This Bird Has Flown: A 40th Anniversary Tribute to the Beatles' Rubber Soul

This Bird Has Flown (Artist), Various Artists (Artist) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 25, 2005)
• Original Release Date: 2005
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Razor & Tie
• ASIN: B000B8PC6S
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #168,169 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Need to be reminded just how singular a phenomenon the Beatles were? Take a listen to This Bird Has Flown, Razor & Tie's 40th anniversary indie-rock tribute to their second album of 1965, Rubber Soul. Tributes to other artists that aim to include songs as timeless as "Drive My Car," "Norwegian Wood," "Michelle," and "In My Life" typically have to cover their entire careers, and even then that's often not enough. This, however, is a one-album show, sequenced in the same order as the original, and the same thing could have been done with almost any other of the Beatles' LPs, with similar results. In some cases--the Donnas' "Drive My Car," Dar Williams's "You Won't See Me," Rhett Miller's "Girl"--the arrangements are a little too note-perfectly faithful to remain compelling. But a good number of the tracks here are sufficiently obscure to keep things interesting even if their arrangements do hew a little too closely to the originals. Into this category fall Yonder Mountain String Band's "Think for Yourself" and Mindy Smith's "The Word," two rarely covered songs it's a delight to hear recast in the Americana mold.

The best listens on This Bird Has Flown, however, are those that exhibit some of the experimentalism and innovation that was the mid-period Beatles' hallmark. On "If I Needed Someone," Nellie McKay turns George Harrison's Byrds pastiche into a breezy day at a Brazilian beach; Low strip "Nowhere Man" to its bones in a typically minimalist performance; the Fiery Furnaces recast "Norwegian Wood" as a keyboard-driven funhouse extravaganza; and Sufjan Stevens warbles "What Goes On" beyond recognition, taking it from country Ringo vehicle to jazzy woodwind spectacle. The disc closes with the Cowboy Junkies' "Run for Your Life": with murderous lead vocals and ominous, threatening instrumentation, it's a far cry from the slight number that weakly ended the original. Here's hoping there's a follow-up in 2006 for the 40th anniversary of Revolver. --Benjamin Lukoff

More Tributes of Note

Labour of Love: The Music of Nick Lowe

Caroline Now!: The Songs of Brian Wilson & the Beach Boys

This Is Where I Belong: The Songs of Ray Davies & the Kinks

Product Description

In honor of the 40th anniversary of the release of the Beatles' legendary album Rubber Soul, Razor & Tie Entertainment is proud to announce This Bird Has Flown: A 40th Anniversary Tribute to the Beatles' Rubber Soul. The 14-track album mirrors the sequencing of the original UK release of Rubber Soul. This Bird Has Flown features some of today's hottest artists, including Sufjan Stevens, the Fiery Furnaces, Ben Harper, Dar Williams, Mindy Smith, the Donnas, and many more. Of the importance of Rubber Soul, Allison Robertson of the Donnas commented, "They got a little more folky, they got a little more funky and more rocking...it was so different, it was like heavy and light at the same time."

The album is produced by Jim Sampas (producer of 2002's Badlands: A Tribute to Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska). On choosing the lineup of artists on the record, Sampas stated, "As we looked toward artists we would approach, we felt they should be kindred spirits, whose gifts for singing and arranging lend themselves to these melodies and themes. Each artist on this album brought their own fascinating interpretations and have extracted new meanings from Rubber Soul."

