Chapter 1: Like a Rolling Stone (December 1965 - June 1966)

3 December 1965

The cover for the Beatles' Rubber Soul album, released December 1965.

The Beatles' sixth British long play, Rubber Soul, had been released on EMI's Parlophone label in the United Kingdom, and on the Capitol label in the United States three days later. Sales were huge, and the album was already on the Top 10 on both sides of the Atlantic. It was the band's second album after A Hard Day's Night to consist entirely of original compositions - eleven were by the famous songwriting duo of John Lennon and Paul McCartney, with a twelfth ("What Goes On") credited alongside their drummer Ringo Starr, and the remaining two ("Think for Yourself," "If I Needed Someone") credited to George Harrison. No singles had been off of the album, although the non-album songs "Day Tripper" and "We Can Work It Out" - both released as a double A-side - were big hits on their own.

Rubber Soul's sound was largely influenced by the work of the Byrds and Bob Dylan, the latter of whom they had met the previous year. Harrison had also met with Byrd member David Crosby in the summer of 1965, who had introduced the junior Beatle to the music of Ravi Shankar. It was Shankar's influence on Harrison that inspired the sitar on "Norwegian Wood."

But it wasn't just the Beatles who were making it big outside of their native England. Rival band the Rolling Stones, fronted by Mick Jagger, had received success by keeping up with contemporaries like the Beatles themselves, Bob Dylan, the Kinks, the Byrds, the Who, and the Beach Boys by composing their own material. Jagger and Keith Richards had together penned Top 10 hits such as "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction," "As Tears Go By," and "Get Off of My Cloud."

The Rolling Stones at Franklin Canyon Park in Los Angeles, December 1965.

Just as the Beatles had come out with Rubber Soul, the Rolling Stones began to work on the material Jagger and Richards had composed during their North American tour that autumn, and within a week, they had completed nine tracks including future hit "19th Nervous Breakdown" plus an outtake from the previous album Out of Our Heads, "Lookin' Tired." Featuring a new sound arranged by Brian Jones, the album was set to be released on 10 March 1966.

12 February - 10 March 1966
KEITH RICHARDS: "All of us were feeling good about the release of our next album. Even now, I think it was some of the best music we'd ever done." (1980)

Andrew Oldham, the Stones' manager and producer, quickly assembled the album together for a rush release, and to be backed by a February single, "19th Nervous Breakdown." The album title he had proposed was to be Could You Walk on the Water?. However, the superiors of Decca Records, the label that had rejected the Beatles in 1962, were reluctant to even release an album with that title, out of concern that it would offend the religious folk of America.

MICK JAGGER: "It was just ridiculous, really. I mean, Decca wouldn't release an album all because of the title? Andrew [Oldham] could've simply given the title Thou Shalt Not Waste Sperm and it wouldn't have made much of a difference." (2006)

ANDREW OLDHAM: "Decca kept on telling me that they'd never issue it with that title [Could You Walk on the Water?] at any price, but I kept convincing them to release the album regardless. When I informed the boys about the potential cancellation, Mick wrote a rather explicit letter to them, saying that if they won't release the album, they'd leave the label and instead move on to Capitol or something like that. 'Who cares what the title is as long as our fans buy it?' he said to them." (1994)

Not happy at the threat one of their biggest money makers had sent them, Decca reluctantly released the Rolling Stones' fourth (sixth, according to the American discography) long play, Could You Walk on the Water?. Despite the initial fears of American Christians raising a fuss over the title, Walk on the Water proved a commercial success, further affirmed by "19th Nervous Breakdown" reaching #1 in the United Kingdom, but stalled at #2 in America. The single's B-side, "Mother's Little Helper," reached #8 in America.

The Rolling Stones - Could You Walk on the Water?

Released: 10 March 1966 (UK); April 15, 1966 (US)

Recorded: 3-8 December 1965 (except "Lookin' Tired," recorded 6 September)

Producer: Andrew Oldham

Track listing[1]

Side A

19th Nervous Breakdown

Sad Day

Take It or Leave It

Think

Mother's Little Helper

Side B

Goin' Home

Sittin' on a Fence

Doncha Bother Me

Ride on Baby

Lookin' Tired

Could You Walk on the Water? had initially been released in England first, and was later released in America on April 15. By that time, the Rolling Stones were working on a new batch of songs that included "Paint It Black," "Flight 505," "Lady Jane," and "Under My Thumb." They had been recorded over a four day period shortly before Walk on the Water's release, and were slated for a July release under the title Aftermath - Mick Jagger's piss-take on the arguments with Decca concerning Walk on the Water's title.

