Line #103 Music/RubberSoul


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rubber_soul_cover.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:''"I once had a girl, or should I say, she once had me..."'']]
3
4	->''"''Rubber Soul'' is the Beatles' first step into the mystic and, although subsequent albums seemed to extrapolate these visions much further, the insight--and cutting social comment--showed that the group had ditched the jelly babies forever....It was obvious that the group were no longer concerned with their public image as 'lovable mop tops' etc. They were Artists and, like Artists, they wanted things done their way (for the sake of the Art). ''Rubber Soul'' was."''
5	-->-- '''Roy Carr & Tony Tyler''', ''The Beatles: An Illustrated Record''
6
7	''Rubber Soul'' is the sixth studio album by Music/TheBeatles, released in December 1965.
8
9	As the page quote describes, the album marked an important step forward in the group's artistic development, as they began to shed their early image as the innocent, fun-loving "Fab Four". From the stylish cover art (which didn't even have the band's name on the front) to the introspective, poetic, [[LyricalDissonance often bitter]] lyrics, the Beatles were taking their music to the next level.
10
11	Indeed, ''Rubber Soul''[='s=] innovations led directly to ''Music/{{Revolver\|Beatles Album}}'' (1966) and ''Music/SgtPeppersLonelyHeartsClubBand'' (1967). Such tracks as "Drive My Car", "Norwegian Wood", "In My Life", "Michelle", "Nowhere Man", and "Girl" became huge international hits.
12
13	----
14	!! Tracklist (Standard Version):
15
16	[[AC: Side One]]
17
18	# "Drive My Car" (2:25)
19	# "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)" (2:01)
20	# "You Won't See Me" (3:18)
21	# "Nowhere Man" (2:40)
22	# "Think for Yourself" (2:16)
23	# "The Word" (2:41)
24	# "Michelle" (2:33)
25
26	[[AC: Side Two]]
27
28	# "What Goes On" (2:47)
29	# "Girl" (2:30)
30	# "I'm Looking Through You" (2:23)
31	# "In My Life" (2:24)
32	# "Wait" (2:12)
33	# "If I Needed Someone" (2:20)
34	# "Run for Your Life" (2:18)
35
36	----
37	!! Tracklist (US Version):
38
39	[[AC: Side One]]
40
41	# "I've Just Seen a Face" (2:04)
42	# "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)" (2:01)
43	# "You Won't See Me" (3:18)
44	# "Think for Yourself" (2:16)
45	# "The Word" (2:41)
46	# "Michelle" (2:33)
47
48	[[AC: Side Two]]
49
50	# "It's Only Love" (1:53)
51	# "Girl" (2:30)
52	# "I'm Looking Through You" (2:23)
53	# "In My Life" (2:24)
54	# "Wait" (2:12)
55	# "Run for Your Life" (2:18)
56
57	----
58	!!Principal Members:
59
60	* Music/GeorgeHarrison - lead and backing vocals, guitar, bass, sitar
61	* Music/JohnLennon - lead and backing vocals, guitar, piano
62	* Music/PaulMcCartney - lead and backing vocals, bass, guitar, piano
63	* Music/RingoStarr - lead and backing vocals, drums, percussion, organ, tambourine, maracas, cowbell, bells, cymbals
64
65	----
66	!!In my life, I've troped them all:
67
68	* AdvertisedExtra: Longtime roadie Mal Evans gets credited for playing organ on "You Won't See Me". His "playing" consists of holding down a single note for the last minute or so of the song.
69	* AgeProgressionSong: "In My Life" deals with the singer's reminiscences of past friends and lovers, and concludes that, rather than feeling as though he is in love for the first time in his current relationship (which he feels is a betrayal of the memories of past loves), he finds he loves his current paramour most of all.
