12
YELLOW SUBMARINE
1969
The Beatles were under contract to United Artists to do another film, but they were not keen. They had not really enjoyed making Help! and Magical Mystery Tour had been hammered by the critics, so why bother, when they had so many other new things, and new people and plans, going on in their lives?
Were they getting spoiled, too big for their boots, too bored? Probably a bit of each. On the other hand, they felt trapped by various managements and companies who had made a fortune out of them, such as United Artists and Northern Songs, who had them under contracts that they had signed ages ago when they didn’t quite know where they were going and what they might want to do.
So when the idea of an animated film came up, a cartoon based on a story spun out of their earlier children’s song ‘Yellow Submarine’ (released in 1966 on their Revolver album), in which they would not have to act, but would get away with doing only one cameo appearance in the final sequence, they agreed. Initially the fans assumed and hoped their real voices would be used, but in the end their words were spoken by actors.
The film opened in July 1968 but the LP did not come out till January 1969. Only four new songs were provided by them for the film, and for the LP. And even then, there was a feeling these were left-over songs, not considered good enough for earlier albums or singles. The other songs in the film were old songs, recorded some time ago, such as ‘When I’m Sixty-Four’. On the LP a lot of the space was filled up with instrumental numbers, composed and orchestrated by George Martin for the film score.
The film turned out to be enjoyed by fans and critics alike, and is seen now as a pioneer in the field of animation; even the Beatles later said they thought it was really good. The album, however, compared with all the treasures on The Double White Album, was disappointing; it seemed a bit of a cheat, putting it out as if it were filled with new Beatles songs.
Derek Taylor did the sleeve notes for the album–and it seemed even he could not be roused to do any work. He told us his name was Derek, a name given by his mother, and he had been asked to write the notes for this album, but really he had nothing new to say about the Beatles. Instead he reprinted a review of The Double White Album, written by Tony Palmer. Which wasn’t even new either, having appeared in the Observer.
Only A Northern Song
I am amazed George got away with this–and it did appear as if he did not want to write the song at all. George was a very small minority shareholder in Northern Songs–just 1.6 per cent shared with Ringo, compared with Paul and John who had 15 per cent each. He still got a performing royalty, but he felt he was only working for others’ gain. (It was later in 1969, after the Yellow Submarine album was released, that Dick James, without telling them, sold his share to ATV and Lew Grade, followed a few months later by Paul, John and George.)
The title gives it away–disparaging itself, suggesting it was only a bit of inferior, provincial material. He tells us that if we think the chords are going wrong, they are, that’s how he wrote it; and if you think the harmony is out of key, you are right, because there is nobody there, nobody bothering to do it properly, so up yours, Northern Songs Ltd.
In I Me Mine he describes it as ‘a joke, relating to Liverpool, the Holy City in the North of England. In addition the song was copyrighted Northern Songs, which I don’t own, so: it doesn’t really matter what chords I play, as it’s only a Northern Song…’
The basic recording was made in February 1967, during Sgt. Pepper, but wasn’t used at the time, an indication perhaps that they all felt it was a pretty feeble effort.
In the manuscript, George writes in the first verse that ‘he wrote it like that’ but in the recorded version he sings ‘we wrote it like that’, thus spreading the blame. There was also another verse, the fourth one, about his clothes, not in the manuscript.
‘Only A Northern Song’, from the Yellow Submarine album, January 1969, in George’s hand.
If you’re listening to this song
You may think the chords are going wrong
But they’re not
I just wrote it like that
When you listen late at night
You may feel the words are not quite right
But they are, I just wrote them myself
It doesn’t really matter what chords I play
What words I say or time of day it is
As it’s only a Northern song.
It doesn’t really matter what clothes I wear
Or how I fare or if my hair is brown
When it’s only a Northern song
If you think the harmony
Is a little dark and out of key
Then you’re right
’Cos I sing it myself
All Together Now
This time it’s Paul getting away with murder–doing a sing-along song, reciting the letters of the alphabet with some childlike activities thrown in, such as skip the rope, sail the ship. So, no lyrics worth commenting on. The ‘All Together Now’ chorus sounds as if it might by now have been appropriated as a political party anthem or as a football chant–but I have not heard it sung anywhere. Football fans around the world prefer to sing along to ‘Yellow Submarine’ or ‘Hey Jude’.
Hey Bulldog
Considering that John said this was meaningless, and therefore we can presume there was no bulldog nor bullfrog, which was the original idea, the words are not bad–very like some of his earlier poetry: ‘What makes you think you’re something special when you smile.’
The third line ‘Some kind of happiness is measured out in miles’ was originally ‘some kind of happiness is measured out in news’ but got misheard, and it was decided to use the misheard version. Either way it sounds familiar–with echoes of ‘I have measured out my life in coffee spoons’ from T.S. Eliot’s ‘Prufrock’. On the record, a lot of John’s words are indistinct, as he messes around, amusing himself, but, as he said, it was all fairly meaningless.
It’s All Too Much
George’s version of a childish nonsense verse–‘sail me on a silver sun’, ‘all the world is birthday cake’–but there are some fairly good lines–‘the more I learn the less I know’–and just when he’s getting too pretentious he concludes ‘and get me home for tea’. Some of the other lines sound a bit derivative and corny, such as long blonde hair and eyes of blue–which were used by the McCoys in their 1965 song ‘Sorrow’.
