Yellow Submarine (song)
Encyclopedia
"Yellow Submarine" is a 1966 song by The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...

, written by Paul McCartney (credited to Lennon–McCartney), with lead vocals by Ringo Starr
Ringo Starr
Richard Starkey, MBE better known by his stage name Ringo Starr, is an English musician and actor who gained worldwide fame as the drummer for The Beatles. When the band formed in 1960, Starr was a member of another Liverpool band, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. He became The Beatles' drummer in...

. It was included on the Revolver
Revolver (album)
Revolver is the seventh studio album by the English rock group The Beatles, released on 5 August 1966 on the Parlophone label and produced by George Martin. Many of the tracks on Revolver are marked by an electric guitar-rock sound, in contrast with their previous LP, the folk rock inspired Rubber...

album and issued as a single, coupled with "Eleanor Rigby
Eleanor Rigby
"Eleanor Rigby" is a song by The Beatles, simultaneously released on the 1966 album Revolver and on a 45 rpm single. The song was written primarily by Paul McCartney and credited to Lennon–McCartney...

". The single went to number 1 on every major British chart, remained at number 1 for four weeks and charted for 13 weeks. It won an Ivor Novello Award "for the highest certified sales of any single issued in the UK in 1966".

It became the title song of the 1968 animated United Artists
United Artists
United Artists Corporation is an American film studio. The original studio of that name was founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks....

 film, also called Yellow Submarine, and the soundtrack album to the film
Yellow Submarine (album)
Yellow Submarine is the tenth studio album by The Beatles in the United Kingdom, released on Apple Records. It was issued as the soundtrack to the film of the same name, which premiered in the United Kingdom seven months prior to the album's release....

, released as part of The Beatles' music catalogue, and has since evolved into a popular modern-day nursery rhyme
Nursery rhyme
The term nursery rhyme is used for "traditional" poems for young children in Britain and many other countries, but usage only dates from the 19th century and in North America the older ‘Mother Goose Rhymes’ is still often used.-Lullabies:...

 for children.

Composition

McCartney was living in Jane Asher
Jane Asher
Jane Asher is an English actress. She has also developed a second career as a cake decorator and cake shop proprietor.-Early life:...

's parents' house when he found the inspiration for the song: "I was laying in bed in the Ashers' garret... I was thinking of it as a song for Ringo, which it eventually turned out to be, so I wrote it as not too rangey in the vocal, then started making a story, sort of an ancient mariner, telling the young kids where he'd lived. It was pretty much my song as I recall... I think John helped out. The lyrics got more and more obscure as it goes on, but the chorus, melody and verses are mine." The song began as being about different coloured submarines, but evolved to include only a yellow one.

In 1980, Lennon talked about the song: "'Yellow Submarine' is Paul's baby. Donovan
Donovan
Donovan Donovan Donovan (born Donovan Philips Leitch (born 10 May 1946) is a Scottish singer-songwriter and guitarist. Emerging from the British folk scene, he developed an eclectic and distinctive style that blended folk, jazz, pop, psychedelia, and world music...

 helped with the lyrics. I helped with the lyrics too. We virtually made the track come alive in the studio, but based on Paul's inspiration. Paul's idea. Paul's title... written for Ringo." Donovan added the words, "Sky of blue and sea of green". McCartney also said: "It's a happy place, that's all. You know, it was just... We were trying to write a children's song. That was the basic idea. And there's nothing more to be read into it than there is in the lyrics of any children's song."

Recording

Produced by George Martin
George Martin
Sir George Henry Martin CBE is an English record producer, arranger, composer and musician. He is sometimes referred to as "the Fifth Beatle"— a title that he often describes as "nonsense," but the fact remains that he served as producer on all but one of The Beatles' original albums...

 and engineered by Geoff Emerick
Geoff Emerick
Geoffrey Emerick is an English recording studio audio engineer, who is best known for his work with The Beatles' albums Revolver, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles and Abbey Road...

, "Yellow Submarine" was finished after five takes on 26 May 1966, in Studio Two at Abbey Road Studios
Abbey Road Studios
Abbey Road Studios is a recording studio located at 3 Abbey Road, St John's Wood, City of Westminster, London, England. It was established in November 1931 by the Gramophone Company, a predecessor of British music company EMI, its present owner...

, with special effects being added on 1 June 1966. On the second session the studio store cupboard was ransacked for special effects, which included chains, a ship's bell, tap dancing mats, whistles, hooters, waves, a tin bath filled with water, wind and thunderstorm machines, as well as a cash register, which was later used on Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd were an English rock band that achieved worldwide success with their progressive and psychedelic rock music. Their work is marked by the use of philosophical lyrics, sonic experimentation, innovative album art, and elaborate live shows. Pink Floyd are one of the most commercially...

