SONGBOOK
YELLOW SUBMARINE
You had this lovely, lovely land of brightness and colour. And everybody is smiling and happy and butterflies flitting around and it was that kind of image . . . it was like a dream world, really.
– George Martin
TRACK LIST
Side 1:
Yellow Submarine (Lennon-McCartney)
Only A Northern Song (Harrison)
All Together Now (Lennon-McCartney)
Hey Bulldog (Lennon-McCartney)
It’s All Too Much (Harrison)
All You Need Is Love (Lennon-McCartney)
Side 2:
Pepperland
Sea Of Time
Sea Of Holes
Sea Of Monsters
March Of The Meanies
Pepperland Laid Waste
Yellow Submarine In Pepperland
(All of these compositions were written by George Martin as part of the score for Yellow Submarine.)
Released: 17 January 1969 (Apple)
Highest chart position: 3
Weeks in chart: 10
FAB FACT
The majority of the songs that would end up on the Yellow Submarine soundtrack were recorded during the sessions for Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and Magical Mystery Tour. By the time the film was in production and released, The Beatles were concentrating on making the White Album.
FAB FACT
George has two songs on the soundtrack album, an indication of John and Paul’s disinterest in the project. ‘It’s All Too Much’ was written after an acid trip and features, in the fadeout, George singing the opening lines of The Merseybeats’ classic cover of ‘Sorrow’ as well as the trumpets riffing on Jeremiah Clarke’s ‘Prince Of Denmark March’. His ‘Only A Northern Song’ was written as a pointed joke towards Northern Songs, the company set up by Dick James at the beginning of The Beatles’ career to look after their publishing rights.
FAB FACT
Although the film premiered in July 1968, the Martin songs that made up the score were re-recorded for the soundtrack album with a forty-one-piece orchestra conducted by Martin in sessions on 22 and 23 October. His score was evocative, and playful too, with experimental techniques – music played backwards, sound effects and so on – he had learned from working with The Beatles. And there was a nod to the iconic Hamlet cigar commercials in the ‘Sea Of Monsters’ scene, with Bach’s ‘Air On The G String’.