Beatles Yellow Submarine

The song “Yellow Submarine” first appeared in August 1966 as both a “double A side” single with “Eleanor Rigby”, and as a track on the "Revolver" album, also released in August 1966. Yellow Submarine was written by Paul McCartney for Ringo Starr’s somewhat limited vocal range. When the song was recorded the band used a variety of odd techniques to create the various background noises heard in the background, including chains, bells, cash registers and a bath filled with water. The song was well received and both the "Yellow Submarine" single and the "Revolver" album were huge hits worldwide.

Two years latter in 1968 the Yellow Submarine, an animated musical featuring the Beatles music was released. The movie’s plot involved the invasion of Pepperland by the Blue Meanies, the recruitment of the Beatles to save it, and the eventual defeat of the Blue Meanies by the Beatles disguised as Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The centerpiece of the movie isn’t the plot though; it’s the amazing psychedelic animation and Beatles music. The movie was a huge hit at the time, and is still considered to be a classic example of an animated musical. An interesting fact about the movie is that the Beatles did not play themselves (or their voices) and only appear in a short live action sequence at the very end of the movie.

A few months after the movie was released, a selection of songs from the movie was put together and released as an album. Only the first side of the album included Beatles songs. The second side of the album featured instrumental music from the movie written by George Martin (the music is quite good though). The first side of the album contained only six songs, and of those, only four had been unreleased, including “Only a Northern Song”, “All Together Now”, “Hey Bulldog” and “It’s All Too Much”. “Yellow Submarine” and “All You Need is Love” were used in the movie, but had been previously unreleased. Many other songs (that had been previously released as singles or on earlier albums) were used in the movie, but not included on the original soundtrack (although a later "Songtrack" album was in 1999 containing those songs)..

The "Yellow Submarine" album was a huge hit as usual for Beatles releases, but was considered not to be quite up to their standards due to the lack of new original songs.

In 1999 the audio for Yellow Submarine was digitally restored and a new film transfer was created from newly cleaned original film negatives. Along with the rerelease of the movie, a remixed original album was released. Along with the new “Yellow Submarine Songtrack” album that contained most of the original Beatles music that appeared in the film.

A new version of Yellow Submarine is being developed by Disney and has a planned release date of 2010. The remake will use the same music (as far as is known) but will be digitally animated instead of using traditional cell animation. Whether the new film can hold its own against the classic version remains to be seen.

Since the Yellow Submarine was released in 1968, a great many Yellow Submarine themed items have been produced. Some of the most unique and interesting are featured here.

The Yellow Submarine cookie cutter is available from Amazon and would make great lemon yellow frosted cookies. A colorful Yellow Submarine mug would be great to use for milk to go with your Yellow Submarine cookies! Keeping with the rather odd culinary theme, a Yellow Submarine lunch box is also available (great for cookies, although you may want to skip putting your filled mug in there!).

These collectible action figures are a bit pricey, but extremely cool. They’re from McFarlane and feature each of the four Beatles with a character (using the term somewhat loosely) from the movie. Paul’s figure (including his colorful tie from the movie) comes with the “Love” Glove and there’s a second Paul that includes the Captain. John’s figure includes Jeremy (the Nowhere Man) and a selection of holes. George come with the Yellow Submarine itself and the Ringo figure includes the Blue Meanie himself! There’s also a set that includes all four Beatles and the Yellow Submarine, but it’s quite expensive and probably only of interest to die hard fans (or those with a lot of funds!).