Musical Musings: Sleeve Notes - Rubber Soul

This week we start a new series. Musical Musings: Sleeve Notes takes one album and goes through it from the sleeve to the run-out groove: what it means to us, what the critics made of it, the outtakes, and, when there's a fresh reissue, the new mix. First up is the Beatles' Rubber Soul, which came out in a newly remixed and expanded Special Edition on 2 October, and my guest is Ken. In late 1965 the Beatles came off the stage at Shea Stadium and had about four weeks to make an album for Christmas. What they made sounds nothing like Beatlemania: a sitar, a harmonium, Dylan and the Byrds in the air, and John writing about himself in code. It even had to fight Julie Andrews for the top of the British album chart. We'll talk about how each of us first met the record, including which Rubber Soul we had, since the American version is a different album. Then we go through it track by track. Ken plays The Word and I'm Looking Through You; I've gone for George's Think for Yourself and In My Life.

The new box gives us plenty to argue about. From the vault there's Little Girl, a John Lennon song nobody knew existed, and we'll play it and then debate whether it should ever have been released. There's also the Day Tripper songwriting work tape, where you can hear a number one being built. We'll compare the new Giles Martin mix with the 1965 original and with the American release, false start and all. George Harrison returns, 25 years on, with If I Needed Someone live in Japan, and we'll ask why there's no live disc in the box when Budokan exists. Finally comes the verdict, where Ken has to defend a desert-island pick that John Lennon himself disowned. It's also a story about a record that set Brian Wilson off on Pet Sounds.