Classic Rock
The special edition of “Rubber Soul”, the Beatles’ 1965 album, came out on Friday 2 October. Giles Martin and engineer Sam Okell have made new stereo and Dolby Atmos mixes, and the set adds the original mono, the US album Capitol put out and the “Day Tripper” / “We Can Work It Out” single from the same weeks.
The four-CD and five-LP boxes hold twenty-four session recordings, of which twenty takes and three home demos have never been released. Among them is a John Lennon song sketch, “Little Girl”, whose existence hadn’t even been rumoured. Both come with an 88-page hardbound book carrying a new introduction by Paul McCartney and a foreword compiled from Lennon’s own words across his life. The two-disc edition, on CD and vinyl, carries a selection.
The track given a visualiser on release day is “I’m Looking Through You (Second Version – Take 3)”. The song took them three sessions: the first on 24 October 1965, two more takes in a six-hour session on 6 November, and the final one on the 10th and 11th. The one being released is from the 6 November session, with two twelve-bar instrumental stretches that McCartney later replaced with a bridge.
The record came out on 3 December 1965, cut over four weeks that October and November. “Rubber Soul was my favorite album, even at that time,” George Harrison said of it years later. “I think it was the best one we made; we certainly knew we were making a good album.” The big box now being released runs to sixty-eight tracks.
Text by Enric Vilaplana