Episode #914
August 8, 2026
My favorite Beatles album of all time is
Rubber Soul.
Styles range from Nowhere Man folk rock to The Word psychedelic soul to Michelle Medieval rooted chanson to What Goes On country to In My Life baroque pop to Norwegian Wood Indian sitar.
It is the album where the Beatles stopped being a pop music group and became album-oriented studio artists.
Rubber Soul is where the Beatles’ producer, George Martin, truly became the fifth Beatle. He created a keyboard solo for In My Life that sounds like a harpsichord by recording a piano at half speed and playing it back faster. This was done without a digital mixing console. Martin also began to nudge the Beatles toward rock instrumentation, which suggested a classical texture. He did this by helping to arrange the compositions.
In My Life also showcases John Lennon as a poet and Paul McCartney as the composer of a timeless melody. The topics of 1960s music were falling in love, heartbreak, and excitement, while the Beatles were exploring identity, memory, aging, and mortality.
While Rubber Soul is my favorite Beatles album, I think that Love, the Cirque du Soleil soundtrack, is their best album.
Produced 36 years after the Beatles’ breakup, the Love album included the cream of the Beatles’ catalogue. The album was produced by George Martin with his son, Giles Martin, using the original Beatles master tapes. Giles edited a new original song as an homage to the group’s innovative style, reversing Sun King to create Gnik Nus.
The mixing of various songs together gives the soundtrack a sense of narration of the Cirque du Soleil performance. The sound system at the Mirage theater in Las Vegas places five speakers aimed at every audience member. It is the best experience of the Beatles I have ever had.
My favorite Beatles song is Hey Bulldog. It was never released as a single. It appeared as one of six songs on side one of the Yellow Submarine soundtrack album. It was mashed up with Lady Madonna on the Love album, blending the bluesy pounding piano riff into the piano-driven groove of Lady Mondonna. The YouTube video of Hey Bulldog is identical to the Yellow Submarine track and shows how much fun the Beatles had in the studio.
My wife teases me that no matter what Beatles song is playing, it is my favorite song. So I guess the fact that Rubber Soul is playing while I’m writing this blog episode might be responsible for its content.
IF YOU LIKE THIS BLOG YOU’LL LOVE MY BOOKS:
“Skydivers Know Why Birds Sing” by Ricki T Thues is now available on Amazon.
It is a Love story of Rick and Paula Thues and their 35 years of Skydiving.
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ALSO AVAILABLE:
“Technically Human” by Ricki T Thues, the iMentor, is available on Amazon.
It is a compilation of selected episodes from this bLog which tell the story of Humanity through the eyes of the iMentor.
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Ricki is also a contributor to the Writers Anonymous short stories anthology, “Matters of Life and Death, Stories on the Brink.” CLICK HERE.
