YELLOW SUBMARINE (1968)
PAUL AND GEORGE 1968
(following the release of the 'Yellow Submarine' movie)
PAUL: "We're just in it as drawings. It's us animated."
Q: "Did 'Magical Mystery Tour' put you off making a film completely yourselves?"
GEORGE: (jokingly) "Yeah, we're only gonna be cartoons forever now, because they really put us off... those no good, damn critics."
PAUL: (laughs) "It's a new career piece."
Q: "The cartoon makes a bit of fun at the Maharishi. Does this mean you're finished with him?"
PAUL: "It's not that we're FINISHED with him, but it was a bit of a phase. He's still a great fella, and everybody's fine... but we don't go out with him anymore."
JOHN 1972
(on the making of the film)
JOHN: "(Producer) Al Brodax got half of 'Yellow Submarine' out of my mouth. The idea for the Hoover -- the machine that sucks people up-- all those were my ideas. They used to come to the studio and chat. 'Hi, John old bean. Got any ideas for the film?' And I'd just spout out all this stuff, and they went off and did it."
JOHN 1980
(on the movie soundtrack)
JOHN: "It was the third movie that we owed United Artists. Brian (Epstein) had set it up and we wanted nothing to do with it. They wanted another song, so I knocked off 'Hey Bulldog.' It's a good-sounding record that means nothing."
RINGO 1994
(his own impressions of the movie)
RINGO: "I loved 'Yellow Submarine.' I thought it was innovative with great animation. It's still great and I'm glad we were involved with it."
GEORGE 1994:
(regarding the cartoon voices)
GEORGE: "Yeah, I like the film. I think it's a classic film. I'm not sure why we never did our own voices, but the actors probably did it better anyway. You know, 'cuz you needed to be more cartoon-like and our voices were pretty cartoon-like anyway, but you know, the exaggeration that you've got with the other actors voices-- I think it suits it."
PAUL 1996
(remembering the 'Yellow Submarine' project)
PAUL: "Al Brodax talked to us about the possibility of doing a feature and we met at my house in London . Erich Segal came along as well. At the start, all four of us hoped for something a little bit groovier... sort of more classic 'Pinocchio' or 'Snow White.' Right away, they (Broadax and Segal) made it clear that they weren't keen to do just a straight Disney thing... and said, 'We think you're further out now.' So from being rather childish, which the (saturday morning) cartoon series most definitely was, they wanted to go completely psychedelic! So they went ahead and made something that 'at the time' I wasn't wild about because it lacked the ingenuity and warmth and over-all magic you associate with Disney. The end result was that 'Yellow Submarine' just didn't draw me into it. Basically I thought it had alot of very clever sequences, but nothing more. Looking back now, it most definitely is a piece of it's time, and you can't escape the fact that it was very innovative."
GEORGE 1999
(regarding the newly released 'Yellow Submarine' DVD with Surround mixes)
GEORGE: "Everything has a different mix on it now. Because when they set up to this new, wraparound five-speaker mix for the film, they were working away doing that for months and months at Abbey Road. You see, alot of the time the Beatles were only working on 4-track tape, so we'd get to the fourth track and then what we'd do is mix the four tracks onto one track of another 4-track machine, and then we'd do another three tracks. So what they've gone doing in these new mixes was to connect all the four tracks together and have the first four tracks all separated."
Q: "In other words, the individual tracks on the basic tapes were rediscovered, allowing you to separate each of the original, incremental tracks."
GEORGE: "So for the first time you've actually got a much bigger, cleaner mix, because you've got the original bass and drum and guitar tracks unmixed-together, you know. And also, with all the old equipment and all the compressors and the stuff that we used in those days, you'd spend ages trying to improve the final 4-track mix you figured you were stuck with. This engineer, a fellow named Peter Mew, did a lot of the work with a guy called Allan Rouse, who's kind of in charge of all the Beatles catalog. So we went in and listened to all these new, fully remixed tracks, and they really are good, with the sound coming all around you."
PAUL 1999
(regarding the Surround mixes for the DVD release)
PAUL: "Ideally I’d never remix Beatle songs, because the four of us sitting there were always at every mix we ever did. Well... pretty much... so that we all signed off on it. We said, 'Yeah, that’s how we want it to sound.' So to be any different from that, in our minds, would spoil it. But what happens is-- technology keeps advancing, you know. So when they were redoing the film, the film was in a pretty sorry state so they had to kind of go back to the negative, clean it up, really fix it up and do alot of work on it. Then they said, 'Well, wait a minute, the sound track is pretty ropy, too.' So it suddenly meant that the re-mixing was going to have to happen. We got a hold of some really good guys from EMI and we listened to it and we okayed them all. And because it was going to this 5:1, whatever it is. You know, the Surround Sound thing like in the movies. So it physically needed it just for technical reasons. So we went along with that. But generally, about re-mixing, I don’t really think it’s too good an idea because, you know, we got them spot-on the first time.
