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Credit: Far Out \/ Apple Corps LTD \/ Apple Films \/ Brisn Wilson<\/p>\n
Thu 28 May 2026 20:00, UK <\/p>\n
As the 1960s roared into gear, it seemed like everyone knew the direction music needed to head in. Getting there as quickly as The Beatles<\/a>, however, was another matter entirely.<\/p>\n There were only 664 days between the Liverpudlians landing in America and the release of Rubber Soul<\/a>. When they touched down at JFK airport, they were worried that they would simply \u201cfizzle out\u201d after the initial pandemonium, \u201cas many groups do\u201d. When they released their seminal 1965 album, their concern was now clearly with changing the world.<\/p>\n That\u2019s quite a 664 days. I\u2019ve spent longer deciding what to order from Deliveroo. And I\u2019m not the only one to be \u201cenvious\u201d of the Fab Four, as Roy Harper would recall when it came to the beauteous Rubber Soul, \u201cI was envious and inspired at the same moment. They\u2019d come onto my turf, got there before me, and they were kings of it, overnight. We\u2019d all been outflanked.\u201d<\/p>\n Rubber Soul had evidently taken on more adult themes and worldly sounds. Both of these would come to the fore in the shape of a curious track that coupled electrified folk, divorce, acid, and the sitar all in one single song. In some ways, that makes it the first defining track of the whirling counterculture movement.<\/p>\n The song, of course, was \u2018Norwegian Wood\u2019, and it made even the rare naysayers in the States take notice. Lou Reed, for instance, had been selling his songwriting wares at Pickwick Records<\/a> for a while when the British invasion loudly made itself known and somewhat scuppered his salary. This apparently annoyed him. <\/p>\n \u201cI never liked The Beatles, I never really liked any British group,\u201d he said in 1983. <\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think the British should play rock \u2018n\u2019 roll.\u201d<\/p>\n Lou Reed<\/p><\/blockquote>\n It was harsh, but perhaps, initially, this disdain was borne from the sense of imitation in their sound. As even the Beatles acolyte, Donovan, quipped when he was compared to Bob Dylan, \u201cRemember every British band from the Stones to the Beatles were copying note for note<\/a>, lick for lick, all the American pop and blues artists \u2013 this is the way young artists learn.\u201d<\/p>\n Further reading: From The Vault<\/strong><\/p>\n Evidently, the Beatles had learnt well. Now, suddenly, to both Reed\u2019s chagrin and instant inspiration, with \u2018Norwegian Wood\u2019, the group had arrived at groundbreaking sound that even the Velvet Underground had to reconcile. <\/p>\n John Cale vividly remembers the fledgling band feeling bolstered in their avant-garde and drug-drenched approach by the \u201cvery acid\u201d anthem. Cale, Reed, and co even seemed to be able to identify with the very singular mood of the music, with Cale telling Mojo that the Rubber Soul classic mimicked \u201cwhat you remember in a flashback\u201d from an LSD trip<\/a>. The anthem captured \u201chow your senses were bombarded\u201d in its swirling approach to composition.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Velvet Underground were enamoured. Reed might have called them \u201cgarbage\u201d down the line, but Cale\u2019s critique, and indeed their own sound, belies the influence that they clearly had with their more adventurous works.<\/p>\n The same could be said when it comes to Brian Wilson. Similarly, Wilson was firmly amid the American vanguard when the British invasion took hold. He would\u2019ve had every right with the sway that the Fab Four seemed to hold over the States, given that \u2018God Only Knows\u2019 \u2013 the track that even Paul McCartney crowned as the greatest of all time \u2013 was kept off the top spot by \u2018Yellow Submarine\u2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n But rather than competition, Wilson saw liberation in their sound. After all, while he might have been ahead of the game when it came to composition in \u201865, he was playing catch-up when it came to lyricism and the risque world of acid flirtations<\/a>. Much like the Velvet Underground, it was the way \u2018Norwegian Wood\u2019 evoked that in myriad ways that appealed to him.<\/p>\n \u201cIt must have been in November of 1965,\u201d the Beach Boy recalled.\u00a0\u201cI was living in this house in the Hollywood Hills then, way up on Laurel Way, and I remember sitting in the living room one night talking with some friends when another friend came in with a copy of the Beatles\u2019 new one, Rubber Soul. I don\u2019t know if it had even come out yet\u201d.<\/p>\n Adding, \u201cBut he had it and so we put it on the record player and, wow. As soon as I started hearing it I loved it. I mean, LOVED it!\u201d<\/p>\n\n
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<\/a>Credit: Bruce McBroom \/ Apple Corps LTD<\/p>\n
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<\/a> The Far Out Beatles Newsletter<\/p>\n