The Beatles’ Expanded Edition of 1965’s Landmark ‘Rubber Soul’ was Worth the Wait
by Best Classic Bands Staff
The Beatles’ Rubber Soul was originally released on Dec. 3, 1965.
It’s been a long time, but it was worth the wait. The Beatles’ landmark 1965 album Rubber Soul has finally received an expanded Special Edition, newly mixed by producer Giles Martin and engineer Sam Okell. The new collection presents the album in stunning new stereo and Dolby Atmos mixes, alongside the original mono mix, the original Capitol U.S. album version, and expanded with previously unreleased session recordings and home demos. They’re accompanied by the double A-side single, “Day Tripper” / “We Can Work It Out.” The 2026 editions, led by 4-CD and 5-LP Super Deluxe versions along with other special editions, were released on October 2 via Apple Corps Ltd./Capitol/UMe and are available to order in the U.S. here, in Canada here and in the U.K. here. Listen to many of the previously unreleased sessions and 2026 mixes below.
The sets’ July 29 announcement (following a brief teaser campaign on the band’s social media platforms): Originally released on Dec. 3, 1965, Rubber Soul marked a pivotal moment in The Beatles‘ evolution. Arriving at the end of a remarkable year that saw John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr reach artistic and commercial heights, the album revealed a band pushing beyond the conventions of pop music and embracing a more adventurous approach to songwriting and recording. More than six decades after its original release, Rubber Soul remains a defining moment in The Beatles’ story as an album that bridged the craze of Beatlemania and the experimentation that would follow on Revolver, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and beyond.
The Beatles (Photo: Apple Corps Ltd.; used with permission)
Recorded over four weeks during October and November 1965, following the band’s record-breaking concert to more than 55,000 fans at Shea Stadium in New York, Rubber Soul captured The Beatles at a creative crossroads. Featuring classics including “Drive My Car,” “Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown),” “Nowhere Man,” “Michelle,” and “In My Life,” the album saw the foursome experiment with new instruments, sounds and recording techniques, and is widely regarded as having pioneered the long-form pop album as an art form. “Michelle (Take 1)” was made available on the day the Special Edition was announced.
Rubber Soul is the first Beatles studio album to receive an expanded edition in four years. Those acclaimed box sets began with 50th anniversary editions of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (2017), The Beatles (aka The White Album) (2018), and Abbey Road (2019). It continued with Let it Be (2021) and Revolver (2022). Since then, they have been celebrated with deluxe box sets of the 1964 U.S. Albums in Mono (2024) and an expanded edition of their Anthology Collection (2025).
All of the new Rubber Soul formats feature the album’s new stereo mix, sourced directly from the original four-track master tapes. The audio is brought to the fore in stunning clarity with the help of cutting-edge de-mixing technology developed by the award-winning sound team led by Emile de la Rey at Peter Jackson’s WingNut Films Productions Ltd., while remaining faithful to the spirit of the original recordings.
Listen to the superb new mix from Giles Martin and Sam Okell on “You Won’t See Me”
The forthcoming reissue brings together all 14 new stereo mixes for the first time, while the expanded editions open the studio doors on the making of Rubber Soul. Across the Super Deluxe collections, fans can explore 24 early session recordings, including 20 previously unreleased takes and three previously unreleased home demos – among them early versions of “Day Tripper” and “We Can Work It Out,” plus “Little Girl,” a previously unheard Lennon song outline never before released or even rumored.
As for “Day Tripper,” it was based on “an old folk song of Lennon’s and was written with McCartney at John’s house in Surrey. At this early stage, the song’s iconic riff had yet to be written. The final version was completed during a marathon eight-hour recording session. Though it and “We Can Work It Out” were recorded during the Rubber Soul sessions, they were not featured on the album. Instead, the pair of tracks were released as a double A-side single, the first such release in U.K. pop history.
Listen to the songwriting work tape of “Day Tripper”
The first version of what was then called “This Bird Has Flown” was recorded during the first day of sessions for Rubber Soul and featured Harrison’s new discovery, the sitar. The band were not happy with this version, so nine days later they taped three more performances.
