Bay-BEE
THE BEATLES, “Drive My Car” | Rubber Soul, 1965
On Rubber Soul, it is said, the Beatles grew up. They matured as songwriters and musicians, and they took adventurous steps away from their innocent (though incredibly charming) youth toward psychedelia, concept albums, and creating a permanent place in music history as the Mozarts of their time. Rubber Soul was a promise of what was to come, in other words, but it was also a nod to their caterwauling, mop-top, pop-hook invasion.
“Drive My Car” captures that early-Beatles magic. You can write it off as a song pulled straight from the silliest daydream, but the Beatles perform it in such a way that it sets us all free to dream and love a little better.
The concept: A guy approaches a girl to find out more about her. She informs him that she’s gonna be a star one day, and if he’s willing, she will let him be her driver. Stars need chauffeurs, after all. We later learn that she doesn’t even own a car, or have any sort of entertainment contract, and for the male narrator there is no promise of pay. But there is a possible payoff: If our narrator does a good job, “maybe” she’ll love him. It’s all playful banter, metaphor, double-entendre. And in the sweet-courting world of the Beatles, that prospect is entirely enough.
The “maybe,” by the way, rhymes with the previous “babies” sung in the chorus, and that’s important because “babies” are anomalies in the Beatles’ catalog. The Liverpool boys were busy with bigger-picture things, like making history. In “Drive My Car,” “babies” are serviceable to them, never too drawn out or showy. They are there to drive you to the next word or line. But there’s something irresistible and true to the song in the happy, unified three-part harmonies of Paul, John, and George. These “babies” are bright, pulled from a happy past, the kind you might sing while driving with the top down on a sunny day, your pretty baby by your side.
