Like every Beatles' album before and after it, Rubber Soul was never milked. Of its fourteen cuts, a dozen of them are absolutely brilliant with most having unrealized commercial potential. Had it been released in the eighties, it's easy to imagine the likes of 'Drive My Car", "In My Life", "Norwegian Wood", "I'm Looking Through You" and "You Won't See Me" as possible singles. Held off of the North American version of the album, "Nowhere Man" ended up a sizable hit in its own right which will be discussed in this space soon enough but the only other Rubber Soul track that proved to be of much interest on the singles charts at the time was the Paul McCartney ballad "Michelle", even if The Beatles had little interest in putting it out themselves.
Bob Dylan wasn't keen, considering it and "Yesterday" to have been "cop outs" to their "teenybopper" following. No doubt many McCartney haters have followed suit in their derision of songs like "Michelle" but they're missing out on some sly touches that raise it above the usual commercial fluff. Most important is the air of melancholy that hangs, especially in its closing seconds. That lonely guitar solo (which I had always assumed to be a bass) sees out a bleak story. The language barrier has caused McCartney and this Michelle girl to be isolated from one another. As long as I've been listening to "Michelle", I've pictured a petite young woman who is so shy that she wouldn't be able to communicate her feelings even if she could.
Released by the Pye label as a token of appreciation for them agreeing to quash Freddie Lennon's "That's My Life" (John not wishing to see his estranged dad piggybacking his way onto the charts), The Overlanders ended up hitting number one in the UK for three weeks with a slightly more upbeat version of "Michelle" that even has a touch of reggae about it. It's pretty bad in its own right but I respect their ultimately botched attempt to distinguish themselves from The Beatles. Meanwhile, the songwriting duo of Roger Cook and Roger Greenway, whose composition "You've Got Your Troubles" had been a Canadian chart topper the previous autumn, did their own rendition, in this case with the aid of the Fab Four's producer George Martin. This doubtless contributes to how strikingly similar it is to the original even if its flaws become even more apparent as a result.
Which brings me back to the opening of this review. Yes, Petula Clark was a pro who could pull off pop convincing pop in at least five European languages but she was never performing material that was meant to portray her as a novice of German or Spanish (which she very well may have been but that's beside the point). "Michelle" is about two people who can't communicate so to sing it in damn-near perfect French is very much the wrong way to go. While he doesn't exactly fluff it, McCartney doesn't really sound sure of himself on the line "sont des mots qui vons tres bien ensemble" (a small point but I always thought it was "les mots"); by contrast, David and Jonathan (Roger and Roger being an absolutely shit name for a vocal duo) sound confident, their French way too well done for people who otherwise aren't able to speak a word of it. (Which raises another small point: why didn't Paul just learn the French for 'I love you' — je t'aime — rather than 'these are words that go together well'? I've never had the luck with women he's had but even I know a bad chat up line)
Most of its near three minute run time are a copy of The Beatles only done as blandly as possible. With his charm, fame, looks and money, Paul McCartney never had trouble with women but he beautifully articulates the difficulty he was having in this instance since he couldn't talk to her. But Cook and Greenway do not sound remotely bothered by this and I'm not even sure they're aware of how troublesome the situation is supposed to be. They're just singing a song as perfectly and as pointlessly as they know how. Musically, I'm sure having Martin there paid off though he messes things up at the end with a meaningless piano solo to close it out which can't compare with Harrison's rather overlooked haunting guitar part (which I already mentioned above).
The one thing I'll say for David and Jonathan — as well as The Overlanders — is that these dismal Beatles' covers only make me appreciate the originals even more. Nice as it is, the Fabs have many, many songs that are superior to "Michelle". Yet even with something relatively trivial, the competition still couldn't even to come close. The Beatles were great even when they were just okay.
Score: 3
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