This Bird Has Flown: The Enduring Beauty of Rubber Soul, Fifty Years On

Journalist, musician, and professor Kruth (music, Coll. of Mount St. Vincent) marks the 50th anniversary of the Beatles' 1965 landmark album Rubber Soul, a musically diverse and lyrically mature work reflecting the group's newfound interest in hallucinogenic drugs, Indian music and spirituality, and sonic experimentation. Each song on the British or American version gets its own chapter that is packed with backstory details, lyric and music analysis, and, for most tunes, a brief discussion of both obscure and well-known cover versions. Chapters on Lennon-McCartney classics such as "Day Tripper" and "Norwegian Wood" are fascinating enough, but the book really shines when Kruth reveals little-known facts about deep cuts such as George Harrison's "If I Needed Someone" and the Ringo Starr-sung "What Goes On." Kruth also tells the story behind Rubber Soul's famous sleeve artwork, addresses the various ways the album title can be interpreted, and, in one of the book's best chapters, digs deep into how the Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Kinks, Bob Dylan, and other major pop and rock artists influenced and inspired one another throughout the mid- to late 1960s.