70	--> ''But of all these friends and lovers\
71	There is no one compares with you\
72	And these memories lose their meaning\
73	When I think of love as something new\
74	Though I know I'll never lose affection\
75	For people and things that went before\
76	I know I'll often stop and think about them\
77	In my life, I love you more''
78	* AlbumFiller: "Wait" was a song that remained from the ''Music/{{Help}}'' sessions.
79	* AntiLoveSong: Almost all the songs are about relationships that have some sort of negative aspect. "Norwegian Wood" is about a one night stand gone sour. "You Won't See Me", "Think for Yourself", "What Goes On", and "I'm Looking Through You" are complaints from one lover about how the other is ignoring them or leading them on. "Run for Your Life" also belongs in that group, but the narrator is a CrazyJealousGuy. "Girl" is sung by a guy in love with a frustratingly-fickle woman. "If I Needed Someone" is sung by someone who's in a relationship but falls in love with someone else. Even the more positive songs have a bittersweet edge: "Michelle" is about an affair that runs into a LanguageBarrier, "In My Life" mentions that people that the singer used to know have died, and in "Wait", the narrator warns his lover that he'll leave again if he feels betrayed.
80	* BaroquePop: "In My Life" has a baroque-influenced piano solo.
81	* BeYourself:
82	** "Think For Yourself" involves the singer telling the object of the song to stop living a lie and start thinking clearly.
83	** "If I Needed Someone" where the protagonist stresses the "if".
84	* BilingualRhyme: The GratuitousFrench in "Michelle" gets rhymed with English at the beginning of the song. The following appearances of the hook use a French translation of the English line, which also rhymes.
85	-->Michelle, ma belle[[note]]my beauty[[/note]]
86	-->These are words that go together well
87	* CarSong: "Drive My Car", about a girl who looks for a chauffeur to drive her car.
88	* CrazyJealousGuy: "Run For Your Life" is all over this trope. See MisogynySong below.
89	--> ''You know that I'm a wicked guy, and I was born with a jealous mind...''
90	* DesignStudentsOrgasm: The Beatles' stretched-out image on the album cover. A photographer had taken their picture and was projecting it on a piece of cardboard as a mockup for the cover. The board tipped backwards, causing the image to elongate, and the band liked it well enough to approve it as the final artwork.
91	* DisproportionateRetribution: In [[RevengeBallad "Norwegian Wood"]], the narrator burns a woman's apartment down for refusing to sleep with him.
92	* DoubleStandardAbuseFemaleOnMale: "Girl", in which the singer laments his misery at the hands of the title character. Worse because no one believes him.
93	* EitherOrTitle: "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)".
94	* EpicRocking: "You Won't See Me" runs a mere 3:18, but was the longest song they'd released up to that point.
95	* EverythingSoundsSexierInFrench:
96	--> ''Michelle, ma belle, sont les mots qui vont très bien ensemble, très bien ensemble''.
97	* FaceOnTheCover: A group shot of the band, but stretched out.
98	* FunWithHomophones: The title ''Rubber Soul'' intentionally sounds like "rubber sole".
99	* GratuitousFrench: In "Michelle", the second line is initially sung in English ("Michelle, ma belle / These are words that go together well"), and for the rest of the song, it is sung in French ("Michelle, ma belle / sont les mots qui vont très bien ensemble").
100	* GratuitousPanning:
101	** Good luck trying to hear the vocals on "Norwegian Wood" if your right channel/speaker/ear is broken.
102	** "Run For Your Life" puts the rhythm section entirely on the left channel.
103	* InTheStyleOf: Music/TheByrds on two specific songs.
104	** "If I Needed Someone" borrows a lot from "The Bells of Rhymney" (the guitar riff especially, which George admitted).
105	** "Nowhere Man" takes many of its cues from "Mr. Tambourine Man".
106	* JustIgnoreIt: "You Won't See Me" about someone ignored by a former partner.
107	* LoveEpiphany: Inverted with "I'm Looking Through You", in which the singer finds he has fallen out of love with the object of the song; to quote the bridge, "Love has a nasty habit of disappearing overnight".
