The Beatles: UK Response to US Capitol versions?

No, I'm saying it has trite lyrics.

Lennon criticized the lyrics as a whole. He never singled out the first line as being what he disliked:
"That's the one song I really hate of mine. Terrible lyric." 1974
"It's Only Love is mine. I always thought it was a lousy song. The lyrics were abysmal. I always hated that song." 1980

I disagree with the notion that the song is exceptionally mature. It's a basic love song of the sort he'd written dozens of by that point. There's nothing innovative or deep about it. It's not terrible in subject matter, but it's hardly exceptional.

One of the reasons Lennon disliked IOL is because it was NOT personal. The lyrics did not mean anything to him, and didn't reflect anything about his real life. He always tended to value songs less that were crafted rather than inspired, and for which he lacked a personal connection.

According to McCartney:
"Sometimes we didn't fight it if the lyric came out rather bland on some of those filler songs like It's Only Love. If a lyric was really bad we'd edit it, but we weren't that fussy about it, because it's only a rock 'n' roll song. I mean, this is not literature."

It passed muster because they were trying to fill the Help album, and even then came up short and had to resort to covers. It was a filler song to the Beatles.

 

But It’s Only Love does at least have one of the ‘naughty’ chords...

 

If you see those two opening songs in the US RS as filler I don't blame you for not liking it. But they have never seemed that way to me. This is why these convos go on forever I guess.

I love those two as much as any previous beatles songs.

 

It's quite an elegant song, but you wouldn't know it with all the beatles fans here protecting their reputation.

 

They thought long and carefully about what songs would be best to open the two sides, and after all this careful consideration they just happened to select the two songs that had been left over from Help, out of the 12 songs available? That seems like a pretty big coincidence. Seems more likely to me that since they had to put those songs somewhere, they just stuck them in two of the gaps created by deleted songs.

 

Face is a nice song although I've always thought Drive My Car has much more going on for it (John and Paul's duet, the clever words, the beep-beep hook, the guitar solo played by Paul and George's "Respect" bass line) and better announces the Beatles intention to make a sophisticated, confident album. But my whole point is that which albums are canon shouldn't be based on either of our opinions. They should be based on the Beatles' intentions. We have evidence John thought IOL was a tossed-off piece of filler that he didn't like, and no evidence he thought it belonged on Rubber Soul. So although you may enjoy hearing it there, I think in the absence of universal agreement that it belongs there, we should defer to the artist.

 

There seems to be an allergy to the idea that anything happened by accident. It's not disloyalty to say that something good happened without the intention of the band, or that events showed different ways to go forward, while they were negotiating their lives in beatlesworld.

 

What does that mean: Defer to the artist?

Drive my car I can't find any interest in. Not great rock, not good melody, a novelty. It isn't one of the great songs by them and how it is attached to RS I can't see at all. I don't hear the bells and whistles if I don't hear a melody to pull me in. It's the main thing I find annoying about the UK RS.

 

Heard? I don't know. I can tell you they autographed one. Back in the 90's, a reputable place in Tampa had one (US version) with the letter of authenticity. Damn, I wish I could have afforded it.

 

Yes, It's Only Love is a beauty. Proof that John could write great "Filler". Far better than What Goes On.

I can just hear Yoko berating him about it.
"Who did you write that for John? I want to know NOW! Who was she?"

 

Do you really think that 2 million copies of US RS sold were to the same teenage girls who bought Meet The Beatles?

 

Yes. I think they would have loved It's Only Love

 

It means that the Beatles' opinions about how their work should be heard are more important than yours or mine. And therefore that the UK versions should be the widely available/disseminated versions.

 

Yes, several reputable Beatles dealers who are the "toppermost of the poppermost" even specialize exclusively / mostly in American Beatles records. And the interest and prices (for high end copies) continually keep going up and up.

The US records as collectibles is not exactly the same as "musical worth", yet I know of almost no one who would still be collecting, archiving or cherishing these records if they didn't find the albums themselves to be artworks hugely impactful on their life (or their culture). These long-standing respected Beatles dealers and authors would clearly attest that the US albums are anything but "curious novelties" here.

