Featured Essay: Nowhere, Man: Searching for Rubber Soul

by Greg Gaines

I don’t know how it’s possible, but I’ve never had a computer virus. Despite coming of age during the wild west of online file sharing in the early aughts, I somehow managed to download thousands of files from the various peer-to-peer sharing sites of the day without incurring the wrath of malicious computer code. It’s not as if I was particularly knowledgeable or took great precautions in my pursuits. While common sense helped me steer clear of the obvious scam files of the “Black_Hole_Sun_nirvanna.mp3” and “KORN_Nookie.exe” ilk, I wasn’t savvy enough to be on private sharing servers procuring full album downloads, and mostly pieced albums together song-by-song in separate downloads. 

Several times I fell in love with albums only to realize some time later that I’d inadvertently mixed in non-album alternate takes (the buoyant horn-filled “Alternate Pop Version” of Talking Heads’ “New Feeling”), crusty, but superior, demo cuts (Art Brut, “Formed a Band”), or out-of-sequence album tracks (I thought “Treefingers” was “Kid A” and vice versa for years until I bought the album on vinyl. The “real” tracklist still doesn’t feel right to me). But no downloading misadventure shook me more than The Beatles’ Rubber Soul which would lead me on a years-long hunt to find the “right” version on vinyl.

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Let’s get this out of the way. I don’t like the Beatles. I don’t take pride in this, and I swear I’m not being contrarian. I just was never able to connect with any of their music. I think a big factor in whether a person born in the 80s would love the Beatles is if their parents were Beatles fans and raised them the “right” way. My parents didn’t provide such an upbringing. Their small record collection, which I eventually found in the attic (we didn’t own a stereo when I was growing up), was mostly Elvis compilations, Bread, Glen Campbell, and the like. They were the type of folks that would say they liked the Beatles “until they got into the drugs”. They’re lovely people, too pure for this thing of ours. 

When the internet opened up the world of free music exploration, I made an effort to dig into classic artists to whom I’d never given a fair shake. I downloaded the Beatles full discography and worked through it. Nothing changed my opinion until I hit Rubber Soul. I imagined that people who loved the Beatles (everyone) must feel about their entire body of work the way I felt about this one album. Fourteen perfect, tight little folk/rock songs packed into almost exactly 35 minutes (the objectively perfect and correct length for a record). Gorgeous harmonies and melodies, lyrics about girls named Michelle, the album had it all. Perfection.

Soon after devouring the album on my laptop and 3rd Gen iPod, I set out to buy a copy on vinyl. I’m not particularly interested in specific pressings of records, but for albums originally released in the 60s and 70s, I like an “older” used copy as opposed to a modern reissue, mostly as an aesthetic preference (I love some ringwear, old price tags, writing on labels, etc); and since I’m not an audiophile, I’m mostly unconcerned with surface noise and some scratches, especially on rock albums. Every moderately respectable record store has an entire “Beatles” section, and since my standards on condition were low, I figured it would be an easy find. Little did I know I would be searching for the album for over a decade.

I don’t remember the first time I picked up a copy of Rubber Soul in a record store and flipped it around, only to be disappointed after seeing “Side One - I’VE JUST SEEN A FACE”, but it happened dozens, maybe hundreds of times. At some point I looked up “Rubber Soul alternate tracklist” online and learned that pressings of the album in the United States, on Capitol Records, contained just twelve songs to the UK (Parlophone) version’s fourteen.  Four songs, including the infectious, cowbell-clicking album opener “Drive My Car”, were not present on the US cuts. It became clear that I’d unwittingly downloaded a UK version of the record, came to know it as one of the greatest albums of all time, and that an inferior version (I assume, I’ve still never listened to the US version, as its existence is an insult to me personally) clogged the shelves of every record store in America.

The Parlophone version of Rubber Soul is by no means rare or hard to find in the internet era. It’s available right now on Discogs for $0.44 (Condition: F, Ships From: Sweden). I’m sure decent copies are available stateside for a bit more. It’s been reissued many times and has been in print and available in the US at major retailers for over a decade. But I’d never been interested in buying albums like this one online. The internet was great for discovering music, but I liked to shop for records. Especially records like this. I knew I’d find it on the shelf one day, and it would be a copy that someone had owned and loved and had a life to it. And it would feel good to find. I had no interest in clicking this record into my collection.

But years passed. Then more years. As I gradually ticked off items from my long held “grails” list, filled out and completed my collection of every “good” Beach Boys studio album (‘66-’71 minus “20/20”, plus “Holland” and “Love You”), my Parlophone Rubber Soul remained elusive. I eventually realized that it might be worth relaxing my stance on online shopping a bit. I started browsing message board threads of people selling off records. Maybe a rationalization, but it still felt like “shopping” more than “buying”. I’d pour over lists of records, many with links to discogs revealing information about the specific pressing. The experience was much the same as in the shops: that spark of recognition seeing “Beatles, The – Rubber Soul” only to click and see a 2012 180 gram repress, or worse, that sickening Capitol logo.

Finally, one day in 2023 I find a post that has all the typical trappings of the false alarm letdown: [For Sale] The Beatles. I scroll down the list to find Rubber Soul VG/VG $25. There’s a discogs link. Parlophone copies in the US seemed to go for a lot more than this from what I’d seen, especially in decent condition, and especially post-pandemic when costs of all necessities, including vintage vinyl, had skyrocketed. I clicked the link out of obligation, knowing what I’d find. Disappointed in advance. But for the first time I saw what I’d been waiting for. 

Label: Parlophone

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Mono

Country: UK

Released: Dec 3, 1965

I took a deep breath in. A quick scroll down to the tracklist. A1 Drive My Car. I sent the seller a message staking my claim and immediately sent $28.50 via PayPal without waiting for a reply. This, of course, is how people get scammed; and I probably would have deserved it. Luckily, perhaps unbelievably, it was legit. The album arrived unceremoniously, the same as any other less-special record ordered from Amazon or Amoeba. The seller had included an absolutely obliterated copy of Meet The Beatles as a stabilizing cardboard insert. I never listened to it (it was so wrecked I don’t know that it would have tracked); but I did save it and I keep it on my shelf, as it reminds me of the excitement of that moment.

I’ll always be more of a music-lover than a collector. I’ll always care less about a rare pressing of an album than I do about what’s on it. My hunt for Rubber Soul was a rare instance where those concerns overlapped. Every time I listen to the album, I think about how haphazard mp3-downloading improbably turned me into a rabid pressing-obsessed record nerd for just one specific album. It’s something that’s unlikely to ever happen again in the convenient, organized streaming era. Besides, I mostly feel like my “classic” vinyl collection is complete, lest I ever come across a “Dark Side-of-the-Moon_LedZeppelin” LP at a local shop.

Greg Gaines writes ticket-stub-inspired memoir at  Stub Love and can be found posting about music and misery (Philly sports) on Bluesky @bolognasalad.bsky.social. Greg lives in New Jersey with his wife, son, little dog Leo, and his records.

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