excerpts of songs from one of my favorite albums of all time
from Wikipedia:
Rubber Soul is the sixth album by The Beatles, first released in December 1965. Produced by George Martin, the album was recorded in just over four weeks to make the Christmas market. It was a major artistic achievement for the band, attaining widespread critical and commercial success, with reviewers taking note of The Beatles' developing musical vision. In 2003, the album was ranked number 5 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.
Musically, the Beatles broadened their sound, most notably with influences drawn from the contemporary folk-rock of the Byrds and Bob Dylan. The album also saw the Beatles broadening rock n' roll's instrumental resources, most notably on "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)". This track is generally credited as being the first pop recording to use the sitar, an exotic Indian stringed instrument, and "Norwegian Wood" sparked a musical craze for the sound of the novel instrument in the mid-Sixties. The song is now acknowledged as one of the cornerstones of what is now usually called "world music" and it was a major landmark in the trend towards incorporating non-Western musical influences into Western popular music. Harrison had recently been introduced to Indian classical music and the sitar by David Crosby of the Byrds. He soon became fanatically interested in the genre and began taking sitar lessons from renowned Indian sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar.
Recording innovations were also made during the recording of the album — for instance, the keyboard solo in "In My Life" sounds like a harpsichord, but was actually played on a piano. George Martin found he could not match the tempo of the song while playing in this baroque style, so he tried recording with the tape running at half-speed. When played back at normal speed during the mixdown, the sped-up sound gave the illusion of a harpsichord. Other production innovations included the use of electronic sound processing on many instruments, notably the heavily compressed and equalised piano sound on Lennon's "The Word"; this distinctive effect soon became extremely popular in the genre of psychedelic music.
Lyrically, the album was a major progression. Though a smattering of earlier Beatles songs had expressed romantic doubt and negativity, the songs on Rubber Soul represented a pronounced development in sophistication, thoughtfulness, and ambiguity. In particular, the relationships between the sexes moved from simpler boy-girl love songs to more nuanced, even negative portrayals. "Norwegian Wood", one of the most famous examples and often cited as the Beatles' first conscious assimilation of the lyrical innovations of Bob Dylan, sketches a poetically ambiguous extra-marital affair between the singer and a mysterious girl. "Drive My Car" serves as a satirical piece of reverse sexism. Songs like "I'm Looking Through You", "You Won't See Me", and "Girl" express more emotionally complex, even bitter and downbeat portrayals of romance, and "Nowhere Man" was the first Beatles song to move beyond a romantic subject.
Rubber Soul came out in the United States three days after the British release, and began its 59-week long chart run on Christmas Day. It topped the charts for six weeks from January 8, 1966, before dropping back. The album sold 1.2 million copies within nine days of its release, and to date has sold over four million copies in America.
Like other pre-Sgt. Pepper Beatles albums, Rubber Soul differed markedly in its U.S. and UK configurations; indeed, through peculiarities of sequencing, the U.S. Rubber Soul was deliberately reconfigured to appear a "folk rock" album to angle the Beatles into that nascent and lucrative American idiom during 1965, thanks to the addition of "I've Just Seen a Face" and "It's Only Love" (leftovers from the UK Help!) and the deletion of some of the more upbeat tracks ("Drive My Car", "Nowhere Man", "If I Needed Someone", and "What Goes On"). The tracks missing on the U.S. version would later surface on the Yesterday . . . and Today collection. The track variation resulted in a shorter album length, clocking in at 29:59. In addition, the stereo mix sent to the U.S. from England has what are commonly called "false starts" at the beginning of "I'm Looking Through You." The track is also slightly shorter at the end. The false starts are on every American copy of the album from 1965 to 1990 and are also on the CD boxed set, Capitol Albums, Vol. 2. The US version of "The Word" is also recognizably different.
The U.S. version of the album also greatly influenced the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson, who "answered" the album by releasing Pet Sounds in 1966. In turn, Pet Sounds greatly impressed the Beatles and served as inspiration for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.