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

Double album for the US:

SIDE 1:

Drive My Car
Norwegian Wood
You Won't See Me
Nowhere Man
Act Naturally

SIDE 2:

We Can Work It Out
Think For Yourself
The Word
Wait
Michelle

SIDE 3:
Girl
I'm Looking Through You
What Goes On
Yesterday
Run For Your Life

SIDE 4:
I've Just Seen a Face
It's Only Love
If I Needed Someone
In My Life
Day Tripper

 

Nobody forces you to participate.

 

The UK absolutely wince that’s the way it was intended. Always that way for every Beatles album. The American ones shouldn’t even be acknowledged anymore. I’m happy with the singles recorded aroundt hat time staying on Past Masters.
Btw, how can you possibly live without Drive My Car???

 

They did know better for the American market which is what they were given authority to represent.
No one complained about the record sales.
And to just assume because it's The Beatles it would have sold anyway, ignores albums bought by casual fans by word of mouth that a particular LP is especially good or by hearing a friends record and liking it enough to purchase it themselves.

 

Drop Wait (which was the definition of filler, taken from the Help! sessions to literally fill up space and it's too early Beatles style.
Drop What Goes On as it just doesn't fit stylistically.
Below is 38 minutes.

I've Just Seen A Face
Norwegian Wood
You Won't See Me
Think For Yourself
Nowhere Man
The Word
Drive My Car
It's Only Love
I'm Looking Through You
In My Life
If I Needed Someone
We Can Work It Out
Girl
Michelle
Run For Your Life
Day Tripper

 

For the US albums Capitol did not rearrange the songs for the American audience because they thought that would make them sell better.
They cut songs off the UK albums to make additional albums also they added some singles that were not intended to be on albums, there were 14 UK albums and 18 US albums or should I say U$ albums.

 

This had been standard practice between EMI and Captiol since 1955 - so it wasn't like Capitol suddenly saw a cash-cow in the Beatles and decided to milk it (they did see the cash-cow, and did milk it; but... they didn't change to a format of releasing 11-12 songs per LP just because of the Beatles).

 

agree completely...IMHO.

Both are fine, depending on your taste. I love the "grass album"!

The Capitol version is more unified as a folk-rock album, better flow in that respect. "Ive Just Seen A Face" & "It's Only Love" are part of my Rubber Soul and necessary, but I understand why the Brits, having heard them on HELP!, would find these quite redundant.

USA-no jarring "Drive My Car" or "What Goes On" (though I love them both!). The UK version is more eclectic, and electric. Less unified to my ears, but still, very fine also.

Also, for later Generations here and in UK, Rubber Soul was only available in the UK format, so in a sense they grew up with the UK version only. In that case the US set list would sound wrong when they finally got to hear it.

It is partly personal taste, partly what you grew up with & where, partly "prejudices" formed by later generations having read the Beatles histories (the UK version is the way the Beatles intended etc).


Very subjective. Very OK, either way.
Oh, and I wouldn't muck it up by adding even more to the mix, like those A-sides!



Oh, in any case, I LOVE "Run For Your Life"...a little music from the dark side.

 

yeah I agree, they would have done the same thing to Herman's Hermits or The Pete Best Band if they had their distribution rights and if a partial album by them would sell at the same price and numbers as a full album, Capitol loved The Beatles but not the same way we love The Beatles.

 

Yeah, it's important to note that US listeners would have heard 'I've Just Seen A Face' and 'It's Only Love' for the first time on this US Rubber Soul album. They are inextricably tied to 'Rubber Soul' for millions of people, especially as they hold down the opening slot on both sides of the album.

 

Just wanted to say that Rubber Soul is my favorite Beatles album, but I had no idea that there are essentially 2 different track listings. I'm not the biggest Beatles fan though.

 

A similar thing happened the other way round too. The debut Elvis album in the UK was not the same as the one released in the US.

While I may prefer the UK lineup for that LP, I am able to recognise that the US LP is the proper one, even if Elvis had nothing to do with the track selection on either album.

 

...and The Steeldrivers' song If It Hadn't Been For Love is on Adele's 21 UK album but not the US version

 

I much prefer the US version. Drive My Car and What Goes On are rather jarring when included in the rest of the album, and in particular the sequence on cd going from Michelle to What Goes On is frankly awful. Ruins the whole mood. I understand on lp that required one to flip the record, with the attendant break in time. But still, imho - it doesn't work.

I've Just Seen a Face is such a great start to the album, by comparison to DMC which it and What Goes On are properly put elsewhere. Nowhere Man and If I Needed Someone I also feel are problematic here.

So that leaves the OP's question about We Can Work It Out And Day Tripper. I think WCWIO is a nice fit with the rest of the songs on the US version, DT less so. But where to put them? I guess I would have to put aside my love for Just Seen and say start it off with Day Tripper, then We Can Work it Out, and then just go into Just Seen and the rest of the US version.

Those complaining about the UK version being the version preferred by the Beatles themselves imo are making a bit of a fetish about that. The choice of the Beatles for the UK albums had their own parameters that affected them, meaning they worked there with a mostly 14 cut, sometimes 13 cut, number that was an arbitrary one set by the conventional approach in that market. As for their choice on the UK content, maybe they felt they knew their local market well enough to choose while they deferred to Capitol when it came to the US. Did they really complain about Capitol's role in the US? As far back as The Beatles Second Album, imo a great success and one of their best albums, I think it likely they not only acceded to the situation but had to respect what Capitol achieved. (Meet the Beatles was also a Capitol lineup of course, but there the choice was more about including the one two beginning as "necessary" to defer to the US market preference of including singles on lp's. The Second was much more of a case where Capitol chose the whole lineup.)

