"The footnotes for my nineteenth book. This is my standard procedure for doing it. And while I compose it, I'm also reviewing it"-Jeremy Hillary Boob Ph.D
"Who would not want to pay a bit of tribute to this group? Who doesn't owe them a debt?" -Paul Marion, Reimagine Music, Looking Through You
6 July, 1957, a day that shook a nation, redefining the word "Music". A day when two teenage boys casually met and without even knowing it, would go on to revolutionize the world. In five short years, these two boys joined with two others creating a smart suit, witty act of long haired men, screaming fans, and it wasn't long until their name, The Beatles, became known.
Since The Beatles first number one single, "Love Me Do", debuted in 1963, the bands songs have been heard numerous of times through the vocal talents of others who have walked, or are still walking before us. People like the great Frank Sinatra, Bob Dylan, Aerosmith, even Alvin and the Chipmunks... Many albums and releases have been produced paying homage to the great Fab Four, but none has been taken to the heights as Reimagine Music, a record label where re-envisioning the music that started it all in the eyes of young musicians from all genres, has with their new release of Looking Through You, Tomorrow Never Knows, and Goodbye My Love;
"These are not cover versions of sonic gems. This is not cover. This is uncovering. Discovering... This recording is musical news that will stick around." - Paul Marion. Reimagine Music ,Looking Through You
Jim Sampas, Producer and founder of the independent label preaches the idea of how important the music produced at Reimagine Music, allow a "fresh perspective" with its "youthful approach", with the release of these three albums; Looking Through You; A 50th Anniversary Tribute to The Beatles' Rubber Soul, Tomorrow Never Knows; A 50th Anniversary Tribute to The Beatles' Revolver, and Frankie Siragusa Plays: Goodbye My Love - Lost Songs of The Beatles Covered and Rediscovered Sampas statement rings true as promised with help from the younger generation and their salute to these Beatles favorites.
Let's start at the beginning, 1965, Rubber Soul. An album that introduced new instruments such as the sitar, new vocal dynamics with the witty "Tit- Tit- Tit", and lyrics that bring back memories for those long time listeners as well as The Beatles themselves with an Elvis tribute in "Run For Your Life" and Lennon's "In My Life". in Looking Through You artist like; Woodpigeon, The Daydream Club, So Many Wizards, Bobadil, and more, create a sensational version of the iconic, rejuvenating album. The following is the track listing;
Now for all you die hard Beatles fans, which album was released after Rubber Soul? Revolver. Not only has Reimagine Music created a pristine, fresh take on the 1966 classic, but they have also figured out away to see Revolverin a different, unique way with Tomorrow Never Knows; A 50th Anniversary Tribute to The Beatles' Revolver.
Revolver, released in 1967, showed how the band had matured throughout the years. Rubber Soul may of been called the "Growing up album" by the group, but their maturity and adulthood really struck as they took on songs about the Taxman, LSD trips, Relationships, and more in depth with cultural sounds. Thanks to Producer Jim Sampas and his team, the album is once again thriving with new sounds, looks, takes, and life... not that the album have ever died.
Reimagine Music has taken the album to a new height with artists such as The Owls, Nellie McKay, Brian Wright, Tapes 'n Tapes, and many other growing artist. Take a look at the Track list;
"Got To Get You Into My Life" Preformed by Brian Wright
"Tomorrow Never Knows" Preformed by The M's
Not only has Reimagine Music, Reimagined these classic albums but have gone above and beyond in releasing Frankie Siragusa Plays: Goodbye My Love - Lost Songs of The Beatles Covered and Rediscovered.
All of these tributes can be found {and I quote ReimagineMusic.com }
"...Everywhere digital music is sold!"
This means you can Preview and purchase on iTunes and Amazon.
As George Harrison once said,
"That's what life's all about isn't it? You have to change."
Recording Dates: October 12, 1965- November 15, 1965 Total Album Time: 34:50 Producer: George Martin Engineer: Norman Smith Released: December 3, 1965 (UK)
December 6, 1965 (US) John Lennon: vocals, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, piano, Vox Continental organ, tambourine Paul McCartney: vocals, bass guitar, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, piano George Harrison: vocals, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, sitar, tambourine Ringo Starr: vocals, drums, cowbell, tambourine, maracas, percussion, bells, Hammond organ George Martin: piano, harmonium, tambourine Mal Evans: Hammond organ
Rubber Soul was The Beatles sixth released album in the UK and eleventh US long-player. It was, as Paul once called it, the 'Grown up album'. In the early days the group was highly influenced by American singers and songwriters like Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, and Buddy Holly. The whole American rhythm-and-blues but now they were being influenced, or becoming more aware of Motown and black music and then into apparent classical and modern music as George Martin said.
