Do What You Want To Do – Garage and pop inspired by The Beatles’ circa ‘Rubber Soul’
Every track featured in our “inspired by Rubber Soul” article
“People have always wanted us to stay the same, but we can’t stay in a rut. No one else expects to hit a peak at 23 and never develop, so why should we? Rubber Soul for me is the beginning of my adult life.” – John Lennon, 1965
On Boxing Day 1963 The Beatles colourised black & white America with the release of ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’ / ‘I Saw Her Standing There’. Beatlemania followed and thousands of teen garage bands formed. Two long years after – with the era-changing The Ed Sullivan Show appearance and the captivating realism of celluloid smash A Hard Day’s Night in between – The Beatles, and pop world, went colour. First there was kooky, proto-pop video caper movie Help!, leading up to this they’d smoked weed with Bob Dylan the previous August and George Harrison and John Lennon had taken LSD in April ’65, significantly shaping their new mindset. ‘Ticket To Ride’, ‘Help!’ and the mind-blowing double A-side ‘We Can Work It Out’ / ‘Day Tripper’ ushered in a new phase; deeper, more introspective and way beyond the boy-girl simplicity of their early canon. After the surreal, deafening experience of Shea Stadium in August, inventing stadium-rock, The Beatles soon decamped to the studio and worked on what would become Rubber Soul between October and November. Released in the UK on 3rd December and three days later in America, the album led to volcanic eruptions in not only music, but also fashion and culture. There was a thoughtfulness and pensiveness to the lyrics, performances and arrangements. The vocals took pop vocalising somewhere else. According to Lennon, Rubber Soul was “the pot album”. The influence of everything about it was huge.
American garage bands, and indeed emerging pop successes, all took note. A quartet could do more than holler and play R&B. And writing lyrics that said something was just fine. This was the beginning of the enlightened generation, just in time for that crucial second half of the decade. Thoughtful lyrics weren’t just for curly-haired electric folk musicians. Ambition was in.
To mark the release of the new 68-track Rubber Soul (Special Edition), Shindig! consider how this album changed the face of US ’60s garage, pop and folk-rock forever, paving the way for psychedelia, powerpop and beyond, using 39 examples cut between April ’66 and October ’70.
To read the whole article order issue #180 here. Subscribe here.
Order The Beatles Rubber Soul here
