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19. Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)
(Rubber Soul, 1965)
Lennon's leap into Dylanworld that inspired Zimmy's 4th Time Around.
 Roy Harper: “We all knew they were good. Like gifted siblings. There were obvious but shifting rivalries and allegiances in the group. There was some kind of an edge. They were the top pop boys. What you weren’t prepared for was Rubber Soul. They were writing with a deeper resonance, in another time zone. They’d grown up, it was no longer parochial youth challenging for a national spot, but young men of the world claiming a place on a universal stage. I was envious and inspired at the same moment. They’d come onto my turf, got there before me, and they were kings of it, overnight. We’d all been out-flanked. The best song on the record was one of the shortest, Norwegian Wood. Tears came to my eyes. I wished I’d written it. The music was sublimely different. George’s sitar was a well-placed act of fusion and the song was full of Lennon wit. After a few times on the turntable, you realised that the goal posts had been moved, forever, and you really wanted to hear the next record, now. You could sense Revolver just over the horizon. You were hooked.”
 John Cale: “I was just starting to work with VU down in the Lower East Side. The Beatles’ invasion was in full swing. If we were rehearsing down there on Ludlow Street, we’d be getting stones thrown at us on the block, because we had long hair, and they’d shout at us, ‘Are you the Beatles? Are you The Beatles ?’
“They were a driving force in the Velvets, and made us work harder and got us on our bikes. Rubber Soul was where you were forced to deal with them as something other than a flash in the pan. It was rich in ideas and I loved the way George managed to find a way to include all those Indian instruments. Lou [Reed] and I had tried to work with the sarinda. We were playing on it just to get a noise but I soon realised if you play a melody on the sitar as good as Norwegian Wood, it makes it easier to present the instrument.
“Norwegian Wood had this atmosphere that I just remember as being very ‘acid’. It’s a night sleeping in the bath, a rueful look at how easy it is to be had when you’re running around chasing after tail, but what you remember in a flashback is a sound, how your senses were bombarded. I don’t think anybody got that sound or that closeted feeling as well as The Beatles did on Norwegian Wood.”
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