The Beatles – Yellow Submarine

Why is this not worth much like MAN this record sounds good

Many will suggest that Yellow Submarine isn’t actually an album, especially when compared to the Beatles other three soundtracks A Hard Days Night and Help! and the divinely wonderful Magical Mystery Tour.

While the two movie soundtracks were what they were, great pop songs around which a movie was built, and Magical Mystery being a rather flawed movie, yet filled with intoxicating and elevating cryptic lysergic laced material, Yellow Submarine falls short on a variety of levels, seeming to reflect the halfhearted efforts of a band who in 1969 had many other things on their minds. With the movie being well received, it was nothing short of an artistic triumph that has never been equaled. Yet due to one entire side of the record being filled with orchestra filler, the musical instrumental scores, as was done on the American version of “A Hard Day’s Night,” only side one is actually pop listenable.

As to the movie itself, it’s suggested that the boys met with the movie creators a mere two times, and that in order to contribute material for the adventure, they combed through leftover songs … then again, even the voices of the Beatles were staged by actors. Considering the lonely six tracks for this album, “Yellow Submarine” and “All You Need Is Lover” were already well know with their connection to Revolver, with the other four numbers being drawn from sessions back in 1967 … the hauntingly wonderful psychedelic tracks by George Harrison “It’s Only A Northern Song” and “It’s All Too Much,” along with Lennon’s funky and tough “Hey Bulldog” and Paul’s little ditty “All Together Now.”

Of course one could make the argument that under the right conditions the sweeping kitsch lushly orchestrated music can be quite satisfying … though I’ve never been satisfied, finding it-all to be too much, anonymous and filled with self-consciousness, having never been able to make it through side two of the album. This goes to make the album forgettable, yet when one hears those songs out of context, namely the Harrison material, my ears always perk up, instantly tracking though the Beatles’ cata my head for the album from which the song was derived, only to find myself after a few minutes saying, “Oh yea, Yellow Submarine” in disappointment. I will it to having burned my own copy of Magical Mystery Tour, into which I’ve laced those two Harrison songs, extending the length of the release, and my time raptured on the couch a bit more pleasant.

So yes, Yellow Submarine has its place, especially since we were introduced to the swirling psychedelic meanderings George Harrison was capable of, which makes one side of this release brilliant, and the other a complete waste of time.

Review by Jenell Kesler