's song "Money
Money (Pink Floyd song)
"Money" is the sixth track from English progressive rock band Pink Floyd's 1973 album The Dark Side of the Moon. Written by bassist Roger Waters, it opened side two of the original vinyl LP, and is the only song on the album to enter the top 20 on the Billboard Hot 100...

".

Lennon blew through a straw into a pan of water to create a bubbling effect, McCartney and Lennon talked through tin cans to create the sound of the captain's orders, at 1:38-40 in the song, Ringo stepped outside the doors of the recording room and yelled like a sailor acknowledging "Cut the cable! Drop the cable!", which was looped into the song afterwards, and Abbey Road employees John Skinner and Terry Condon twirled chains in a tin bath to create water sounds. After the line, "and the band begins to play", Emerick found a recording of a brass band and changed it slightly so it could not be identified, although it is thought to be a recording of Georges Krier and Charles Helmer's 1906 composition, "Le Rêve Passe". The original recording had a spoken intro by Starr, but the idea was abandoned on 3 June 1966.

When the overdubs were finished, Evans strapped on a marching bass drum
Bass drum
Bass drums are percussion instruments that can vary in size and are used in several musical genres. Three major types of bass drums can be distinguished. The type usually seen or heard in orchestral, ensemble or concert band music is the orchestral, or concert bass drum . It is the largest drum of...

 and led everybody in a line around the studio doing the conga
Conga Line
The conga line is a Cuban carnival march that was first developed in Cuba and became popular in the United States in the 1930s and 1950s. The dancers form a long, processing line. It has three shuffle steps on the beat, followed by a kick that is slightly ahead of the fourth beat...

 dance whilst banging on the drum.

"Yellow Submarine" was mixed on 2 and 3 June, and finished on 22 June 1966.

Release

The "Yellow Submarine" single was The Beatles' thirteenth single
Single (music)
In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear...

 release in the United Kingdom. It was released in the UK on 5 August as a 'double A side' with "Eleanor Rigby
Eleanor Rigby
"Eleanor Rigby" is a song by The Beatles, simultaneously released on the 1966 album Revolver and on a 45 rpm single. The song was written primarily by Paul McCartney and credited to Lennon–McCartney...

", and in the United States on 8 August. The Revolver
Revolver (album)
Revolver is the seventh studio album by the English rock group The Beatles, released on 5 August 1966 on the Parlophone label and produced by George Martin. Many of the tracks on Revolver are marked by an electric guitar-rock sound, in contrast with their previous LP, the folk rock inspired Rubber...

album was released the next day.

As recorded, Lennon repeats Starr's line of "A life of ease" as he does with all subsequent lines in the final verse. This line can be heard on the single, Yellow Submarine Songtrack
Yellow Submarine Songtrack
Yellow Submarine Songtrack is a compilation /soundtrack album by The Beatles for the 1999 re-release of the 1968 film Yellow Submarine...

 and Real Love single release, but in all other releases, the line is missing.

Reception

The single went to number 1 on every major British chart, remained at number 1 for four weeks and charted for 13 weeks. It won an Ivor Novello Award for the highest certified sales of any single issued in the UK in 1966. No promotional film clip was made, so some TV programs (including the BBC's Top of the Pops
Top of the Pops
Top of the Pops, also known as TOTP, is a British music chart television programme, made by the BBC and originally broadcast weekly from 1 January 1964 to 30 July 2006. After 25 December 2006 it became a radio program, now hosted by Tony Blackburn...

) created their own clips from stock footage.

In the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, the single reached number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...

, number 1 in Record World
Record World
Record World magazine was one of the three main music industry trade publications in the United States, along with Billboard and Cash Box magazines. It was founded in 1946 under the name Music Vendor, but since 1964 changed it to Record World, under the ownership of Sid Parnes and Bob Austin, both...

, and number 2 in Cashbox, where it was held off number 1 by The Supremes
The Supremes
The Supremes, an American female singing group, were the premier act of Motown Records during the 1960s.Originally founded as The Primettes in Detroit, Michigan, in 1959, The Supremes' repertoire included doo-wop, pop, soul, Broadway show tunes, psychedelic soul, and disco...

' "You Can't Hurry Love
You Can't Hurry Love
"You Can't Hurry Love" is 1966 song originally released by The Supremes for the Motown label.Written and produced by Motown production team Holland–Dozier–Holland, the song topped the United States Billboard pop singles chart and in the UK in the top 5, released and peaking late summer in 1966...