On take two, track one featured Lennon’s acoustic guitar, McCartney’s bass, Starr on drums and Harrison playing drone notes on sitar. George added more sitar on tracks two and three, with John and Paul’s vocals also recorded on track three. Rather than starting with an instrumental version of the verse melody, as the final version does, this arrangement opens with double-tracked sitar playing the tune of the bridge section.
Harrison had first been exposed to the sound of the sitar during the filming of Help! and became increasingly curious about Indian music. During a meeting with members of The Byrds in Los Angeles, David Crosby spoke about the music of Ravi Shankar, which prompted George to explore his recordings.
George explained how the instrument came to be used: “It felt very familiar to me to listen to that music. Around that time I’d bought a cheap sitar in a shop called Indiacraft in London. When we were working on ‘Norwegian Wood’, it just needed something and it was quite spontaneous. I picked the sitar up and kind of found the notes. We put it on and it seemed to hit the spot and that was it.”
The Super Deluxe editions are accompanied by an 88-page hardbound book featuring a brand-new introduction by McCartney, and a foreword compiled from Lennon’s own words, bringing together reflections on Rubber Soul from across his life, including the years following The Beatles’ break-up. The two pieces offer a unique perspective on the making and enduring impact of the album, alongside rare photographs, in-depth album background and track notes. (See the complete track listing for the vinyl SDE below.)
Different takes of “I’m Looking Through You” show the evolution of the song. Three different versions of the song were attempted; “Take 3” shows how both the tempo and arrangement had changed from the early version, while still including two instrumental 12-bar sections. Paul subsequently wrote a bridge to replace these sections in the final version.
2-CD and 2-LP Special Editions feature a curated selection of session highlights, demos and more, as well as standard single CD and LP editions. The collection is also available on Blu-ray, featuring the new Dolby Atmos mix, high-resolution stereo audio and promotional films for “Day Tripper” and “We Can Work It Out.”
Rubber Soul – Special Edition Super Deluxe (68 tracks)
5-LP Box Set
Pressed on 180-gram vinyl, with 7” single, 88-page hardbound book in a 12” x 12” slipcase”
• LP1: Rubber Soul (New stereo mix) half-speed mastered: 14 tracks
• LP2 & 3: Sessions and Demos (Stereo) half-speed mastered: 26 tracks
• LP4: Rubber Soul (Original mono master): 14 tracks
• LP5: Rubber Soul (Original Capitol US album): 12 tracks
• 7”: ‘Day Tripper’ & ‘We Can Work It Out’ (Stereo)
4-CD Box Set
With 88-page hardbound book in a 12” x 12” slipcase:
• DISC 1: Rubber Soul (New stereo mix): 14 tracks
• DISC 2: Sessions, Demos and the Single (Stereo): 28 tracks
• DISC 3: Rubber Soul (Original mono master): 14 tracks
• DISC 4: Rubber Soul (Original Capitol US album): 12 tracks
The Beatles’ Rubber Soul 5-LP Super Deluxe Packshot.
