Saturday, March 05, 2005

Rediscovering Rubber Soul


I was introduced to The Beatles being very young by my guitar/bass/life teacher María Cecilia, she was a Colombian version of your average Haight Ashbury hippie, for real, she even has the LPs she bought when she was young, and she denied to teach me how to play Smells Like Teen Spirit and instead she taught me Norwegian Wood.
And a fan was born.
Since then I, along with other mopheads, have been collecting music, video, books, memorabilia and tons of useless facts about the fab four, and as I was being overwhelmed by the huge quantity of material we found, I reached a point from which I started to unconsciously choose a favorite album or period.
My favorite period has changed with time; I guess that people just change, don’t we? and now, cruising 2005 I’ve stumbled upon Rubber Soul.
-Hey, what’s the name of the song that The Beatles sing when they arrive to Pepperland? The one they revive the Major with?
-I think its “Think for Yourself”
Click, search, find… Rubber Soul, track 5.
Apart from being featured in a Mafalda comic strip, I couldn’t remember anything in particular about that album, but that particular bit of the movie had led me there. And there it was, Norwegian Wood, and Nowhere Man, Michelle, Girl, In My Life, so many good songs, all the ones I first learned to play, but rediscovering Rubber Soul, means discovering its secret wonders, like The Word, Wait and Think For Yourself which are, in my opinion, a prelude to Revolver and Sgt Pepper.
Rubber Soul is rubbery, bending to the beat sounds of 62-64 and to the acidity of 66-68, managing to have a little of everything in a coherent sounding record (I am talking about the English version of the record), innovative and daring, and meaningful, still today.
So for now, I’ll dry my ears listening to it, and burn my fingers playing Drive My Car.