It’s time for this week’s BROW. As you likely know, it was fairly customary for John Lennon and Paul McCartney to pen a song together, for Ringo to sing, on whatever album they happened to be working on at the time. During the Revolver sessions of 1966, John had a verse melody in mind for the “Ringo” song to put with a chorus melody of Paul’s. I’m not sure whose idea it was to write fairy tale-type lyrics, but it fit perfectly with this time of psychedelic influence. It could have even been Donovan, who has no official composition credit but, I understand, did come up with some of the words. Of course, the song is Yellow Submarine. The backing track was recorded and Ringo’s vocal’s added on May 26, 1966 and originally, it was probably just thought of as album filler. Then, possibly with the help of some sort of mind-bending imagination enhancement, the color came to the project.

The idea was to add a “party atmosphere”, and what better way to create it than by having a party in the recording studio? The date was scheduled for June 1, 1966. The invited, who participated in recording the party atmosphere heard in the mix, include Brian Jones (of The Rolling Stones), Marianne Faithful, George’s wife Patti Harrison, Beatle assistants Neil Aspinal and Mal Evans and others. This week’s BROW is a special recording of the effects used in the Yellow Submarine song, with the backing track and Ringo vocal from take 5 heard in the background. In order of appearance (roughly) there is:

1. John blowing bubble in a straw
2. 2 bells
3. a grinding noisemaker
4. party chatter
5. an ocarina (which is an ancient flute-type wind instrument)
6. a propeller cranked up and dunked in the water
7. spilled coins
8. a foghorn
9. a group singalong of the chorus
10. chains swishing in a metal tub of water
11. clinking glasses
12. more coins spilling and party chatter
13. a brass band
14. a tapping noise
15. “full speed ahead” and other mock naval orders
16. some type of submerging “whoosh” sound
17. response shouts from John (“life of ease”, “all we need”, “sky of blue” etc.)
18. Mal Evans playing a marching band bass drum

So, these things livened up the song a bit and instead of being “album filler”, Yellow Submarine topped the charts as a single on both sides of the Atlantic. Things were definitely changing as far as the unorthodox recording process of The Beatles. Their unique ideas and abilities, in that regard, blossomed even further for the next album, when they became Sgt.Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

The Beatles, 1966

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