On Rubber Soul and Revolver.

Well, in theory, I could tell you the same things you’ve heard multiple times already, that the remasters are great, that the mono sounds warmer than the stereo, and that the stereo sounds a lot closer to the original stereo mix found on with the mono edition. For the record, I’m a little sad I don’t actually have the mono version because these are two albums where I liked the mono version of Rubber Soul better. On the other hand, as far as I’m concerned, stereo is the way to go for Revolver.

Yes, I could do that. But I guess there isn’t much a point to it. Instead, I want to talk about these albums.You see, Rubber Soul ranks among my favourite albums of all (Beatles or otherwise), and to hear the remaster gives me joy beyond the simple admiration of the technology and work that went into cleaning up these albums. From the delightfully distorted album cover and the unambiguously cool name, to the cracking opener, the gorgeous ballads and the vicious final track, it’s a hell of an album.

It’s also commonly lumped together with Revolver. Like now.

Except I don’t like Revolver so much. It just seems to lose its way a bit, and I’ve always thought that a couple of the tracks there were really boring. Though I should say that for no particular reason, And Your Bird Can Sing is one of the most played songs in my library. It’s just so much fun. (I think that really sums it up. I like a number of the songs on Revolver a lot, but I just couldn’t ever bring myself to like the album as a whole.)

I’ve always explained this lumping-together by saying that it’s because this is where the Beatles started to experiment, to mess around, to mix things up. Which isn’t really true, because that happened at least beginning from Help!. But whatever it is, they form a wonderful bridge between the early Beatles catalogue and the Beatles at their height, the more gigantic and ambitious stuff that followed. They’re competent albums without submitting to some oppressive need to reach, to extend beyond conventional expectations. In other words, they’re tidy and compact. And the result isn’t immediately impressive, but it is true, and honest, and it sticks with you for the rest of your life.

I mean, really, listen to these songs carefully. I know I did when I got my stereo remasters.

Michelle is one of my favourite songs of all. And the funny thing is, I can’t for the life of me tell you why. It’s just important to me. I keep going back to it time and time again, trying to identify that one thing that makes it so precious, so unforgettable, and I can’t find it, and then I think, that’s all the better, as if to say that it’s magic spell would be undone if I’d uncovered that little truth.

And then there’s Eleanor Rigby, so visceral and strange, so elegant in its lyricism and arrangements, and so unlike anything I’d ever heard before. And listening to it again now, I think it always seemed to say so much more to me than it was actually intended to. All the lonely people, Paul sang, where do they all come from? Far from being about the destitute and poor, it seemed to hint at a greater mystery, a larger tragedy at work, and one we wouldn’t ever understand.

So my point, as I’ve tried to bring forth to you in my most disorganised and roundabout manner, is that these songs meant something to me once, and they still mean something to me now. I’ve never quite been able to identify those things, but it’s wonderful to recognise it now that these albums have come back to me in that giant black box. It goes beyond the innovations found in their music, beyond the precise performances, and beyond the ingenious writing. It’s something vital and true, something wonderful, something to believe in.

I remember listening to In My Life for the first time. I got goosebumps. I had heard a version by another singer before. I can’t remember who it was, except that it was a female singer. That was just poppish and sweet to me, but the one on Rubber Soul just got to me somehow. Just yesterday, before I wrote this, I put it on again. It’s funny to listen to it again now.

What’s changed is how it defines my perception of the Beatles history. Here are the boys, and they’re getting all grown up, and you know, the times ahead aren’t going to be easy at all, but they’re stepping on the gas with their big hearts and open minds, or so you would like to believe. There is a fragility captured in their earnest voices, and it clearly belongs to youth. One way of looking at these albums is that they’re a transition that reflects the same transition we all experience in growing up. It’s just the most precious thing, at once frightening and fantastic. And at the heart of it, the four lads whom we want to venerate as heroes, as gods, reminding us that the thing that’ll see them through the coming years is the fact that they had each other.

And what didn’t change? you ask. It’s simple. I still got goosebumps.

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