".
The single was released during the controversies about the "Butcher Cover" (the Yesterday and Today
Yesterday and Today
Yesterday and Today is the ninth Capitol release by The Beatles and the eleventh overall American release. It was issued only in the United States and Canada...

album cover) and Lennon's remarks about Christianity
More popular than Jesus
Angry reactions flared up in August 1966, after John Lennon's remark that The Beatles had become "more popular than Jesus" was quoted by the American teen magazine, Datebook. Lennon originally made the remark when an English newspaper reporter, Maureen Cleave, interviewed him at home for a...

, which are cited as part of the reason the song failed to reach number 1 on all US charts. It sold 1,200,000 copies in four weeks and earned The Beatles their twenty-first US Gold Record award, beating the record set by Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....

.

Personnel

  • Ringo Starr
    Ringo Starr
    Richard Starkey, MBE better known by his stage name Ringo Starr, is an English musician and actor who gained worldwide fame as the drummer for The Beatles. When the band formed in 1960, Starr was a member of another Liverpool band, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. He became The Beatles' drummer in...

     – vocal
    Lead vocalist
    The lead vocalist is the member of a band who sings the main vocal portions of a song. They may also play one or more instruments. Lead vocalists are sometimes referred to as the frontman or frontwoman, and as such, are usually considered to be the "leader" of the groups they perform in, often the...

    , drums
    Drum kit
    A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....

  • Paul McCartney
    Paul McCartney
    Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of The Beatles and Wings , McCartney is listed in Guinness World Records as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100...

     – backing vocal
    Backing vocalist
    A backing vocalist or backing singer is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists...

    , Epiphone Texan acoustic guitar
    Acoustic guitar
    An acoustic guitar is a guitar that uses only an acoustic sound board. The air in this cavity resonates with the vibrational modes of the string and at low frequencies, which depend on the size of the box, the chamber acts like a Helmholtz resonator, increasing or decreasing the volume of the sound...

  • John Lennon
    John Lennon
    John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...

     – backing vocal, shouting, Gibson J-160E acoustic guitar
  • George Harrison
    George Harrison
    George Harrison, MBE was an English musician, guitarist, singer-songwriter, actor and film producer who achieved international fame as lead guitarist of The Beatles. Often referred to as "the quiet Beatle", Harrison became over time an admirer of Indian mysticism, and introduced it to the other...

     – backing vocal, tambourine
    Tambourine
    The tambourine or marine is a musical instrument of the percussion family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called "zils". Classically the term tambourine denotes an instrument with a drumhead, though some variants may not have a head at all....

    , Burns Nu-Sonic bass guitar
    Bass guitar
    The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....

  • Mal Evans
    Mal Evans
    Malcolm Frederick 'Mal' Evans was best known as the road manager, assistant, and a friend of The Beatles: John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr....

     – backing vocal, bass drum
    Bass drum
    Bass drums are percussion instruments that can vary in size and are used in several musical genres. Three major types of bass drums can be distinguished. The type usually seen or heard in orchestral, ensemble or concert band music is the orchestral, or concert bass drum . It is the largest drum of...

  • George Martin
    George Martin
    Sir George Henry Martin CBE is an English record producer, arranger, composer and musician. He is sometimes referred to as "the Fifth Beatle"— a title that he often describes as "nonsense," but the fact remains that he served as producer on all but one of The Beatles' original albums...

     – backing vocal, producer
    Record producer
    A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...

  • Geoff Emerick
    Geoff Emerick
    Geoffrey Emerick is an English recording studio audio engineer, who is best known for his work with The Beatles' albums Revolver, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles and Abbey Road...

     – backing vocal, engineer
    Audio engineering
    An audio engineer, also called audio technician, audio technologist or sound technician, is a specialist in a skilled trade that deals with the use of machinery and equipment for the recording, mixing and reproduction of sounds. The field draws on many artistic and vocational areas, including...

  • Neil Aspinall
    Neil Aspinall
    Neil Stanley Aspinall was a British music industry executive. A school friend of Paul McCartney and George Harrison, he went on to head The Beatles' company Apple Corps....

     – backing vocal
  • Alf Bicknell – sound effects (rattling chains)
  • Pattie Harrison
    Pattie Boyd
    Patricia Anne "Pattie" Boyd is an English model and photographer, and the former wife of both George Harrison and Eric Clapton...

     – backing vocal
  • Marianne Faithfull
    Marianne Faithfull
    Marianne Evelyn Faithfull is an award-winning English singer, songwriter and actress whose career has spanned five decades....

     – backing vocal
  • Brian Jones
    Brian Jones
    Lewis Brian Hopkins Jones , known as Brian Jones, was an English musician and a founding member of the Rolling Stones....

