American 'Rubber Soul' Rules

Reprinted from http://jazzwax.com

The Beatles' Rubber Soul turns 50 this Sunday—the American version, that is. The British version of the album came out out three days earlier in 1965. As I write in my Wall Street Journal essay (go here), the two versions were a bit different in tracks and tone. For one, the U.K version held 14 songs while the American album featured 12. More important, the American LP dropped two songs from the British version and replaced two others, resulting in what I would argue is a much more cohesive artistic statement. 

These weren't random moves. The strategic changes to the American album vastly improved the release, and it was the version that millions of teens heard in the U.S. and that influenced Brian Wilson, Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder and a generation of artists here, altering the direction of rock. You'll find the details of the album changes and why they were ingenious in my essay.

Who was the wizard behind the American Rubber Soul? Dave Dexter Jr. (above), who for years has been vilified by jazz and rock fans for being out of step with music trends and more focused on Capitol's commercial interests than the art at hand. Maybe that's true and maybe it's not. Whatever his aesthetic limitations, Dexter, Capitol's head of international A&R at the time, transformed the U.K. version of Rubber Soul into a cohesive acoustic folk-rock concept and gave it a more consistent earthy narrative.

From my perspective, the U.K. version of Rubber Soul was a bit of a mess—a jukebox album of individual songs that didn't really hang together. Drive My Car, Nowhere Man, What Goes On and If I Needed Someone are superb songs (or at least three of them qualify), but they didn't belong on Rubber Soul. Drive My Car is too electric and overpowering, Nowhere Man is too obvious and agenda-driven, What Goes On is cornball and dim, and If I Needed Someone is too eerie and self-indulgent. All were dropped or replaced from the American album.

Mind you, my objections to the inclusion of these songs isn't based on an insistence that the American version is superior because it's what American teens heard. Those songs on the U.K. version worked against the concept the Beatles were shooting for—a folk-rock package that expressed bewilderment over young adulthood and the joys and entitlement of maturity. On the American version, the Beatles sound new to everything they're singing about and simultaneously confident and apprehensive. There's a vulnerability, a curiosity. The songs that Dexter ditched are out of sync with this storyline.

Which is why Dexter's changes are a masterful edit—like moving paragraphs around in a great book manuscript or dropping sections to create an even stronger read and over-arching statement. The same goes for the American version of Rubber Soul. With Dexter's changes, Rubber Soul became a consistent tale. It's the music of virginity lost, of a new phase in life and of getting one's bearings as the simplicity of childhood slipped away. The American Rubber Soulremains one of rock's finest coming-of-age works by not answering questions but becaue it raised them. The U.K. version is simply less potent.

JazzWax tracks: Here's The Word...

Here's Run for Your Life...

And here's In My Life...

Used with permission by Marc Myers