Yellow Submarine (song)

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yellow Submarine is a song written by Paul McCartney and credited to Lennon/McCartney. It appeared on The Beatles' 1966 album Revolver. It was also released as a single with Eleanor Rigby as the other side.

Contents

Writing

The song was written solely by Paul. In the early days of The Beatles, Ringo was always given either a cover song or a song written by either Lennon or McCartney to sing. It was intended to be a children's song as soon as the writing got started. As Paul said in the Anthology, "I remember lying in bed one night, in that moment before you're falling asleep - that little twilight moment when a silly idea comes into your head - and thinking of yellow Submarine: 'We all live in a yellow submarine...' I quite like children's things; I like children's minds and imagination. So it didn't seem uncool to me to have a pretty surreal idea that was also a children's idea. I thought also, with Ringo being so good with children - a knockabout uncle type - it might not be a bad idea for him to have a children's song, rather than a very serious song. He wasn't that keen on singing." Because the band had decided to stop recording covers in 1966, Ringo was given this song to sing. The song was written mostly by McCartney, although he has said that he thought John helped with the lyrics. Paul played the song to Donovan, who suggested the lyrics "Sky of blue and sea of green/In our yellow submarine." McCartney liked this, so he kept it. Even Ringo contributed the line "Every one of us has all we need."

Recording

The first four takes of the song were recorded on May 26, 1966. From there, they recorded backing tracks, as well as Ringo's vocals. The sound effects during an instrumental break in the song were taken from Abbey Road's 'trap room,' which had whistles, bells, chains, and other objects used to create sound effects. To get some effects, chains were dragged in a full bathtub, Brian Jones of The Rolling Stones clinked glasses, and John Lennon blew bubbles into a bucket full of water. As Beatles engineer Geoff Emerick said, "The door to the echo chamber behind studio two was open so [John] went and sat there, singing all that 'Full speed ahead Mister Captain' stuff at the top of his voice." Unknown brass musicians were brought in to play on the song. However, the brass part after the lines "...and the band begins to play." is actually a sample off an old 78 RPM record. A spoken intro was attempted, but it was not used. It included Ringo saying "And we will march to free the day, to see them gathered there, from Land O'Groats to John O'Green; from Stepney to Utrecht, to see a Yellow Submarine." while the sound of marching feet were in the background. This intro was not released until it was included as a B-Side on the Real Love single in 1996.

Personnel

The Beatles

Guest Musicicans

Production

Album Appearances

Cover Versions

  • Greg Hawkes
  • Nomataras
  • Sonderbar
  • They Might Be Giants

Sources

[1]

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