The Beatles - "Double" Rubber Soul - 1965

This post pushes the "What if" motif of this blog to it's limits. Even more, I suspect that it will raise an eyebrow or two of those that are familiar with my opinion of double albums but this story was too good to let it pass me by (no pun intended Ringo).

In 1965 The Beatles came off the road to work on new material and begin filming their next, still untitled movie. During the long days of filming the boys spent their downtime "having a laugh" and writing more songs. By the time they finished filming they had more than enough songs for an album with seven songs to be used in the movie and by the time they finished recording they had more than 20 more songs to deal with. Combined with the songs from the movie they had over 30 songs!

George Martin's plan was to let United Artists have the soundtrack songs and release another album, one or two EPs and some singles over time but the boys had other plans. Using their newfound clout as England's biggest hit-makers they managed to convince EMI/Parlophone to release everything as a double album!

In spite of its size, this comp will fit on a single CD.

Side One
1 I've Just Seen A Face
2 Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)
3 Think For Yourself
4 The Word
5 It's Only Love
6 Girl
7 In My Life
8 I'm Looking Through You

Side Two
1 Nowhere Man
2 You're Going To Lose That Girl
3 You Like Me Too Much
4 Michelle
5 If You've Got Trouble
6 You've Got To Hide Your Love Away
7 Drive My Car

Side Three
1 Day Tripper
2 What Goes On
3 Wait
4 Run For Your Life
5 If I Needed Someone
6 Another Girl
7 The Night Before
8 We Can Work It Out

Side Four
1 Dizzy Miss Lizzy
2 You Won't See Me
3 That Means a Lot
4 Act Naturally
5 Tell Me What You See
6 I Need You
7 Yesterday

Reality Notes

I have heard George Harrison say that Rubber Soul and Revolver are sister albums. Personally, I have always connected Rubber Soul with the Help! album. The two albums have a similar feel and production. Especially as someone who grew up with the US version of Rubber Soul, hands down my favorite Beatles album and the only one which I prefer the US version over the UK version. If they had replaced Michelle (my least favorite Beatles song) with something else it would have been perfect.

My one big complaint is the length. The US albums always clock in at around 30 minutes. Because of this I started to expand the album by reinstating the songs Capitol removed and adding more songs from the Help! album. It was while listening to my latest version that this story started to emerge.

I used the 2009 mono remasters as my baseline. Previous versions used the stereo mixes but due to the odd mixing of putting vocals on one side and instruments on the other, I would always switch the playback to mono, especially if I was working nearer to one speaker than the other in my listening room.

I did use the US stereo version of I'm Looking Through You to have the false start but folded the song down to mono to fit in with the rest. When the original CDs were released I never even noticed that the false start was not there. My brain filled it in for me every time. I also included the two outtakes from the Help! sessions, If You Got Trouble and That Means A Lot and included an unlisted snippet of 12 Bar Original for good measure.

Side one is my condensed version of the US Rubber Soul. This is the core of the album to me and the sequence that evokes the greatest amount of nostalgia when listening. From there I sequenced each side for maximum flow and impact as well as making sure that each side would flow into the next on CD.

I kept Help!/I'm Down and Ticket To Ride/Yes It Is aside for non-LP singles. We Can Work It Out/Dizzy Miss Lizzy are still released as a single on the same day as the double LP. The Yesterday and Nowhere Man EPs are still released as planned to give the buyers a choice.

This post is more than a simple "what if" scenario. The idea here is to take a timeline and lay it on top of another timeline to see how one affects the other. The two timelines do not have to be from the same person or band. In essence, I take one or two elements from the overlay and apply it to the current events.

I have another project like this one where I lay the timeline of the recording of G'N'R's Use Your Illusion over the events of the White Album. This project takes the events from the time The Beatles went to Rishi Kesh through the completion of the White Album and layers them on top of the events from the filming of Help! to the completion of Rubber Soul. The elements from '68 that are shadowed in '65 are the downtime of Rishi Kesh and the glut of songs that led to a double album.

Bruce Springsteen II

[Still busy but I had this one laying around]

A while back I posted what could have been Bruce Springsteen's debut album. At the time I posted I was trying to maintain a certain amount of realism in regards to release schedules and album lengths so I refrained from posting this.

This is the follow-up to that imagined debut album. It's sources are the same though I opened up some criteria in choosing the songs. While the first was strictly just Bruce and a guitar or piano, this album bears witness to the beginnings of the E-Street Band.

While still stripped down to the bare minimum as far as backing arrangements go, some of these songs are more fleshed out than others. When he signed, the label had hopes that they found the next folky Dylan but Bruce had other plans.

01 Bishop Danced
02 New York City Serenade
03 Evacuation of the West
04 Cowboys Of The Sea
05 Hey Santa Ana
06 Marie
07 Visitation at Fort Horne
08 The Angel

Reality Notes

As noted above, the sources for these tracks come from the same two bootlegs that I created the alt-debut from though some songs have seen official release in some form. Overall, this still does not exhaust the pool of songs from those CDs. Also included on those discs are songs that would be re-recorded for inclusion on the first two albums Greetings From Asbury Park and The Wild, The Innocent and the E-Street Shuffle as well as a few more unreleased songs.

This is a fine companion to the the alt-debut. For the cover I wanted something simple. I'm pretty sure that the picture is contemporary with the music. I imagine the pic being embossed into the cover.

Sources
Before The Fame
The Early Years