Rubber Soul

Today was really the first day of summer, the weather dictated that I should be playing a suitably summery record that had me skipping down my road to my car, so it was fear that gripped me when I went to the CD shelf this morning, knowing that it could spew something perfect or it could Spew Bjork’s Vespertine. The sun gods were happy though and decided that one Bjork a week is more than ample. Rubber Soul was the music, Stafford to Coleshill was the journey, Sunny was both my disposition and the weather, Scottish replacement for Claire Nazir was right this morning.
Rubber Soul was the first Beatles record I adored, I acquired my parents copy in my late teens and played it endlessly, somewhere in a cupboard I have these poems I wrote when I was 15 or 16 and those poems rip this album off without the merest hint of trying to hide it, I listened to it a lot!
As of now though it isn’t my favourite Beatles album, but it is certainly up there and it kind of heralds the start of their more experimental phase, playing with instruments that you didn’t really hear on mainstream pop records, Sitar, Harmonium and potentially spoons (I like the idea of spoons on records). The subject matter was getting a little darker also, not just Norwegian Wood, but in Run For Your Life the tone is menacing. Lennon said that Run For Your Life was his least favourite songs, cant see it myself.
Enough to say I think this album should be owned by everyone and it always perplexed me that in those greatest album polls this was eclipsed by the likes of Revolver or Sgt Pepper, this is in my opinion far stronger than both those records, but still not the strongest Beatles record. 9 out of 10



Run For Your Life by The Beatles