Released: December 3, 1965
Appears on: Rubber Soul
Lead vocal: Paul
As if the Beatles hadn't already proved how awesome they were, Rubber Soul is the LP that truly cements this as fact.
The album opens with the same fervor that Please Please Me does. Throw in a little sexual tension to "I Saw Her Standing There" and you get a much more sophisticated song like "Drive My Car". Although the song is primarily Paul's, only John could have come up with such a sly, humorous sexual metaphor as driving the car. Technically, the song is amazing. Even before the Beatles' catalog was remastered, George's bass playing resonates like a heartbeat...and yes, that is George playing bass and Paul playing lead again. Although, apparently the story goes that George taught Paul exactly how he felt the guitar parts should go and the reason why George plays bass is because he thought the song should feel like the great Motown records of the day. All this is kind of interesting, because usually the writer of the song was the one who took full command, but here, the final product was a real team effort. Even Paul's fantastically rough vocal (it sounds like he's singing with a mouthful of water at times) lends to the song's R & B feel.
While Capitol axed the song from the US version (see "I've Just Seen A Face"), they still decided that the song was too powerful to be stuck in the middle of a side. They chose it for the opening number on Yesterday And Today. The song was chosen as one of five to represent Rubber Soul on 1962-1966 and is also on Rock 'n' Roll Music, where the song is stuck in the middle of side three on both.
Rubber Soul is a lot of fun to write and talk about because of just how great all of these songs are and not a single one was released as a single. Amazing.
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