In any event I think most here over the years are used to making their own decisions about how to listen to albums, in what order. Whether it's skipping songs on an lp or cd, making a mixed tape, or a homemade CD-R. That's what the OP is asking about, so it's not like there's some rule that says one has to listen to the order the musicians supposedly came up with themselves.

 

Rubber Soul was just another Beatles pop LP when it was conceived. It wasn't intended to be anything other than the annual Christmas release. It wasn't a conceptual project. It was just a group of songs that picked up where Help left off.

It wasn't the Beatles, it was Capitol records in the United States that made Rubber Soul into the epic acoustic folk concept album it is now widely regarded as.

So, tough call here. Go with the Beatles pushing out yet another LP in between tours or go with a savvy producer in California dumping a few bad songs and adding a few good songs and making a world-changing folk album out of it. I know where I stand.

 

Then why did Capitol keep several electric tracks on the LP while omitting more folky songs like Nowhere Man, If I Needed Someone, We Can Work It Out, Yesterday?

Capitol just used the two Help! tracks that were still unreleased in the US, simple as that. No big 'plan'.

 

Rubber Soul (Parlophone) was called "our first comedy record" by The Beatles in 1965. They open with Ringo punctuating a joke "I've found a driver and that's a start! (Boom boom!)", meander through a French lesson where after " I need you I need you I need you" the only answer is, "I think you know by now", they lasciviously sing "tit tit tit tit" in the background of one song, goosesteping all the way, they commit arson, threaten murder, claim they have seen the light and use the same backing vocals on two consecutive songs. The Capitol version loses some of the comedy and context.
But there's high comedy whenever Capitol is talked about. You just watch, someone will quote me and start raging on about how cool Capitol is cos, y'know, it made The Beatles a lot of money and it's American. They might even spell it right.

 

Completely incorrect.

 

You must be joking. I've lost count the number of times myself or someone else has posted the YouTube clip of John and Paul dissing Capitol's approach on BBC radio in December 1964, after their summer tour in the US when they saw what Capitol had done. And John kept complaining about it all the way up through 1974 and even briefly in 1980.

 

The answer is that Capitol was trying to make 4 LP's out of 3 between Help/Rubber Soul/Revolver.

But whoever produced the US version clearly wanted to tilt the collection towards the emerging folk trend, no other explanation for 'I've Just Seen A Face' as the opener, essentially a throwaway on Side B of Help put in the pole position on the biggest release of the 1965 Christmas season. 'It's Only Love' just perfect for RS if one is trying to make a folk concept LP, can't be argued.

That and 'What Goes On' is awful and 'Drive My Car' feels like it doesn't belong, just rocks too hard a-la 'Day Tripper' of the period. 'Nowhere Man' and 'We Can Work It Out' should have been on there in the US, I have it that way on my personal RS mix. I also believe 'You've Got To Hide Your Love Away' works brilliantly.

1. "I've Just Seen A Face"
2. "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)"
3. "You Won't See Me"
Nowhere Man
4. "Think for Yourself"
5. "The Word"
You've Got To Hide Your Love Away
6. "Michelle"

1. "It's Only Love"
2. "Girl"
3. "I'm Looking Through You"
4. "In My Life"
We Can Work It Out
5. "Wait"
If I Needed Someone
6. "Run for Your Life"

 

I can't imagine being without the American version even though Nowhere Man is one of my favorite Beatles songs.

I bought the UK import for Rubber Soul (and Revolver) back in the day marveling at the "extra" tracks. I still keep going back to the Capitol Rubber Soul album as my preferred one. Love them both though.

 

Apologies if I'm incorrect, but my recollection is that a) the Beatles had 1 month to pull off writing and recording the LP between the tour ending in September and the December Christmas release, b) decided not to put other artist's cover material on it, and c) were totally high on weed the whole time. The confluence of those events led to Rubber Soul, but I don't recall the Beatles saying "let's take a month and make an epic, world-changing folk concept album" in the same way years later they'd do with Pepper or attempt to do with the Let It Be project.

Just taking it at face value, by removing WGO and DMC and replacing it with IOL and IJSAF Captiol in the US made it into a folk classic. My opinion only of course, I'm open to both the UK and US versions. For the record I adore the UK version of Revolver, not playing any favorites based on locale or heritage here.

 

It's really very simple and logical:

Capitol had two songs from Help! that needed using, so they replaced the opening songs of each side with those. And they cut two other songs to make a 12-song album (and leave a 'new' single in hand).

There was no other 'concept'.

 

I know the common thought is that Capitol US was reckless and haphazardly bastardized Beatles releases, but I beg to differ at least when it comes to Rubber Soul. I don't think some LA secretary said "just take these two random Help tracks and plop them as Track 1 on both sides" of the biggest release (at the time) in the labels history and the biggest release of the year in the world's biggest market, the Christmas 1965 Beatles long player.

Someone at Capitol saw the folk rock movement, heard all the RS UK tracks, knew he had a few folk sounding songs from the last UK LP, and put together a classic. I can't see how anyone thinks "I've Just Seen A Face" is a poor opener let alone doesn't belong on Rubber Soul. That one decision alone justifies Capitol knowing what it was doing IMO.

 

I think I'm correct in saying that Rubber Soul was the first time that Capitol had released an album and an 'exclusive' (not on the album) single together, i.e. 'UK style'.

They were moving towards being more in line with the UK releases, but still had some 'backlog' problems to take care of. I assume this was why they released We Can Work It Out/Day Tripper on single but not on the album (for now). And why they elected to use the two remaining Help! tracks now rather than later. Yesterday and Act Naturally had already been released as a single as well (but again, not on LP for the moment). It would appear that Capitol were trying to clear some of the backlog and catch up.

But that's the point, they weren't 'random' tracks - they were the last two Help! tracks that needed releasing somehow in the US.