History: Early Years Of The Beatles

Rubber Soul, released in early December, was hailed by critics as another major step forward in the maturity and complexity of the band's music. Music critic Ian MacDonald observes that with Rubber Soul, they "recovered the sense of direction that had begun to elude them during the later stages of work on Beatles for Sale". After Help!'s foray into the world of classical music with flutes and strings, Rubber Soul's introduction of a sitar on "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)" marked a further progression outside the traditional boundaries of rock music. The album also saw Lennon and McCartney's collaborative songwriting increasingly supplemented by distinct compositions from each (though they continued to share official credit). Their thematic reach was expanding as well, embracing more complex aspects of romance and other concerns. As their lyrics grew more artful, fans began to study them for deeper meaning. There was speculation that "Norwegian Wood" might refer to cannabis. In 2003, Rolling Stone magazine's "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" ranked Rubber Soul at number five, and the album is today described by Allmusic as "one of the classic folk rock records". According to both Lennon and McCartney, it was "just another album". Recording engineer Norman Smith later stated that the Rubber Soul sessions showed signs of growing conflict within the group—"the clash between John and Paul was becoming obvious", he wrote, and "as far as Paul was concerned, George could do no right."
• Controversy, studio years and break-up (1966–1970)
- Events leading up to final tour
In June 1966, Yesterday and Today—one of the compilation albums created by Capitol Records for the US market—caused an uproar with its cover, which portrayed the grinning Beatles dressed in butcher's overalls, accompanied by raw meat and mutilated plastic baby dolls. A popular, though apocryphal, story was that this was meant as a satirical response to the way Capitol had "butchered" their albums. Thousands of copies of the album had a new cover pasted over the original; an unpeeled "first-state" copy fetched $10,500 at a December 2005 auction. During a tour of the Philippines the month after the Yesterday and Today furore, they unintentionally snubbed the nation's first lady, Imelda Marcos, who had expected the group to attend a breakfast reception at the Presidential Palace. When presented with the invitation, Epstein politely declined on behalf of the group, as it had never been his policy to accept such official invitations. The group soon found that the Marcos regime was unaccustomed to taking "no" for an answer. The resulting riots endangered the group and they escaped the country with difficulty.