108	* LyricalDissonance:
109	** "Norwegian Wood" is set to a trance-inducing 3/4 waltz with a sitar in the background, in a very laid-back manner. The lyrics are about the narrator [[DisproportionateRetribution burning down a woman's wooden house because she didn't put out the night before.]]
110	** "What Goes On" is written in Ringo's preferred peppy, almost country style. The song is about a man who goes completely unnoticed by the woman he loves.
111	** "I'm Looking Through You," a poppy upbeat little number about basically writing off an ex's existence. "You're thinking of me / The same old way / You were above me / But not today / The only difference is you're down there / I'm looking through you, and you're nowhere"
112	** "Run For Your Life" is a happy, peppy tune whose lyrics are, in essence, [[{{Yandere}} "BITCH IMA CUT YOU IF YOU EVER LEAVE ME!"]] Interestingly, the opening line of "Run For Your Life" ("I'd rather see you dead little girl than to be with another man") is taken verbatim from Music/ElvisPresley's "Baby Let's Play House" (which like other Elvis songs is a cover song). Not only is that song ''also'' a peppy rockabilly number, but the rest of the lyrics just focus on the narrator wanting the girl to get back together with him, with no other implied threats, so that one line comes from out of nowhere.
113	* MisogynySong:
114	** "Run For Your Life". The narrator tells his lover that if she decides to end her relationship with him, he will hunt her down and murder her. As with the earlier "[[Music/AHardDaysNight You Can't Do That]]", Lennon later regarded this song as an OldShame.
115	** The narrator of "Norwegian Wood" commits DisproportionateRetribution and [[KillItWithFire burns downs the house of a woman]] after she refuses to sleep with him. It's probably worth noting that this was intended to be Lennon's way of writing about an affair without arousing the suspicions of his then-wife Cynthia.
116	* MundaneMadeAwesome: "Drive My Car", about a girl who wants to become a "star on the screen" and searches for someone to be her driver, despite the fact that she hasn't even got a car yet.
117	* NewSoundAlbum: ''Rubber Soul'' was the first album in their output to sound significantly different compared to the previous albums. Even the album cover looks bizarre. "Nowhere Man" was notable for being the first original Beatles song without any reference to love. "Norwegian Wood" also surprised listeners with its exotic sounding Indian sitar sound.
118	** In the US, because of the augmented tracklist, it sounded more like a FolkRock album – a musical trend that was rising fast at the time.
119	* TheNotRemix: George Martin was unhappy with the original stereo mix, so for the 1987 CD release, he remixed the album. The 2009 remastered version used this new mix.
120	* NotStayingForBreakfast: "Norwegian Wood" (though in this case, it's the lady who owns the house that leaves; the guy replies by torching the place)
121	* ObsessionSong: "Run For Your Life" is a pretty aggressive example, so much that John regretted writing it.
122	--> I'd rather see you dead, little girl,
123	--> Than to be with another man.
124	** Those two lines were, however, taken word for word from the Music/{{Elvis Presley}} song "Baby Let's Play House" from ''Music/TheSunSessions''.
125	** "You Won't See Me".
126	* OddballInTheSeries: "What Goes On", featuring Ringo on lead vocal, is the only song the Beatles ever recorded that received the songwriting credit "Lennon-[=McCartney=]-Starkey." When Ringo was later asked what he contributed to get a credit alongside John and Paul, he answered "about five words."
127	* OneManSong: "Nowhere Man".
128	* OneWomanSong:
129	** "Michelle" is named for the object of the singer's affection, who lives on the other side of a language barrier.
130	** "Girl" does not actually name the title character, but the song revolves around the singer's inability to get over her in spite of the toxicity of their relationship.
131	* OneWordTitle: "Girl", "Wait".
