Yellow Submarine (Stereo - 2009 remaster)

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Track list

Disc 1

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About

From the liner notes:

The Beatles’ tenth album was released in the UK on 17th January, 1969 as a soundtrack companion to the animated film Yellow Submarine, which had premiered six months earlier in London and during November 1968 in the States. One side of the LP was devoted to six Beatles tracks and the other featured a new recording of the film’s orchestral score composed by George Martin.

In addition to two hit singles from 1966 and 1967, side one presented four previously unreleased Beatles songs that were first heard in the movie. There was a plan to make those songs available on a seven-inch EP running at LP speed, which would also include another unreleased track, ‘Across The Universe’. Although a mono master tape for the proposed record was compiled in March, 1969, the EP was never pressed.

When Yellow Submarine arrived in the shops, ‘The White Album’ was still at number one. On the British LP sleeve, Apple press officer Derek Taylor encouraged record buyers to purchase that recent album by introducing a review written by Tony Palmer. The US release of Yellow Submarine had different sleeve notes written by Dan Davis, who traced the heroic roots of the cartoon characters in the movie. Both sets of notes are included in this booklet.

Although never intended to be a high-profile Beatles release, the album reached number three in the UK and stayed in the Top 15 for ten weeks. In the USA, while ‘The White Album’ held at number one, Yellow Submarine reached its highest placing of number two. Its initial chart run in 1969 lasted for 24 weeks.
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RECORDING NOTES

Produced by George Martin
Orchestrations by George Martin
Principal Engineer: Geoff Emerick

The four ‘new’ Beatles songs included on side one of Yellow Submarine had, in fact, been recorded a long time before the album’s release in January, 1969. Three came from 1967 and ‘Hey Bulldog’ was completed in February, 1968. The most recent recording on the LP was the film score on side two, which George Martin had re-recorded with an orchestra of 41 musicians in Studio One of Abbey Road in October, 1968.

The songs that were introduced on Yellow Submarine were made in the period when only four-track tape machines were available to the group in Abbey Road. That was fine for “All Together Now’ and ‘Hey Bulldog’, which were confined to four tracks. However, the other two songs required extra tracks and the usual method was to create them by ‘bouncing down’. This process involved copying the first reel’s completed four tracks to a new tape and simultaneously combining some of them to leave free as many tracks as were needed for additional overdubs. ‘It’s All Too Much’ was begun and then ‘bounced down’ to a second tape at De Lane Lea Studios. Following a repeat of this process to a third four-track at Abbey Road, more overdubs were added so that nine tracks were used to complete the song.

In contrast, using just one four-track tape, ‘Hey Bulldog’ was recorded, overdubbed and mixed in a single ten hour session. Track one had drums, piano, guitar and tambourine; two contained bass, guitar and off-beat drum with reverb; a double-tracked vocal and guitar solo were on three; and the final track included John’s lead vocal with Paul singing a backing vocal and an additional guitar solo.

Dating back to the sessions for Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, ‘Only A Northern Song’ had been recorded in a unique manner. Abbey Road’s technical engineers had discovered a way of controlling the speed of two four-track tape machines so that they ran in perfect synchronisation. With no need for ‘bouncing down’, eight tracks were simultaneously available. Tape one consisted of bass, trumpet with glockenspiel, drums and organ and the second tape featured effects, piano, vocal and double-tracked vocal.

However, problems arose during mixing when, as the play buttons were pressed on the two machines, it became a process of trial and error whether they would, in fact, start at exactly the same time. It was such a haphazard and time consuming process that only a mono mix was completed and as a result an artificially enhanced—or fake—stereo version had to be created for the stereo album. Although this was common practice at the time, it subsequently fell out of favour and so the song is presented on this CD in mono.

Ironically, the original mix of ‘Only A Northern Song’ was never used because the mono LP was created during the cutting process by simply combining the left and right channels from the stereo master tape. Consequently, this previously unreleased mono version can now be heard for the first time.
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This remastered album has been created from the original stereo analogue master tapes except for track 2, which is from the original mono analogue master.

Remastered by Paul Hicks, Steve Rooke and Guy Massey
Project Co-ordinator: Allan Rouse
Thanks to Simon Gibson

Historical Notes: Kevin Howlett and Mike Heatley
Recording Notes: Allan Rouse and Kevin Howlett
Project management for EMI Records Ltd: Wendy Day and Guy Hayden

Artwork © 2009 Subafilms Ltd.
All Illustrations © Subafilms Ltd.
Album Redesign: Drew Lorimer

All songs published by Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC.
Digital Remaster (P) 2009 The copyright in this sound recording is owned by EMI Records Ltd. © 2009 EMI Records Ltd. This label copy information is the subject of copyright protection. All rights reserved.