It took a while for Capitol to figure out the Beatles. While they were initially keen for their LPs to be a mish mash of whatever tracks they were recording at the time, the Beatles were the among the first acts to look at the twenty-four inches of wax (both sides, keep up) as an opportunity to make a singular artistic statement.

But Capitol was a little slow on the uptake, continuing to grab recordings from different recording sessions and piecing them together to cash in on Beatle-mania. While they stopped releasing different North American versions once Sgt. Pepper arrived, the Beatles had been recording complete albums as early as Beatles for Sale in late 1964.

“Yesterday” and Today, largely culled from Rubber Soul and Revolver, with a few tracks from Help!, was the culmination of Capitol’s misguided practice.

The way the story goes, Capitol looked at the folk rock dominating the American market and said, “I bet we can make this Beatles album a folk rock record if we just take out this track and that track and this track…” and released (the admittedly great) American version of Rubber Soul. The remaining four tracks (including the excellent Byrds tribute “If I Needed Someone”) were paired with the Day Tripper/We Can Work it Out double single, the sublime “Yesterday” and bizarrely out of place “Act Naturally” (why did anyone let Ringo do this?!?), and three songs from the forthcoming Revolver. The result not only created a bit of a row within the Beatles (who naturally didn’t appreciate their records being chopped up so Capitol could give themselves an extra paycheck), but a slightly unbalanced record. Although, to be fair–not any more unbalanced than other early Beatles records. Capitol’s meddling aside, it’s still great music, and a must for anyone with the US versions of Rubber Soul and Revolver (c’est moi).