132	* ThePowerOfLove: "The Word". As the chorus tells us:
133	--> ''Say the word and you'll be free\
134	Say the word and be like me\
135	Say the word I'm thinkin' of\
136	Have you heard, the word is "love"\
137	It's so fine, it's sunshine, it's the word "love"''
138	* PunBasedTitle: "Rubber Soul", a pun on "rubber sole shoes", plus a riff on a Black musician calling Music/{{The Rolling Stones\|Band}} (and by implication other White rock groups) "plastic {{soul}}" (apparently, the Beatles were stoned when they heard about that and thought "Rubber Soul" would be a ''hilarious'' name for an album).
139	* QuestioningTitle: "What Goes On (In Your Heart)?"
140	* RealLifeWritesThePlot: "Norwegian Wood" was supposedly based on an awkward encounter John Lennon had with another woman (although the encounter did not end in arson).
141	* RevengeBallad: "Norwegian Wood", where a man takes revenge on a woman for not sleeping with him by [[DisproportionateRetribution burning her apartment down]] while she is gone.
142	* {{Scatting}}: "Girl" has a rather amusing background harmonic vocal accompaniment of 'tit tit tit tit' appear before the chorus.
143	* ShaggyDogStory: The girl in "Drive My Car" never had a car to begin with.
144	* ShoutOut:
145	** The reference in "In My Life" to "lovers and friends/I still can recall/some are dead and some are living" is a Shout Out to Lennon's close friend and former bandmate, Stuart Sutcliffe, who died in 1962.
146	** The opening line of "Run For Your Life" ("I'd rather see you dead, little girl, than to be with another man") was borrowed from "Baby Let's Play House", a 1954 Arthur Gunter song that was CoveredUp in 1955 when Music/ElvisPresley released it as his fourth single for Sun Records.
147	* SillyLoveSongs: Notably averted with "Nowhere Man". It was the first original song the Beatles ever released that wasn't a love song--every other original song on their first '''five''' albums, as well as every single and B-side, was a love song ("Help!" was kind of ambiguous, but "I need somebody...not just anybody" tilts it into love territory). You could also argue that "The Word", as a song about the ''concept'' of love, rather than a song about being in love, counts as an aversion too.
148	* StarCrossedLovers: "Wait", about two lovers who are separated from each other.
149	* StepUpToTheMicrophone: Ringo takes his turn at singing lead for "What Goes On".
150	* StudioChatter: While never legitimately released, there's a widely-bootlegged (and [[HilariousOuttakes absolutely hilarious]]) 20-minute outtake from a session for "Think for Yourself". You can hear it (in two parts) [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4q48Foltjs here]] and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oibSx5miTkY here]].
151	* ThisLoserIsYou: The title character of "Nowhere Man" lives an aimless life, and John compares him not only to listeners, but also himself.
152	--> ''Doesn't have a point of view''
153	--> ''Knows not where he's going to''
154	--> ''Isn't he a bit like you and me?''
155	* WhamLine:
156	** "Drive My Car"
157	-->''I got no car/ and it's breaking my heart/ but I found a driver and that's a start.''
158	** "Norwegian Wood"
159	--> ''And when I awoke/ I was alone/ this bird had flown/ so, I lit a fire/ isn't it good? Norwegian wood.''
160	* WhatYouAreInTheDark: "I'm Looking Through You"
161	--> ''You're thinking of me, the same old way''
162	--> ''You were above me, but not today''
163	--> ''The only difference is you're down there''
164	--> ''I'm looking through you, and you're nowhere''
165	* WorldMusic: "Norwegian Wood" is one of the first rock songs to incorporate influences from other traditional cultures, in this case UsefulNotes/{{India}}. Music/GeorgeHarrison plays sitar during this track, an instrument he learned to master thanks to Music/RaviShankar. He would play it again on "Love You To" from ''Music/{{Revolver\|Beatles Album}}'' (1966) and "Within You, Without You" from ''Music/SgtPeppersLonelyHeartsClubBand'' (1967).

Context Music / RubberSoul