"By the time of Rubber Soul they were ready for new musical directions." -George Martin
Beatles producer, George Martin, has also spoken about recording with The Beatles during the Rubber Soul time as the group always searching for a new sound and always willing to try any new instruments (which could be factored in with George Harrison's interest in the sitar) even if they didn't know how to play it or anything about them. Drugs:
Throughout their musical careers The Beatles were always being introduced to drugs,
"It was like pills influenced us in Hamburg, drink influenced us in so and so, I mean, we weren't all stoned making Rubber Soul, because in those days we couldn't work on pot. We never recorded under acid." -John Lennon (1972)
John even says in that Rubber Soul was the pot album and Revolver was the acid. Ringo even said that,
"There was a lot of experimentation on Rubber Soul, influenced, I think by the substances."
He continues to say that because of these substances recording and things would take longer. George even reflected saying it made them feel ill. It's no secret that the group used drugs, especially pot after being introduced to it by Bob Dylan in 1964 (Read more Bob Dylan and The Beatles first experience with marijuana here). George Harrison describes one recording session as,
"Mal and Neil would sit in Studio No. 2 behind the sound baffles while we were working, rolling them up and smoking. You can hear on one of the tapes from the sessions a song starts and John goes, 'Hang on. 'ang on...' and Paul starts filling in for him. Then John comes back; 'Ahhhhh. OK, OK.' And by the time the engineers have rewound the tape you're thing, 'I'll just go and have another hit.'"
"When we did take too many substances, the music was shit, absolute shit. At the time we'd think it was great, but when we came to record the next day we'd all look at each other and say, 'we'll have to do that again..'"- Ringo Starr
Songs:
Drive My Car;
The album starts with "Drive My Car" a song that can be interrupted in many different ways. As Paul says, "What's is it? What's he doing? Is he offering a job as a chauffeur, or what?" McCartney even says that the song was one of the 'stickiest' songs he ever wrote. It started with this one phrase, "You can buy me golden rings" and says he struggled with the song for hours, too long. Suddenly it hit McCartney and Lennon, "Baby, you can drive my car!" and that's how the song came to be. They were glad with the fact of how ambitious the song was and is and how many different scenarios. 2. Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown);
John had written "Norwegian Wood" about an affair he was having and said he was very 'careful' and 'paranoid' about writing it and the affair itself because he didn't want his first wife, Cynthia Powell, to find out (Read more about Cynthia here). Saying he was always having some kind of affair and this was a way to be sophisticated about writing about the affairs. During this time George Harrison had already been introduced to the
sitar, first really seeing it when filming "Help!" in a restaurant scene
where he first started messing around with the instrument.The group went through many versions of the song because it wasn't coming out like John wanted and he was getting angry.
"It was such a mind-blower that we had this strange instrument on the record. We were all open to anything when George introduced the sitar; you could walk in with an elephant, as long as it was going to make a musical note. Anything was viable. Our whole attitude was changing. We'd grown up a little, I think." -Ringo Starr
3. Nowhere Man
Paul McCartney recalls the sang as a song written by John after coming in from a big night and not going to bed till about five in the morning. John had come to Paul telling him that he had just started a song the previous night.
"It turned out later that it was about me." -Paul McCartney
Although Paul says it was written about him John really says that the song was inspired by himself,
"I was just sitting, trying to think, and I thought of myself sitting there, doing nothing and going nowhere," he continues, "I thought of myself as a Nowhere Man sitting in this Nowhere Land" -John Lennon (1967)
It was one of those songs, like "Across The Universe" on Let It Be, that came all at once, music, words, the whole thing.
4.Think For Yourself
5. The Word
6. Michelle
A song that started with John and Paul walking and Paul humming the first few bars with the words then turning to Lennon for help. Where John remembers how he was listening to Nina Simone and a refrain from "I Put A Spell On You" that went, " I love you, I love you, I Love you." which became the middle eight: "I Love You, I love you, I l-o-oove you" in "Michelle".