     – backing vocal, sound effects (clinking glasses)
Personnel per Ian MacDonald
Ian MacDonald
Ian MacCormick was a British music critic and author, best known for Revolution in the Head, his forensic history of The Beatles which borrowed techniques from art historians, and The New Shostakovich, a controversial study of the Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich...


Tribute

A 51 feet (15.5 m) long yellow submarine metal sculpture was built by apprentices from the Cammell Laird
Cammell Laird
Cammell Laird, one of the most famous names in British shipbuilding during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, came about following the merger of Laird, Son & Co. of Birkenhead and Johnson Cammell & Co. of Sheffield at the turn of the twentieth century.- Founding of the business :The Company...

 shipyard, and was used as part of Liverpool's International Garden Festival
International Garden Festival
thumb|200px|right|Commemorative [[coffee]] [[mug]] from the festival, showing a [[cartoon]] [[Liver bird]].The International Garden Festival was a garden festival recognised by the International Association of Horticultural producers and the Bureau of International Exhibitions and held in...

 in 1984. In 2005 it was placed outside Liverpool's John Lennon Airport
Liverpool John Lennon Airport
Liverpool John Lennon Airport is an international airport serving the city of Liverpool and the North West of England. Formerly known as Speke Airport, RAF Speke, and Liverpool Airport the airport is located within the City of Liverpool adjacent to the estuary of the River Mersey some southeast...

, where it remains.

Cover versions

In 1968, Apple Records
Apple Records
Apple Records is a record label founded by The Beatles in 1968, as a division of Apple Corps Ltd. It was initially intended as a creative outlet for the Beatles, both as a group and individually, plus a selection of other artists including Mary Hopkin, James Taylor, Badfinger, and Billy Preston...

 issued a single by the Black Dyke Mills Band, which featured a cover version
Cover version
In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...

 of "Yellow Submarine" as the B-side. In 1966, Maurice Chevalier
Maurice Chevalier
Maurice Auguste Chevalier was a French actor, singer, entertainer and a noted Sprechgesang performer. He is perhaps best known for his signature songs, including Louise, Mimi, Valentine, and Thank Heaven for Little Girls and for his films including The Love Parade and The Big Pond...

 recorded a version in French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

 ("Le Sous-Marin Vert"); this translates to "The Green
Vert
The colour green is commonly found in modern flags and coat of arms, and to a lesser extent also in the classical heraldry of the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern period....

 Submarine". The song was also covered by Roots Manuva
Roots Manuva
Rodney Hylton Smith , better known by his stage name Roots Manuva, is a British rapper from Stockwell, South London. He is currently signed to Big Dada.-Biography:...

 in 2002, on his Badmeaningood 2 album. It has entered popular usage as a children's song, such as in Fun Song Factory
Fun Song Factory
Fun Song Factory is a British preschool children's show on CITV aimed at youngsters. It was one of the first songs-based shows to be filmed in front of a live audience of children , and is similar to Australian shows such as 'The Wiggles' and 'Hi-5'.It was originally created in 1994 by Will Brenton...

, when it was once combined with colourful props and actions, and on Sesame Street
Sesame Street
Sesame Street has undergone significant changes in its history. According to writer Michael Davis, by the mid-1970s the show had become "an American institution". The cast and crew expanded during this time, including the hiring of women in the crew and additional minorities in the cast. The...

, where a group of Anything Muppets sang the song inside a yellow submarine (resembling the one from the animated movie). Raffi
Raffi (musician)
Raffi Cavoukian, CM, OBC , better known by his stage name Raffi, is a Canadian-Armenian singer-songwriter, author, essayist and lecturer...

 sang this song on the album Let's Play
Let's Play (Raffi album)
Let's Play! is a music album by popular children's entertainer Raffi, released in 2002, and is Raffi Cavoukian's first album ever released in the 2000s.-Track listing:#" Let's Play"#" Swing"#" Yellow Submarine"#" Eensy Weensy Spider"...

.

The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra is a British orchestra based in London. It tours widely, and is sometimes referred to as "Britain's national orchestra"...

 also covered the song, as they have many other famous pop and rock songs, but unlike other songs they have covered, they have also included the lyrics.

Polish football team Lech Poznan
Lech Poznan
Lech Poznań is a Polish football club based in Poznań, Poland. The club is named after Lech, the legendary founder of Polish nation.The club was established in 1922 as Lutnia Dębiec, later changing its name several times. From 1933 until 1994, the club was closely linked to Polish State Railways...

uses a cover of the song translated into Polish as its anthem.

New York based Soul/Funk outfit Revelation recorded a "Nile Rogers" style cover on their album Feel It on Handshake Records in 1981.
(Side B Track 2).
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