If there is a Beatles album that could be described as “non-essential,” or “disposable,” or “give me my money back,” it’s Yellow Submarine. Consider—and then quickly dismiss—the entire second side, which is just a series of short orchestral compositions by George Martin for the soundtrack to the animated film of the same name. This leaves us side one—a handicap, but not a fatal one; there are plenty of worthwhile albums out there that have one really good side and one that’s best ignored—but the two famous songs on that side (the title track and “All You Need Is Love”) weren’t even new when this album was released.
The original plan was apparently to release the other four songs on side one—you know, the actual new-in-1967 ones—as a standalone EP. Had they done so, it almost certainly would have gone on to be held in higher regard than Yellow Submarine ever was. These tracks are mostly pretty good: George’s two turns at the mic act as bookends, first in the passive-aggressive, floating-dream-state dig at his bandmates’ business practices that is “Only a Northern Song” and then on the psych-pop masterpiece “It’s All Too Much;” in between, Paul the ditty-meister leads a few back-porch jug-band verses of what basically amounts to a goofy childhood nonsense song (“All Together Now”). It’s fine, if somewhat uneven, work.
But the track that would have held that EP together—and the one that works the hardest to redeem this disc—is “Hey Bulldog,” a four-four stomper with a tough-guy piano riff intro and some absolutely screaming guitar tone in George’s solo. It also has Paul and John barking like dogs for reasons that are unexplained (and probably best left that way). If you follow that link, be sure and listen to the way the slight echo in the snare hits in the chorus adds tension and forward motion, but is something you probably wouldn’t even notice unless it was pointed out to you.
Ever since I was a little kid (we had a lot of Beatles albums in my house growing up), I’ve been able to put “Hey Bulldog” on a loop and just let it repeat for half an hour or so. Too bad it doesn’t get the support it deserves from the rest of the disc, but if you happen to spot this in the bargain bin at your local record shop, it’s probably worth a couple bucks on its own.