Originally released in the United Kingdom on December 6, 1965, the George Martin-produced Rubber Soul is considered to be an extraordinarily important album in the Beatles' catalogue, the first flowering of the complex songwriting and production techniques of their later releases. The album features the now-ubiquitous songs "Nowhere Man," "Drive My Car," "Michelle," and "In My Life," among others. It held the #1 position on the British album charts for eight weeks and remained on the chart for a total of forty-two weeks. In 1966, "Michelle" won John Lennon and Paul McCartney the Grammy for Song of the Year. To date, Rubber Soul has been certified 6x platinum.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars It's Indie-Rock Guys...RELAX!, January 18, 2006

By 

Debbie S. Kertson "Coucou4Music" (Canada eh) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: This Bird Has Flown: A 40th Anniversary Tribute to the Beatles' Rubber Soul (Audio CD)

The Beatles have and will always be my favourite band of all times but that's not to say that I have reservations about other people covering their songs. I like hearing the different versions and this album is suppose to be different...if you like the Fiery Furnaces (and I do) then you will enjoy their rendition of Norwegian Wood (like I do) and Sufjan Steven's version is also interesting as for all the other beautiful covers. This CD is not to be interpreted or to be classified under the same type (if there ever was one) as The Beatles' music. It's Indie..it's different...and it's beautiful all the same.

28 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Rubber Soul Redone, October 25, 2005

By 

Thomas Magnum (NJ, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: This Bird Has Flown: A 40th Anniversary Tribute to the Beatles' Rubber Soul (Audio CD)

This Bird Has Flown is a great concept for a tribute album. Normally these collections are made up of various songs from an artist's catalog. But since each Beatles' album is a virtual masterpiece unto itself, this reworking of Rubber Soul is a great concept. Unfortunately not all the performances add up to great release. The problem when you have these tribute albums is that some artists are too reverential and play carbon copies of the songs they are covering and some go the opposite direction and totally revamp a song to make a point they are not doing the former. This isn't too say that when you cover a song to a tee that it isn't any good. The Donnas' "Drive My Car" is a faithful rendition, but their spunk and fire are fun. Ben Harper & The Innocent Criminals turn "Michelle" into a reggae song with disastrous results. The Fiery Furnaces droning version of "Norwegian Wood" is ponderous and numbingly bad. The best tracks on the album are a lean and mean version of "Nowhere Man" by Low and The Cowboys Junkies' powerful take on "Run For Your Life".

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars ..., October 25, 2005

By 

SirTheory - See all my reviews

This review is from: This Bird Has Flown: A 40th Anniversary Tribute to the Beatles' Rubber Soul (Audio CD)

I, too, like the below reviewer found the idea of covering an entire album to be an appealing concept. However, I look for different things in a cover and have several different thoughts on this compilation.

As it is to be expected, a project like this is going to have major ups and downs. Bringing together a group of artists as varried as this and covering a band as well known as The Beatles is bound to be a bit hit or miss.

For me, the worst cover on this album is the Yonder Mountain String Band's cover of "Think For Yourself." It is almost note-for-note with the original, even with is psuedo-bluegrass dressings. They obviously did NOT "think for themselves" while recording this cover.

I like covers that think for themselves. Take the bare essentials of the song and then make it your own. Which is why I love Sufjan Steven's cover of "What Goes On." He took what is one of the mediocre songs off of the Beatles' original Rubber Soul and made it into a masterpiece. His cover is so good that it would fit in nicely with his newest cd, "Illinois" without it being a drop in quality. (and "Illinois" is in contention for my album of the year). While his version is a big departure from the original, he gives it personality and it is vibrant with life.

Low strips down "Nowhere Man," choosing to be more subtle and atmospheric than the original with really good results. Nellie McKay offers a good redition of "If I Need Someone." The Fiery Furnaces turn out a cover that completely deconstructs the original, leaving a track completely unidentifiable. I like the track, but it's hard for me to see it as a cover instead of just an interesting song.

But there are some other truely horrid covers on here (hence my 3 star rating.) Ben Harper goes all reggae on "Michelle," only sans any sort of spark. Rhett Miller starts to turn out a nice rendition of "Girl," until he leaves out the most crucial aspect to the original.. the gasping suck of breath. The song without that is like a body without a heartbeat. "Drive My Car" by the Donnas is like the original only with distortion. It even clocks in within a few seconds of the original version. It's that identical.

The remainder tracks are decent. They stick fairly close to the original, but aren't ear-bleeds, either.