5-LP Super Deluxe Box Set Track Listing
1LP – New stereo mix
Side A
A1. Drive My Car
A2. Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)
A3. You Won’t See Me
A4. Nowhere Man
A5. Think For Yourself
A6. The Word
A7. Michelle
Side B
B1. What Goes On
B2. Girl
B3. I’m Looking Through You
B4. In My Life
B5. Wait
B6. If I Needed Someone
B7. Run For Your Life
LP2 – Sessions, Demos and The Single (Disc 1)
Side A
A1. Wait (Take 3 – instrumental backing track)
A2. Run For Your Life (Takes 1-5 – instrumental backing track)
A3. Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown) (First version –Take 1)
A4. Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown) (Second version –Take 2)
A5. Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown) (Third version – Take 3)
A6. Drive My Car (Takes 1 and 2 – instrumental backing track)
A7. Day Tripper (Songwriting work tape)
Side B
B1. Day Tripper (Take 1 – instrumental backing track)
B2. Day Tripper (Takes 2 and 3 – instrumental backing track)
B3. If I Needed Someone (Take 1 – instrumental backing track)
B4. In My Life (Take 1)
B5. In My Life (Extract with unused organ solo)
B6. We Can Work It Out (Paul’s demo)
B7. We Can Work It Out (Take 1 – instrumental backing track)
LP3 – Sessions, Demos and The Single (Disc 2)
Side A
A1. Nowhere Man (First version – Take 2)
A2. Nowhere Man (Second version – Take 5 – instrumental backing track)
A3. I’m Looking Through You (First version – Take 1)
A4. I’m Looking Through You (Second version – Take 2)
A5. I’m Looking Through You (Second version – Take 3)
A6. Michelle (Guitar rehearsal)
A7. Michelle (Take 1)
Side B
B1. What Goes On (Take 1 – instrumental backing track)
B2. The Word (Takes 1 and 2 – instrumental backing track)
B3. Girl (Take 2 – instrumental backing track)
B4. Beatle Talk (Think For Yourself vocal overdubs)
B5. Little Girl (John’s demo)
LP4 – Mono
Side A
A1. Drive My Car
A2. Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)
A3. You Won’t See Me
A4. Nowhere Man
A5. Think For Yourself
A6. The Word
A7. Michelle
Side B
B1. What Goes On
B2. Girl
B3. I’m Looking Through You
B4. In My Life
B5. Wait
B6. If I Needed Someone
B7. Run For Your Life
LP5 – US Album
Side A
A1. I’ve Just Seen A Face
A2. Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)
A3. You Won’t See Me
A4. Think For Yourself
A5. The Word
A6. Michelle
Side B
B1. It’s Only Love
B2. Girl
B3. I’m Looking Through You
B4. In My Life
B5. Wait
B6. Run For Your Life
7” Single
Side A:
A1. Day Tripper
Side AA:
AA1. We Can Work It Out
Rubber Soul Special Edition Deluxe (30 tracks)
2-LPs
Half-speed mastered 180-gram vinyl in a gatefold sleeve with 4-page insert abridged from the Super Deluxe book:
• LP1: Rubber Soul (New stereo mix): 14 tracks
• LP2: The Single, Demos and Sessions Highlights (Stereo): 16 tracks
2-CDs
Digisleeve and slipcase, with a 40-page booklet abridged from the Super Deluxe book:
• DISC 1: Rubber Soul (New stereo mix): 14 tracks
• DISC 2: The Single, Demos and Sessions Highlights: 16 tracks
The 2026 editions, led by 4-CD and 5-LP Super Deluxe versions along with other special editions, are available to order in the U.S. here, in Canada here and in the U.K. here.
7 Comments so far
Jump into a conversation“Michelle (Take 1) this is take one vocal overdub (4 track to four track bounce down )
In all honesty, the results from remastering stems and remixing them into new masters, like what they did with Sgt. Pepper’s, Love, The White Album, Let It Be, Yellow Submarine Songbook, and Let It Be sounded better to me than the results of the de-mix/re-mix technology employed for Revolver. The Revolver remix seemed to lack a certain tangible presence, with what I can only describe as “hard edges” to the isolated instruments and voices… kinda like the sound of transistor distortion. Imaging seemed a bit flat to me as well. I hope they made improvements to this technology.
I’ve been looking forward to this, however, from the track list and the amount of instrumentals…are they that vastly different? Breaking down the original album, then rebuilding it sounds good, but we’ve got the mono RS and the US RS, so that leaves 42-44 new pieces of music to listen to? The first release Michelle…I’ll have to hear more…
I always ASSumed that Day Tripper started out with the classic riff and then they built the song around it. Enlightening to find out otherwise.
It’s The Beatles; it’s the absolutely amazing Rubber Soul. People will still be listening to it a hundred years from now. Why fuss over the little nuances and details? I for one cannot wait to hear it and see it. I preordered it the day it was announced. Bring it on!!
This is when the Beatles shifted in the recording studio from live take +edit to doing rhythm tracks first , and then doing tape machine bounce downs with over overdubbing
Their sound significantly changed during this period , leading to the Revolver album with heavy influences from Pet Sounds
Rubber Soul is a fantastic album, probably my favorite Beatles’ album. To include the American version in the box set is fabulous. I grew up with American version and to me, its superior to the British version. The US version just flows better with the song selections.