As I have already written somewhere buried in the unbelievable meanderings of this thread, Al Brodax wrote in his book "Up Periscope" that he originally imagined the badies in the Yellow Submarine movie as Eggmen with silver hammers, but as he wrote that would only work if Maxwell was recorded and released before the movie. As things did not move into that direction, the eggmen had to be dropped. I was always very sceptical regarding this, on one hand I thought why would he carry this idea for so long, but on the otherhand we had no trace at all of this song being around at that early time. So now we have got some prove for that. Unfortunately Al never mentioned (in his book) when or how he learned of that song. That made me even more sceptical. He was obviously a great story teller, sometimes stretching the basis of his stories a bit to fit his intentions. He does give a few examples for that, and that is confirmed by third parties who obviously were struggling with this part of his character. He was Mr. Producer, as The Beatles (Lennon) called him, so ... In case you are interested I cannot recommend the relevant episode of Something About The Beatles podcast highly enough. I have just started reading that book "Inside Yellow Submarine", which recollects the story from the viewpoint of the staff. We are really lucky to have such detailed recollections about the making of YS from such different viewpoints. Though I am still having trouble putting a kind of timeline together for how YS came about, also in order to get a perspective on what things happened when and in parallel. But seeing the sketch for Maxwell in McCartney's India notebook certainly was a huge surprise! Edit: This is the link to the mentioned podcast that I forgot to include: 143: Yellow Submarine at 50 - Something About The Beatles
There is stretch between having a few incomplete lyrics scribbled in notebook and transfering lyrics of a new Beatles song into cartoon. But maybe Paul was planning to record Maxwell for WA, did a demo and passed a acetate on to the YS team... ok, pretty farfetched.
OK we need to check out reactions of his fellow bandmates on the Nagras once he plays Maxwell first to see if they maybe already know the song.
Even if it was made by that time, would including a song about a serial killer in a children’s film be a good idea?
I’ve only listened on Spotify to the remix and I was astonished at the things I’d never noticed before. The only weird thing is the twangy guitar on Wild Honey Pie. It’s become super twangy-echoey, almost as if there is something wrong with the tape (if it was used). Is it just me? I feel sure it’s a deliberate effect. (Sorry if I missed any previous mention of this in the last 3,000 posts or so. )
One of the bar bands I was in did a kick-ass version of Birthday, if I say so myself. Whenever some punter would ask us to sing Happy Birthday to somebody, we would claim we didn't know it, and then launch into Birthday. I played the tambourine during the drum vamp, but I had to come back in with the bass when the guitar kicked in. I solved this dilemma by throwing the tambourine straight up in the air, it fell to earth I knew not where, and simultaneously hitting the low open E note on the bass. Miraculously, I never hit anybody with the tambourine.
The effect on 'Wild Honey Pie' has had to be recreated. From the book: "The fluttering sound of one of the acoustic guitars was created by making the speed of the tape fluctuate slightly. This was done by brushing a hand over the metal spool while it rotated at 15 inches per second. It resulted in a sound similar to playing a cassette tape when the machine’s batteries are almost flat. As Giles Martin and Sam Okell discovered while remixing The Beatles, this was an effect that could only be emulated by the same laborious – and rather hazardous – technique used in 1968." So the reason it sounds different is because it is different! It's technically a re-recording I guess.
YS was never planned nor executed as a children's movie. It does work as such, but it was intended to lift animation to a next level of art to match The Beatles' sonic and psychedelic innovation. When I watched it again some months ago after some years I was very much amazed, this was not the YS I remembered. I had seen some animes in the meantime, one of my favourite ones being Mind Games. A strange, absurd and allaround awesome movie, and it kind of picks up where YS leaves us. For YS there was one brief from early on: No resemblance whatsoever to the mass produced cheap Beatles Cartoons. Which did put Brodax into the position to produce YS in the first place but he had to fight very hard even to get the pitch through to Brian. And those two aparantly never got along well. Plus he managed to assamble an awesome team, the true heroes of YS. The production of this movie is an adventure in itself, with the voive actor being arrested in the midst of recording (developing) the sound track and shortly before the deadline the adventure even includes abduction and taking "hostile" several movie reels. In the end when production began there was no finished script and just a few months time until the set premiere date, which is why they split the team to work on songs first. Each team or artists did so in the style they favoured most, which resulted in the episodic nature that we know today, which is a huge part of the movie's legacy, some great and innovative Anime artists cite YS as an influence. You can very much feel the structural similarities between the awesome anime Mind Game and YS. Masaaki Yuasa cited YS as having an influence on him. Here it's easy to see in what way. In addition: How The Beatles' Yellow Submarine Influenced Cartoons From The Simpsons to Adventure Time “I don’t think The Simpsons would exist without Yellow Submarine,” said Josh Weinstein, an Emmy-winning writer and producer who has worked on The Simpsons, Futurama, and the upcoming Netflix series Disenchantment. “Yellow Submarine was the first mainstream subversive piece of animation. It opened a door for animation for adults that didn't follow the rules—for Simpsons, and Ren & Stimpy, and Family Guy, and any modern animation that's also geared towards adults.” How the Beatles' Yellow Submarine gave rise to modern animation
Anyone else noticed that on the outtake of "Dont Pass Me By" you actually hear a door knocker after Ringo sings "waiting for your knock dear..."
I'm glad the story unearthed with this reissue is that for all intents they were still a unified band on this album.....which we had hints of that from Anthology 3.
This really isn’t new information: it’s been around since the release of the album. Mal Evans’ article in the November 1968 issue of The Beatles Monthly Book states that Maxwell’s Silver Hammer and Polythene Pan (sic) were “last-minute songs” that “couldn’t be recorded in time”.
That doesn't even makes sense. How could "Polythene Pam" be a "last minute song" when it was part of the Esher Demos?
I don't think that we would be disappointed if we didn't have Jealous Guy. The melody is still gorgeous. Perhaps Lennon had held off on recording "Pam" in hopes of completing the song.
I always thought it worked great, as do all of the comments of John’s that Spector sprinkled in. It makes the album livelier and more personal. It also makes the transition from Dig It as a link track work. Really, save for the kitch of the ornamentation on The Long and Winding Road, I really rate Spector’s whole version of the album. It sounds really good.
As Paul only returned to the UK the last week of March and the movie Yellow Sumarine was completed in early May 1968, prints being struck beginning June 3rd, it's very unlikely there was time to record a song and then storyboard and draw and insert a whole animation sequence so I'm guessing it's another of Al's retrospective tall stories.