George said that he wrote it ‘after some LSD experiences which were later confirmed in meditation’. So any plagiarism was not his fault. But it’s a good song, worth digging out. The recorded song has some more verses–and a lot of repetition.
Your love is there for me
And the more I go inside
The more there is to see
It’s all too much for me to take
The love that’s shining all around you
Everywhere it’s what you make for us to take
It’s all too much
Floating down the stream of time
From life to life with me
Makes no difference where you are
Or where you’d like to be
It’s all too much for me to take
The love that’s shining all around
All the world is birthday cake
So take a piece, but not too much
Sail me on a silver sun
Where I know that I’m free
Show me that I’m everywhere
And get me home for tea
It’s all too much for me to see
The love that’s shining all around here
The more I learn, the less I know
And what I do is all too much
With your long blonde hair and eyes of blue
You’re too much–aah
We are dead
Too much, too much, too much…
‘It’s All Too Much‘, from Yellow Submarine, in George’s hand.
Get Back
‘Get Back’ was released as a single in April 1969, two months after the Yellow Submarine album. The song had been Paul’s idea, and John helped out with the lyrics. In an improvised early version, mucking around in a jamming session–which was a feature of most of their creative sessions–‘Get Back’ acquired for a while a deeper meaning, possibly in reaction to a news story on that day. Newly arrived Pakistanis in the UK were being told to go home by right-wing fascist groups and Enoch Powell was forecasting rivers of blood. So the title they were already working on picked up that mood.
But as they worked on it they gradually realized that it was open to misinterpretation and people might use it the wrong way. In one of the bootlegged tapes, there was a line that referred to Pakistanis, but they later redid the lyrics and dropped all references to Asian immigrants and the like, substituting neutral locations such as Tucson, Arizona, and introducing a frivolous element: a man who thought he was a woman. Thus the notion ‘get back’–as in go back–could be interpreted almost any way you liked. ‘I often left things ambiguous,’ Paul said about the song. ‘I like doing that in my songs.’
Most people probably never worried or even took in all the words, as the beat was so infectious, an exciting trainride of a rocker that got to number 1 all over the world.
The part manuscript is typed with the second verse corrected in John’s hand–turning ‘in the Californian grass’ into ‘for the Californian grass’ which suggests a rather different meaning. You can also read the reference to Pakistanis in the third verse.
Jojo was a man who thought he was a loner
But he knew it wouldn’t last
Jojo left his home in Tucson, Arizona
For the California grass
Get back, get back
Get back to where you once belonged
Get back, get back
Get back to where you once belonged
Get back Jojo. Go Home.
Get back, get back.
‘Get Back’ single, April 1969, part typed, with Paul’s corrections.
Sweet Loretta Martin thought she was a woman
But she was another man
All the girls around her say she’s got it coming
But she gets it while she can
Get back, get back
Get back to where you once belonged
Get back, get back
Get back to where you once belonged
Get back, Loretta. Go home.
Your mother’s waiting for you
Wearing her high-heel shoes
And her low-neck sweater
Get on home Loretta
Get back, get back.
Get back to where you once belonged
Don’t Let Me Down
John is supposed to have commented, when they were working on ‘Get Back’, that Paul really meant it to refer to Yoko, whom he wanted to go back, as she was now constantly in the studio. That was how John felt–that everyone was against Yoko.
Now in this song he is wondering that one day she might let him down and leave him. The song–the B side of ‘Get Back’–is for Yoko, one of the most heartfelt, moving love songs John ever wrote, a late flowering in a way, getting back to a simple message and a simple rhythm, with no cluttered-up psychedelic sounds or nonsense lyrics.
He says he is in love for the first time, which must have saddened the now deserted Cynthia, and he is sure it is going to last for ever: ‘A love that has no past.’ He has fun with the past tense of ‘do’, deliberately using bad grammar, ‘she done me good’ instead of she did me good. It is a common colloquial usage, as is its sexual connotation: ‘I guess nobody really done me–she done me, she done me good.’ And yet the lyrics don’t hark on the sexual element–it is all about true love, and whether it will last. John comes across as incredibly needy and fragile, which of course he often was, scared that people would let him down. That’s what he believed had happened to him in the past, when his parents let him be brought up by Mimi.
I got a letter from John in 1968, about a year before this record was released, in which he adds a PS: ‘Don’t let me down.’ It was about a small matter in my biography, which he wanted me to see Mimi about, but it shows that this was a phrase he used often.
In the manuscript, mostly in Mal’s hand with corrections by John, you can see John is undecided whether to opt for correct grammar with ‘does’, or go with ‘do’ instead.
Don’t let me down
Don’t let me down
Don’t let me down
Don’t let me down
Nobody ever loved me like she do me
Ooo she does, yes she does
And if somebody loved me like she do me
Ooo she do me, yes she does
I’m in love for the first time
Don’t you know it’s gonna last?
It’s a love that lasts forever
It’s a love that had no past
And from the first time that she really done me
Ooo she done me, she done me good
I guess nobody ever really done me
Ooo she done me, she done me good
Hey, don’t let me down
Can you dig it?
Don’t let me down