by Moe Zilla

Created on: February 19, 2008

The "Yellow Submarine" soundtrack remains an interesting curio in the Beatles catalog. For years Beatles collectors struggled with the fact that there were interesting tracks buried on the album - along with some tracks which weren't even recorded by the Beatles.

The second side of "Yellow Submarine" contained nothing but orchestral music for the 1968 film, written by George Martin (though the final track, "Yellow Submarine in Pepperland," featured a syrupy orchestral version of the movie's title song.) They're lush arrangements, with a complete symphony orchestra providing a full range of instruments - French horns, harps, and classical violins. The songs offer the flowery lilt of good classical music, consistent with the movie's imaginative tone, but interestingly, they're not the tracks which appeared in the movie. Reportedly the orchestra recorded a separate version of Martin's arrangements just to include on the album.

The Beatles recorded all the songs on side one - but they have a mixed pedigree. Of the six songs on side one, two had already been released on earlier albums ("Yellow Submarine" and "All You Need is Love"). They're both upbeat and popular songs, and they're complemented nicely by "All Together Now," which appeared in the movie when the Beatles work together to launch the submarine. "Hey Bulldog" is one of the Beatles' best hard-rocking songs, though the accompanying scene in the movie wasn't restored until 1999. (The Beatles, hiding from Blue Meanies, distract a pack of blue bulldogs using a player piano.) An engineer for the recording session suggests it was the last time the Beatles really worked as a four-man band, since tension would soon start tearing the band apart during the recording of the White Album and "Abbey Road."

The two remaining songs were recorded within a year of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," capturing the bands early experiments with a psychedelic sound. "It's All Too Much" would later be covered by the Grateful Dead, and "It's Only a Northern Song" featured an even more amazing mix of sounds, including some spectacular electric keyboards. They're original but strange, and ultimately not as musically rich as some of the band's other work.

In 1999 Capitol Records solved the long-standing dilemma presented by this album. They released the "Yellow Submarine (Songtrack)," which contained a full album's worth of Beatles songs - six from the original album, plus nine more which were used for parts of the movie. Though some argue this set of songs isn't as "authentic" as the original 1967 release, it's ultimately a much more enjoyable album.

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