 

Rubber Soul was a musical milestone. It wasn't typical at all, for the US anyway. It was the first mid period beatles album. It was a break that was quite visible to the public, in the US anyway.

Hm let me think. Does the audience play a part in a work of art?

Lennon wote How do you sleep too you know. He liked that one. See how it gets complicated?

 

Follow your thought to its conclusion. You argued yourself into this place. You can't imagine that the record company put songs on there on purpose, because you know , UK!, and then you have to end with "They just did it..." "Because," I guess.

You have the burden of proof if you want to say that the two pole position songs were just stuck there by accident. You are the moving party in this.

 

Hates a song called 'It's Only Love'? Beyond ironic.

Typical Lennon.

I disagree. They had to come up with singles to release as singles in the UK. That factor helped determine what was eligible to be on an album.

That's how the Beatles ended up with the occasional filler on their albums, because better songs went out as singles.

From the Rubber Soul sessions, they released a double-A side, no less.

 

George Martin liked the two 'leftover' songs from Help!

He put them on his own Help! album, not his Rubber Soul album

The back of the US version of that album:



I wonder if any US fans heard this album and then heard Auntie Gin's Theme and That's A Nice Hat on the US Rubber Soul a while later?

 

No, I don't. First, I don't know what point you're trying to make about How Do You Sleep. Second, my point is that the audience doesn't get to dictate how a work of art is packaged and sold. The artist gets to determine that. Capitol's repackagings occurred at a time when the Beatles were thought of as "product," not as art. We have the benefit of 50+ years' perspective that the group were, indeed, creating art, and not just product. Accordingly, this isn't the same as deciding whether to sell bottled water in 12-packs or 14-packs. It's akin to deciding whether to sell a bowdlerized edition of Hamlet or not.

 

Again missing the point that regardless of why decisions were made, we aren't in a position to unmake or remake those decisions, and the albums and singles should be packaged and sold as the group intended.

 

They are selling what the 60s Beatles wanted, for the most part, some remixing after the 60s notwithstanding.

And they've also made the Capitol albums available, in an incomplete roundabout way, yet in a more or less authentic form (albeit digitalized) - plus the US Albums, where they do a reverse-Capitol and 'clean' everything up.

Apple let the Capitol back out of the bag. The fans didn't steal the tapes... did they?

 

Actually the artist didn't get to dictate how a work is packaged and sold ever until very recently. You must be referring to the world after the beatles, where everyone wanted as their birthright, what the fabs had earned the right to have by dint of their genius. This hinged on their mid period success with adult record buyers.

 

I give up. As Tom Petty said, you believe what you want to believe.

 

One element that gives Rubber Soul its distinctive sound is the use of capos on many of the tracks. Prior to this, the Beatles had used capos on only two recordings: It’s Only Love and I’ve Just Seen A Face.

Serendipitously or otherwise, the two tracks fit in pretty well with the Beatles’ next set of recordings, many of which utilised capoed guitars.

Argument #1: Dave Dexter knew there’d be more where those two tracks came from, so he presciently held them back for the next album. When the Rubber Soul recordings were made available to him, he intuitively - and brilliantly - sensed the importance of capoed guitars to the sound of the album, ensuring that the superbly sequenced US version included the two leftover tracks.

Argument #2: those two tracks didn’t fit Dave Dexter’s idea of what the Beatles’ music should sound like. They weren’t single material, so he held them back in order to bury them somewhere on the next album. Ignorant of the importance of capoed guitars to the sound of the sessions, he ended up removing five tracks, two of which utilised capos: Nowhere Man and If I Needed Someone. Nevertheless, the overall quality of the underlying material from which to make his selection meant that it would have been impossible to choose eleven tracks that didn’t make up a pretty good album. A pretty good album, but not Rubber Soul as intended.

 

Those two tunes work better on this album.