Analytical songs

The Beatles Creative Paper

Music 109

The Beatle were an amazing group of artist with talent and sense of music that was so unique at that time that contributed to their uprising and world domination in a music sense, from 1960 to 1970. During the groups unstoppable domination, they produced so many songs and albums and one of the albums they recorded, is still regarded as the best album of all time, which is the “Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band.” The Beatles as a group have made so many songs that it is hard for casual listeners or a student learning about the Beatles, like myself, to really learn them all, with some songs having multiple versions, demo tracks and unreleased songs. Due to this fact, we did not get to learn a lot of the Beatles songs, especially the lesser known ones. I believe, by getting this chance to write a creative paper on 3 songs that we didn’t learn, would let me to learn in-depth at least 3 more of this iconic group’s songs.

The first song that I would like that I would like to analyze is the often mistaken and often criticized song, “Yellow Submarine.” This song was release on the album “Yellow Submarine” and the album “Revolver.” The Beatles are known to compose songs that have deep meaning and are very reflective to their era and address the controversies of the time. Such as songs like “Elenor Rigby,” which remains one of the songs, in my opinion, to has the deepest meaning and is able to struck many lonely hearts with its powerful message, thus becoming an instant classic Beatle song. However, “Yellow Submarine” was not one of these type of songs. Rather it was the opposite type of song as “Elenor Rigby.” It was very confusing to most lyric analyst at the time as they couldn’t understand the meaning behind this song.

Before I move on actually analyzing the lyrics of this song, I would like to share my train of thought when deciding to write about this interesting song. This song was written by Paul McCartney and sang by Ringo Starr and recorded in 1966 and released for the first time in the album “Revolver.” Oddly enough that this song was released as a double a-side with “Eleanor Rigby,” which I would consider a polar opposite to “Yellow Submarine.” Shortly after this song was released, Paul McCartney explained that “Yellow Submarine” was intended to be different. It was supposed to be just a song about kids going on a yellow submarine just to have fun. He said the idea to write this song came while he was lying on the bed, before going to sleep, thinking about if they had a children’s song about being with friends in a yellow submarine. He claimed that he purposely used short words in the lyrics of this song because he wanted kids to pick it up early and sing along.

The words that was used in the lyrics of this song is short and simple. Kids would have easier time singing along as Paul McCartney intended. By just reading and listening to the lyrics I would say that this song was about having fun in a yellow submarine with friends. There is no other way to interpret this song. One of the part that I like the most from the lyric is how it starts off. It felt as if an old grandfather wants to tell his stories when he was young to his grandchildren and the tone how they started off also solidify this feeling. The instrument used for this song was the guitar, bass, tambourine and bass drum. The other thing I found that this song has a lot of repetition in their chorus. For example, “We all live in a yellow submarine, Yellow submarine, yellow submarine, We all live in a yellow submarine, Yellow submarine, yellow submarine.” This chorus was repeated three time in the duration of this song. I feel that this repetition, is the attraction factor of this song as it gives off this catchy feeling and appealing for their young audience. It makes me remember a song used in a show I used to watch as a kid, which was called “Bear in the Big Blue House” (1997-2009). The pace of the beat and the melody was perfect for a children’s song as it wasn’t too fast and the melody was easy to hum to. This song uses a 4/4 as the meter. One thing about the melody that stood out for me was Ringo’s ponding on the bass drum on every even quarter note was the key to create the feeling that a story is being told.