Welcome to the Beatles Rarity of the Week. It became more or less expected for The Beatles to put out two albums per year as they had in 1963 and 1964. But when October 1965 rolled around, the band was yet to make it into the studio to record a follow up to their first album of the year, Help! Between their extremely hectic schedule and all of the touring, there simply had not been time. Not wanting to disappoint, John and Paul quickly wrote more than a dozen new songs, and today’s BROW was the first one worked on when The Beatles reconvened at Abbey Road to record the Rubber Soul album on October 12th. The plan was to have it out to the shops by early December.

Run For Your Life was written primarily by John and he borrowed the line I’d rather see you dead, little girl, than to be with another man from the Elvis Presley song Baby Let’s Play House. Five takes were recorded on October 12th and the master was created from take 5. Presented for BROW this week is the raw recording of take 5, prior to mixing. To my ears it seems to play at a slightly faster tempo and I’m therefore wondering if the master was slowed down a little during the mixing stage. At this point it is also missing some vocal overdubs, to include John’s na-na-na’s heard during the fade out on the finalized version. In the discussion prior to the take, John refers to the acoustic guitar he plays on the track as his ‘jumbo Gibson’ and asks that it be recorded “heavy” so that when more tracks are added, the rhythm guitar isn’t lost in the mix. This was the beginning of a long series of sessions to complete the record which ended up in final production by November 15th and in the shops by Friday December 3rd (the following Monday in the US), as planned.

An interesting aside: In 1973, John said in an interview that Run For Your Life was his least favorite Beatles song, while it was George’s favorite track on Rubber Soul.

Another interesting aside: In the early 1990s, the song was banned by Ottawa radio station CFRA for its allegedly misogynistic message. When the radio station was asked if it had also banned Elvis’s Baby, Let’s Play House, the program director confessed to not being familiar with that song. Upon listening to it, he banned it as well.

The song has been covered by Nancy Sinatra, Johnny Rivers, Gary Lewis & The Playboys, Robert Gordon and a British girl group known as Thee Headcoatees.

John Lennon at Rubber Soul sessions, Oct. 1965

Want to make a suggestion for a future Beatles Rarity of the Week? If so, I will do my best to deliver, so let me hear from you. To browse for ideas, check out this search-able listing of thousands of Beatle-related recordings to choose from. Then let me hear from you here.

Here are some Amazon links to read more on, or purchase, some music related to this post:

1) Rubber Soul (Remastered)
– 2009 remastered CD contains stereo mix of Run For Your Life

2) More Amazon links for any of your favorite Beatles-related music: The Beatles, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.

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