How appropriate the title would become in hindsight come summer...

21 January - 20 June 1966
JOHN LENNON: "Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue about that; I'm right and I'll be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first - rock 'n' roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me." (to Maureen Cleave, 1966)

That March, Evening Standard journalist Maureen Cleave interviewed each of the four Beatles for a weekly series of articles titled "How Does a Beatle Live?" Lennon was the first Beatle she interviewed on the 4th, followed by Starr, Harrison and McCartney on the 11th, 18th, and 25th, respectively. When the interview with Lennon was published, there was no public reaction from the United Kingdom. At the time, Lennon had been speaking the truth; church attendance in 1966 was in decline. However, some reporters pointed out that Lennon had made his comments regarding religion close to the same time the Rolling Stones had put out Could You Walk on the Water?, but at the time, it was simply regarded as a coincidence.

The Beatles in 1966.

The band's manager, Brian Epstein, had planned for 1966 to carry on with a pattern that had been set for the previous two years - a feature film and an accompanying album, and then concert tours during the summer months. Following their displeasure with the end product of their second film Help!, the Beatles voted against a third live action film, and instead chose to focus on personal lives. During this three-month break, on 21 January, George Harrison married his girlfriend Pattie Boyd at Epsom register office, with Paul McCartney serving as his best man.

Following the hiatus, the Beatles began the recording sessions for their seventh album, tentatively titled Abracadabra. Sixteen songs were recorded during the sessions, the first being John Lennon's "Tomorrow Never Knows" (but credited to Lennon/McCartney), which took influence from Timothy Leary's The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Other tracks would include Harrison's "Taxman" and "I Want to Tell You," Lennon's "She Said She Said," "And Your Bird Can Sing," and "Doctor Robert," and McCartney's "Eleanor Rigby," "Got to Get You Into My Life," and "Here, There and Everywhere," plus a track for Ringo to sing, "Yellow Submarine." The sessions even included the non-album single "Paperback Writer"/"Rain."

Prior to the start of the sessions, photographer Robert Whitaker took pictures of the band for their next American album, Yesterday and Today. When the album was released on June 20, 1966, reaction to the cover was largely negative. Lennon later stated that this was a commentary by the Beatles against the ongoing war with Vietnam, but some sources say that it was a response to Capitol Records for "butchering" the original British long plays. The now infamous "butcher cover" was quickly replaced by a photograph of the Beatles surrounding a trunk with McCartney sitting inside of it.

The original, infamous "butcher cover" for the Beatles' American album Yesterday and Today.

Despite the controversy surrounding the "butcher cover", the non-album single "Paperback Writer" managed to reach #1 in both the United States and the United Kingdom, and was noted for having a much harder sound compared to earlier material such as "She Loves You" and "Can't Buy Me Love."

PAUL McCARTNEY: "I'd had a thought for a song and somehow it was to do with the Daily Mail so there might have been an article in the Mail that morning about people writing paperbacks. Penguin paperbacks was what I really thought of, the archetypal paperback." (describing "Paperback Writer" in Barry Miles' Many Years from Now, 1997)

The B-side, "Rain," featured backwards recording that was played by accident when Lennon played the master tape in reverse. The single was the first sign that the Beatles were exploring uncharted territory, but it was not going to be without further controversy surrounding the famous Liverpudlians...

Footnotes

1. Could You Walk on the Water? had originally been planned for a March 1966 release, but it was cancelled and instead replaced by the compilation Big Hits (High Tide and Green Grass). However, some tracks ended up being released on Aftermath in April, whilst others came out as non-singles. The above track listing was meant to be the final listing before Decca pulled the plug.

Author's Comments

So here it is; the first official chapter of the Strawberry Peppers series. When it comes to making albums that didn't happen for various reasons, I like to make up stories surrounding them. Unlike many album re-constructors online, I don't go into full depth as to why I picked the songs the way I did. But I will, however, list sources that the songs came from so you can reconstruct the albums for yourself. In the case of Could You Walk on the Water?, I didn't feel the need to since most of them (barring "Lookin' Tired") are available on the official albums.

In addition, I've chosen to include images of the people involved during this period to add a sense of realism alongside the interview snippets I wrote up (apart from the John and Paul quotes, of course, which they actually said in real life). The series will be a sort of mixed format; whilst it will mostly focus on alternate albums, there will also be chapters and/or sections focusing on the culture surrounding them, and each chapter will be named for a song that was released during or before a specific time period. Think of it as like a soundtrack to go along with the story.

Overall, I'd love to hear your thoughts on what I have so far, as well as suggestions for improvement and additions I could make.