For many musicians, the goal is to level up on every album. No one wants to look back at their past work and realize they peaked. However, there is no shame in acknowledging a bar you’ve set for yourself. According to Paul McCartney, there was one Beatles album that set a standard for his solo career. Find out which album that was, below.
Videos by American Songwriter
The Beatles Masterpiece That Raised the Bar for Paul McCartney
I once had a girl
Or should I say she once had me
She showed me her room
Isn’t it good Norwegian wood?
Rubber Soul is home to many memorable Beatles classics. Among the track list are folkie songs like “Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown),” “Nowhere Man,” and “In My Life .” The band certainly hit a stride in terms of their lyricism and their melodies. Though it’s hard to pick one Beatles album to put above the rest, many fans claim Rubber Soul as their favorite.
It’s not just fans who acknowledge how stellar Rubber Soul is, McCartney once heralded it as the Beatles album that set a new standard for him in his songwriting.
She asked me to stay
And she told me to sit anywhere
So I looked around
And I noticed there wasn’t a chair
When discussing his songwriting on Flaming Pie, McCartney put Rubber Soul on a pedestal. He spoke about how he used it as a jumping off point for that similarly lauded project.
“I would play, say, Rubber Soul,” McCartney once said. “I would play it in its entirety, just taking it in like a fan. And realize, that’s where we are up to. There’s the bar. Now, let’s try and jump it. Flaming Pie had an element of that.”
We can see how the sounds of Rubber Soul continued to influence the band and, subsequently, McCartney in his solo career. It’s a powerful album that saw the foursome take their softer inspirations and let them fly freely. Revisit “Norwegian Wood” for a taster of this work, below.
I sat on a rug biding my time
Drinking her wine
We talked until two and then she said
“It’s time for bed”
She told me she worked
In the morning and started to laugh
I told her I didn’t
And crawled off to sleep in the bath
(Photo by Jeff Hochberg/Getty Images)
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