How 'Rubber Soul' Redefined The Beatles' Musical Journey [Highlight From Episode 309]

Author and Beatles Historian Jude Southerland Kessler on The Beatles' 1965 album 'Rubber Soul'.


Listen to Episode 309: John Lennon & The Rise of Beatlemania

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Here's a highlight from a recent episode of book Don Rock.
Jude Sutherland Kessler the author of the John Lennon series.
It's the only historical narrative on the life of John
Winston Lennon, and her latest volume is titled Some Forever
Shades of Life Part Two. Let's get to the Rubber
Soul album, which was released in early December sixty five.
It was recorded in October and November, and you take

(00:22):
readers through those sessions. In this book, John seemed to
be inspired by the Birds. He saw them as contenders
and felt the Beatles should be doing more. He's ready
to put the poppy Beatles sound behind him, right.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Yeah, they all are. They all are. I mean, I
think George more than anyone. George became close friends with
the Birds when they were out in La And in fact,
they are given a party by Alan Livingston, the head
of Capitol Records in America, and it's a cocktail party
and it's very lovely and all that George is I'm
not going. I'm flatly not going because the Birds have

(00:55):
invited me to go to a recording session and that's
where I'm going. And he does. He doesn't go to
the party, Paul goes and stay very long, and he
joins in over with the Birds, and then finally John leaves,
Ringo hangs out at the party. But the rest of
them want to hear this new sound. The Birds admittedly,
they say they were influenced by the Beatles. They tell

(01:17):
you that. And the Beatles are influenced by the Birds.
And for the first time, the Beatles aren't necessarily leading
the way. They're being influenced. And then they're taking those
influences and they are doing something new with them, something
totally new. I mean, to me, Rubber Soul is the
turning point. It is not revolver, which a lot of

(01:40):
people say. I mean, by the time you get to
Rubber Soul, you've got the citar on Norwegian wood, you've
got the sound of world music. You have songs about
complicated relationships. No longer is it Moon Spoon, June kroon,
people falling in love and batting their eyes, and sign
got people who are struggling in their relationships. Many of

(02:03):
those songs are very serious. You've got a song about
what's the real Where can I find meaning in life?
In the word? And the word is love. It's the
precursor to All You Need Is Love. It is they
are becoming the new Beatles, the studio Beatles that they're
going to be. And imagine this. They start recording on

(02:26):
the twelfth of October nineteen sixty five, and they are
finished on the twelfth of November. Who besides the Beatles
could do Rubber Soul in a month. And it's really
not a month because when they have the NBE on
the twenty fifth, they're off for rehearsals for the MBE
and I'm sure getting their clothes together and Brian gives

(02:48):
a sore ray for them that night, and then the
next day, October twenty sixth, the whole day is spent
receiving the mb doing many, many, many many interviews afterwards.
So those two days are out and then they spend
November I believe it was the second and the third, yes,

(03:08):
the second and the third going to Manchester to record
the music of Lennon and McCartney. So they don't even
have a full month