<P> While many of Rubber Soul's prominent songs were the product of Lennon and McCartney's collaborative songwriting, it also featured distinct compositions from each, though they continued to share official credit . The song "In My Life", of which each later claimed lead authorship, is considered a highlight of the entire Lennon--McCartney catalogue . Harrison called Rubber Soul his "favourite album" and Starr referred to it as "the departure record". McCartney has said, "We'd had our cute period, and now it was time to expand ." However, recording engineer Norman Smith later stated that the studio sessions revealed signs of growing conflict within the group--"the clash between John and Paul was becoming obvious", he wrote, and "as far as Paul was concerned, George could do no right". In 2003, Rolling Stone ranked Rubber Soul fifth among "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time", and AllMusic's Richie Unterberger describes it as "one of the classic folk - rock records". </P> <P> Capitol Records, from December 1963 when it began issuing Beatles recordings for the US market, exercised complete control over format, compiling distinct US albums from the band's recordings and issuing songs of their choosing as singles . In June 1966, Yesterday and Today, one of Capitol's compilation albums, caused an uproar with its cover, which portrayed the grinning Beatles dressed in butcher's overalls, accompanied by raw meat and mutilated plastic baby dolls . It has been incorrectly suggested that this was meant as a satirical response to the way Capitol had "butchered" the US versions of their albums . Thousands of copies of the LP had a new cover pasted over the original; an unpeeled "first - state" copy fetched $10,500 at a December 2005 auction . In England, meanwhile, Harrison met sitar maestro Ravi Shankar, who agreed to train him on the instrument . </P> <P> During a tour of the Philippines the month after the Yesterday and Today furore, the Beatles unintentionally snubbed the nation's first lady, Imelda Marcos, who had expected them to attend a breakfast reception at the Presidential Palace . When presented with the invitation, Epstein politely declined on the band members' behalf, as it had never been his policy to accept such official invitations . They soon found that the Marcos regime was unaccustomed to taking no for an answer . The resulting riots endangered the group and they escaped the country with difficulty . Immediately afterwards, the band members visited India for the first time . </P> <P>--John Lennon to journalist Maureen Cleave, 1966 </P>

Who was the main singer of the beatles