The BEATLES Illustrated: Yellow Submarine

Yellow Submarine - The Beatles

Vinyl L.P · Stereo · Apple Records · PCS 7070.
1969 · U.K.
Nothing Is Real.

Back cover.

Labels.

Liner notes:

Side One

THE BEATLES

1. Yellow Submarine*

2. Only A Northern Song✝

3. All Together Now

4. Hey Bulldog

5. It’s All Too Much✝

6. All You Need Is Love**

(Lennon-McCartney except ✝ Harrison)

Produced by GEORGE MARTIN

Ⓟ1969 *Ⓟ1966 **Ⓟ1967

Side Two

Original film score composed

& Orchestrated by George Martin

1. Pepperland

2. Sea of Time

3. Sea of Holes

4. Sea of Monsters

5. March of The Meanies

6. Pepperland laid waste

7. Yellow Submarine in Pepperland*

(Martin except *Lennon-McCartney arr. Martin)

Produced by George Martin

Ⓟ1969

My name is Derek but that is what mother called me so it’s no big thing, except that it is my name and I would like to say I was asked to write the notes for Yellow Submarine. Now Derek Taylor used to be the Beatles press agent and then, in America he became the former Beatles press agent (having left them) and now Derek Taylor is the press agent for the Beatles again so when he was asked to write the notes for “Yellow Submarine” he decided that not only had he nothing new to say about the Beatles whom he adores too much to apply any critical reasoning, and by whom he is paid too much to feel completely free, ad also he couldn’t be bothered, and also he wanted the people who bought the Yellow Submarine album to buy and enjoy the really wonderful “The Beatles” album out in the month of November ’68 so here and now, unbought, unsolicited, unexpurgated, unattached, pure and unmeasurably favourable review of “The Beatles” (the new Apple/EMI album) from the London Observer by Tony Palmer, a journalist and film-maker of some special distinction.

“The Beatles’ Bull’s-eye

If there is still any doubt that Lennon and McCartney are the greatest song writers since Schubert, then next Friday – with the publication of the new Beatles double LP – should surely see the last vestiges of cultural snobbery and bourgeois prejudice swept away in a deluge of joyful music making, which only the ignorant will not hear and only the deaf will not acknowledge. Called simply The Beatles (PMC 7067/8), it’s wrapped in a plain white cover which is adorned only by the songs titles and those four faces, faces which for some still represent the menace of long-haired youth, for others the great hope of a cultural renaissance and for others the desperate, apparently endless struggle against cynical so-called betters.

In the Beatles’ eyes, as in their songs, you can see the fragile fragmentary mirror of society which sponsored them, which interprets and makes demands of them, and which punishes them when they do what others reckon to be evil; Paul, ever-hopeful, wistful; Ringo, every mother’s son; George, local lad made good; John, withdrawn, sad, but with a fierce intelligence clearly undimmed by all that organized morality can throw at him. There are heroes for all of us, and better than we deserve.

It’s not as if the Beatles ever seek such adulation. The extra-ordinary quality of the 30 new songs is one of simple happiness. The lyrics overflow with a sparkling radiance and sense of fun that it is impossible to resist. Almost every track is a send-up of a send-up of a send-up, rollicking, reckless, gentle, magical. The subject matter ranges from piggies (‘Have you seen the bigger piggies/In their starched white shirts’), to Bungalow Bill of Saturday morning film-show fame (‘He went out tiger hunting with his elephant gun/In case of accidents he always took his mom’); from ‘Why don’t we do it in the road’ to ‘Savoy Truffle.’

The skill at orchestration has matured with finite precision. Full orchestra, brass, solo violin, glockenspiel, saxophone, organ, piano, harpsichord, all manner of percussion, flute, sound effects, are used sparingly and thus with deftness.

Electronic gimmickry has been suppressed or ignored in favour of musicianship. References to or quotations from Elvis Presley, Donovan, Little Richard, the Beach Boys, Blind Lemon Jefferson are woven into an aural fabric that has become the Bayeux Tapestry of popular music. It’s all there, if you listen. Lennon sings ‘I told you about strawberry fields’ and ‘I told you about the fool on the hill’ – and now?

The Beatles are competent rather than virtuoso instrumentalists – but their ensemble playing is intuitive and astonishing. They bend and twist rhythms and phrases with a unanimous freedom that give their harmonic adventures the frenzy of anticipation and unpredictability. The voice – particularly that of Lennon – is just another instrument, wailing, screeching, mocking, weeping.

There is a quiet determination to be rid of the bogus intellectualization that usually surrounds them and their music. The words are most deliberately simple-minded – one song is just called ‘Birthday’ and includes lines like, ‘Happy birthday to you’; another just goes on repeating ‘Good-night’; another says ‘I’m so tired, I haven’t slept a wink.’ The music is likewise stripped of all but the simplest of harmonies and beat – so what is left is a prolific out-pouring of melody, music-making of unmistakable clarity and foot-tapping beauty.

The sarcasm and bitterness that have always given their music its unease and edginess still bubbles out – ‘Lady Madonna trying to make ends meet – yeah/Looking through a glass onion.’ The harshness of the imagery is, if anything, even harsher; ‘The eagle pick my eye/The worm he locks my bone.’ Black birds, black clouds, broken wings, lizards, destruction. And, most grotesque of all, there is a terrifying track called ‘Revolution 9,’ which comprises sound effects, overheard gossip, backwards-tapes, janglings from the subconscious memories of a floundering civilization. Cruel, paranoiac, burning, agonized, hopeless, it is given shape by an anonymous bingo voice which just goes repeating ‘Number nine, number nine, number nine’ – until you want to scream.

McCartney’s drifting melancholy overhands the entire proceedings like a purple veil of shadowy optimism – glistening, inaccessible, loving.

At the end, all you do is stand and applaud. Whatever your taste in popular music, you will find it satisfied here. If you think that pop music is Engelbert Humperdinck, then the Beatles have done it better – without sentimentality, but with passion; if you think that pop is just rock ‘n’ roll, then the Beatles have done it better – but infinitely more vengefully’ if you think that pop is mind-blowing noise, then the Beatles have done it better – on distant shores of the imagination that others have not even sighted.

This record took them five months to make and in case you think that’s slow going, just consider that its completion they’ve written another 15 songs. Not even Schubert wrote at that speed.”

The Beatles:

John Lennon: Lead and backing vocals, rhythm and lead guitars, piano, harpsichord, glockenspiel, ukulele, harmonica, banjo, handclaps.

Paul McCartney: Lead and backing vocals, bass guitar, acoustic guitar, double bass, trumpet, handclaps, percussion.

George Harrison: Lead and backing vocals, lead and acoustic guitars, Hammond organ, percussion, handclaps, violin.

Ringo Starr: Drums, percussion and handclaps, backing vocals, lead vocals (Yellow Submarine).

Other musicians:

George Martin: Piano (All You Need Is Love), orchestral arrangement.

Credits:

George Martin: Producer.

Recorded: 26 May 1966 – 11 February 1968 (The Beatles).

22–23 October 1968 (George Martin).

Studio: EMI and De Lane Lea, London, U.K.

Released: 13 January, 1969.

Lyrics:

Yellow Submarine.

(Lennon-McCartney)

In the town where I was born

Lived a man who sailed to sea

And he told us of his life

In the land of submarines.

So we sailed up to the sun

Till we found the sea of green

And we lived beneath the waves

In our yellow submarine.