I'm now turning to my office walls for inspiration as I sit here and eat my Chuy's takeout for lunch. I have six album covers framed and hanging on the wall to my right, the oldest and best of which is the Beatles' Rubber Soul. I bought the LP used at a Half Price Books in 1996 while I was in college. I already had the official British version on CD, but I wanted the version I grew up with, the version my parents had, the American version that started with "I've Just Seen a Face."As a little kid, I saw the world through Brothers Grimm-colored glasses. Life seemed weird and dangerous, with wolves in the streets and old German forests around every corner. My dad works in construction, so I thought of him as a carpenter who went to a sawmill in the woods every morning. I dreamed about being one of the three little pigs, and I would lie in bed on my stomach and hear my heartbeats as giants' footsteps in the distance.
So, in this context, the song that really stood out to me on Rubber Soul was "Run For Your Life." John Lennon's exhortation to the "little girl" (I could relate to being little) to run for her life or hide her head in the sand to avoid being killed was an affecting statement. This life-and-death scenario fit in well with my fairy-tale world.
While none of the other songs on the album had similar themes, the feel of some of the other tracks, particularly "Norwegian Wood," "Michelle" and "Girl," seemed to evoke an old European landscape (even with the sitar). I don't see how I could have actually had any idea about this as a kid, but there was just something about the way this album felt that I didn't get from, say, the Doobie Brothers' Minute By Minute, another big one from my early years.
And just look at the cover! I'm sure the boys were photographed in some English garden somewhere, but, for all I know, they could just as easily be getting ready to head into the deep, dark woods of Austria on a rescue mission for Hansel and Gretel.
I'm sure this will all seem like a pretty strange take on one of the greatest albums ever made, especially for those who are used to hearing it kick off with the upbeat R&B of "Drive My Car" (which isn't even on the old American version), but topload it with folkier stuff, focus on "Girl" or "Run For Your Life" and think about life at age 5 and see what happens.
