're playing fantasy, I'll try: "Four Key Changes":
    1. George (with Paul's lead fuzz bass) gets to open Side One.
    2. 'Run For Your Life' closes Side One (instead of Side Two).
    3. 'Drive My Car' - rocker opens Side Two
    4. 'In My Life' - The Finale

    Side One
    1. Think For Yourself
    2. Norwegian Wood
    3. You Won't See Me
    4. Nowhere Man
    5. The Word
    6. Michelle
    7. Run For Your Life

    Side Two
    8. Drive My Car
    9. What Goes On
    10. Girl
    11. I'm Looking Through You
    12. Wait
    13. If I Needed Someone
    14. In My Life

    My goal was to have 'In My Life' close the LP.

    Revolver w/ 'Taxman' would continue the trend, the 2nd consecutive with George opening the LP. Dream on...
     
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  15. central616

    central616 Forum Resident

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    But they belong to Help!.
     
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  16. Evethingandnothing

    Evethingandnothing Forum Resident

    Location:
    Devon
    You're Going To Lose That Girl doesn't sound anything like a Rubber Soul track. Well, not unless it's the US Rubber Soul with two Help tracks already. Hey, why don't we replace all of the Rubber Soul tracks with all of the Help tracks?
     
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  17. schnitzerphilip

    schnitzerphilip "Modern Dad" Unlocked Award

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    Epstein didn't force Capitol to do anything. Once the Bug Music manager put in some actual work on the US market after ignoring it since 1962, what do you know, Capitol chose to reciprocate.
     
  18. schnitzerphilip

    schnitzerphilip "Modern Dad" Unlocked Award

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    It's amazing. Brian Epstein did absolutely nothing to promote the Beatles in America for a full year while they were becoming the biggest act in England. Insignificant labels are given huge hits and they bomb time and time again. Some facts:

    1. It wasn't Brian Epstein but rather George Martin who in January 1963 sent a single to Capitol saying they should put it out. They declined.

    2. It wasn't Brian Epstein who aggressively pursued Ed Sullivan. Ed himself was in England in October 1963 and was delayed at Heathrow, found out it was a frenzy over a pop group, and he had his handlers reach out to the Beatles on his behalf.

    3. It wasn't Brian Epstein but rather the Beatles themselves who finally figured out how to open the door to America by writing and recording I Want To Hold Your Hand which finally caught the attention of Capitol Records in October 1963.

    Brian Epstein is the reason why the Beatles bombed in the US for a full year while tearing it up in England. Gross negligence is what they would describe a pop manager who had a tiger by the tail and did nothing to promote them in the world's biggest pop market. Sullivan led to Capitol which led to United Artists.....all of which happened with Epstein being a mere messenger.
     
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  19. schnitzerphilip

    schnitzerphilip "Modern Dad" Unlocked Award

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    Corrected.
     
  20. Bill

    Bill Senior Member

    Location:
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    Yeah, what does this Lewisohn guy know?
     
  21. englishbob

    englishbob has left the SH Forums...19/05/2023

    Location:
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    Page 46

    A Beatles obsessive's work is never done
     
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  22. Bill

    Bill Senior Member

    Location:
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    Actually, it was Brian who guided the Beatles to sort out the scores of film proposals they received starting in April 1963, as their fame spread across Europe. In August, he began negotiations with United Artists to produce the film and publish the music, how music related films were then made in England. It was no easy task in England since the Beatles' publishing rights were held by Northern Songs, comprised of Lennon, McCartney and Epstein, and their records were issued by EMI's Parlophone. On the US side, things were much easier, since rights were still held by EMI: in Hollywood, Capitol's Dexter had repeatedly shown no interest. (That's how UA could lock up the film's soundtrack album in the United States; in England, Parlophone had unfettered rights, treating fans there to all 14 tracks, in real stereo.) So in a way, you are correct, Schnitz: Dexter, though his utter indifference in the job, paved the way for the making of AHDN and all that followed, including that great album. Epstein negotiated with and got Shenson to produce, Lester to direct and Alun Owen, the Beatles' choice, who Lester knew, to write the screenplay. On October 16, the agreements, including those between Shenson's company, Proscenium Films, Northern Songs, and Nems Enterprises for three films were signed and announced. The comedy producer was signed on to be the film's musical director. Owen accompanied the group on tour in November to get a flavor for their personalities for his screenplay. Meanwhile, Epstein's next step was to fly to the United States to pitch Ed Sulllivan and then, with the assistance of EMI, force Capitol, notwithstanding Dexter's vetoes, to finally unleash the Beatles on America and do it right, with an appropriate promotional budget. Once again, Schnitz, you are right on target. Well done.
     
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  23. DRM

    DRM Forum Resident

    Your first sentence is ridiculous and detached from reality although does spout cliche partisan extremism. Capitol was a force and powerhouse BEFORE The Beatles. Reading George Martin’s great book All You Need Is Ears reveals that Martin was sent to Capitol and America BY EMI to learn from Capitol. Martin shares that he came back from America amazed at how far ahead Capitol was with their recording techniques, etc. This easy hyperbolic smashing of Capitol is major fake news and sour grapes. Capitol haters, get over it.
     
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  24. Bill

    Bill Senior Member

    Location:
    Eastern Shore
    Not my words. Take them up with the author. However, what words in it are incorrect?
    Capitol did summarily reject scores of British acts offered it by EMI that then had major success here on other labels.
     
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  25. DRM

    DRM Forum Resident

    But you quoted them. To equate Capitol to a juvenile delinquent is juvenile make believe. Any quick research will reveal the major musicians Capitol did business with before The Beatles. And I guess the so called juvenile delinquent taught the so called adult plenty, per George Martin.
     
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