When it was released Paul describes it as a 'walking on pins and needles', it was different then what they were playing and that's what makes it unique. McCartney compares it to Cliff Richards "Living Doll" and how when it first was released it was so out of left-field.
7. What Goes On
The only song credited to Lennon-McCartney-Starr
8. Girl
"'Girl' is real. There is no such thing as the girl; she was a dream, but the words are all right, it wasn't just a song, and it was about that girl- that turned out to be Yoko, in the end- the one that a lot of us were looking for."- John Lennon
In the same interview (from 1970) John says that he was trying to say something about Christianity. Saying that it was heavily on the church but was never picked up. It's about having to be tortured to get to heaven, the Catholic and Christian concept. "Be tortured and then it'll be all right.; which seems to be true." John didn't believe in that, the whole having to be tortured to be accepted into anything.
9. I'm Looking Through You
Just like other Beatles songs during this time, "You Won't See Me" and "We Can Work It Out" this song was based off of a fight Paul had with his current girlfriend, Jane Asher.
"As is one's wont in relationships, you will from time to time argue or
not see eye to eye on things, and a couple of the songs around this
period were that kind of thing. This one I remember particularly as me
being disillusioned over her commitment. She went down to the Bristol
Old Vic quite a lot around this time. Suffice to say that this one was
probably related to that romantic episode and I was seeing through her
façade. And realising that it wasn't quite all that it seemed. I would
write it out in a song and then I've got rid of the emotion. I don't
hold grudges so that gets rid of that little bit of emotional baggage. I
remember specifically this one being about that, getting rid of some
emotional baggage. 'I'm looking through you, and you're not there!'"- Paul McCartney
10. In My Life
One of the greatest songs John Lennon has ever written. George Martin even says it's one of his favorites because its 'so much John'. John even calls it his 'first real song'.
"It was the first song that i wrote that was really, consciously, about my life."
The song came about when John released his first book, In His Own Write when a journalist asked ' Why don't you put some of the way you write in the book in the songs? or Why don't you put something about your childhood into your songs?' The song goes through a bus route from his aunt and uncles home at 251 Menlove Avenue to the town.
"'In My Life' a remembrance of friends and lovers of the past."- John Lennon
11. Wait
12. If I Needed Someone
Up to this point the songwriting was mostly the Lennon- McCartney duo. George Harrison had been writing since With The Beatles and when he did start writing he had to suddenly just jump into it saying, "John and Paul had been writing since they were three years old."
"I had to come from nowhere and start writing and have something with at least enough quality to put on the record."- George Harrison
13. Run For Your Life
A song that John never liked because it was a song that was 'just knocked off'. Although it was always one of George's favorites.
John said that the song was inspired by "Baby Let's Play House" by Elvis. There was a line that went " I'd rather see you dead, little girl, than to be with another man." The rest of the song was based around that line. Charts and Release:
The album was released on December 3, 1965 in the UK and entered the UK charts on December 11 and soon replaced Help! on December 25. The album was number one for nine weeks straight and remained for another forty-two weeks.
The LP was released three days after the UK release and joined the US charts on the same day as the UK. It stayed in the charts for fifty-nine weeks. Even the following year on January 8, 1966 spent six weeks at number one.
Cover:
Like With The Beatles to Rubber Soul all of the album covers had been taken by Robert Freeman. The photo session was taken at John's Weybridge home. The Rubber Soul album cover has a unique feature caused by a card that the picture as projecting fell backwards and stretched The Beatles faces.
"I liked the way we got out faces to be longer on the album cover, we lost the 'little innocents' tag, the naivety and Rubber Soul was the first one where we were fully-fledged potheads."- George Harrison
Fun Facts:
It sold 1.2 million copies in nine days of it's release in the US
There were two different stereo version released in America. "Dexter stereo" and "East Coast" Version.
The US released added a double-tracked vocals on The Word by John Lennon.
"Golden Rings" from the original 'Drive My Car' became "Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep! Yeah!"
Paul says that when it came to song writing, the melody, "In My Life" was the only song that John and him really disagreed on.
In "Girl" The Beatles were singing "Tit-tit-tit-tit' In the background and nobody noticed.
Rubber Soul was George Harrison's favorite album
"A lot was changing- our attitudes, our lives- at this time, and the Rubber Soul session were the start of the building- up to the end, in away we were doing great stuff and the results were great." -Ringo Starr
