"A Hard Day's Night" and "Abbey Road" take the #2 and #3 places on my all-time list, right behind this spectacular gem.  The SEARING impression this album made on me has as much to do with the events of my young adulthood at the time as it does with the brilliant music I was hearing from the LP on my turntable.  I won't bore you with details but here's the basics: my friend Jon turned me onto this album; it had recently been released and I had just broken up with the first person I ever truly fell in love with....and you know how dramatic/traumatic these things are to a 19-year old!  The album perfectly mirrored my feelings in a particular time & place as no album had before or since.  I don't mean to suggest that this is a set of maudlin "break-up" songs best suited for jilted 19-year olds; on the contrary, it runs a broader gamut of musical stylings and displays a bolder sophistication than had been present in his recordings up to that time....but it still includes his trademark savage guitar attacks and pointed, acid-tongued lyrics.  The production is flawless, unique and quite striking.  The essence of this album's profound effect on me is the seemingly effortless way that raw, hypersensitive, uncommunicatable emotions are magically transformed into aural beauty of the absolute highest quality.  When the album first "got hold of me", I was listening to it literally 2 or 3 or 4 times a day....and this went on for months and months.  Obsessed?  You bet.