Sky of Blue, Sea of Green: A Semiotic Reading of the Film "Yellow Submarine"

Author(s): Marianne Tatom Letts

Source: Popular Music, Vol. 27, No. 1 (Jan., 2008), pp. 1-14
Published by: Cambridge University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40212441
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Popular Music (2008) Volume 27/1. Copyright © 2008 Cambridge University Press, pp. 1-14
doi:10.1017/S026114300800144X Printed in the United Kingdom

Sky of blue, sea of green: a

semiotic reading of the film
Yellow Submarine

MARIANNE TATOM LETTS

Austin, TX, USA
E-mail: Marianne@illuin.org

Abstract

The Beatles' film Yellow Submarine (1968) reflects conflicts between conventional society,
represented by classical music, and rebellious youth culture, represented by other musical types,
such as folk and pop (subsumed under the term 'vernacular'). Taking their inspiration from the
song 'Yellow Submarine' (Revolver, 1966), the filmmakers created a narrative for a psychedelic
'hero's journey' from existing Beatles songs. This article discusses how the musical codes that
symbolise different groups are used to mediate between divergent elements in both the film and
contemporary society, by referring to such elements beyond the film as the Beatles' comprehensive
body of songs (which in itself forms a kind of mythology) and cultural events of the time. In
Yellow Submarine, the Blue Meanies imprison Pepperland by immobilising all producers of
music, whether 'classical' (the string quartet led by the elderly Lord Mayor) or 'vernacular' (Sgt.
Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band). The Beatles are able to free Pepperland by manipulating and
ultimately uniting the musical codes - an idealistic message for the 'real world' to heed.

When the Beatles' film Yellow Submarine was released in 1968, it reflected generational
conflicts in society at the time. Inspired initially by the song 'Yellow Submarine' from
the album Revolver (1966), the filmmakers1 strung together several other existing
Beatles songs (along with incidental music by long-time Beatles producer George
Martin) to form a narrative for a psychedelic 'hero's journey'2 evocative of classic
mythologies described by Joseph Campbell, Vladmir Propp, Eero Tarasti and A.J.
Greimas, among others. In this article I will discuss how the musical codes that
represent different genres and thus different cultural groups are manipulated to
mediate between divergent elements in both the film and contemporary society, by
referring to such elements beyond the film as the Beatles' comprehensive body of
songs (which in itself forms a kind of mythology) and cultural events of the time. The
filmmakers play on the cultural consciousness of the audience in terms of familiarity
with the Beatles and various musical genres to create a new mythology.
The plot of Yellow Submarine involves the Blue Meanies imprisoning Pepperland
by immobilising all producers of music, whether 'classical' (high culture) or 'vernacu-
lar' (low culture). The Beatles in turn free Pepperland by releasing these musicians. To
accomplish this task they must unite the groups represented by the classical and
vernacular musical codes - an idealistic message for the 'real world' to heed. While the
term 'classical' refers in music-analytical circles to only the music of the high classical
period of Haydn and Mozart, here I am using instead its more general definition as
1

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2 Marianne Tatom Letts

'highbrow' music 'in opposition to the more popular forms of the art, w
dance tunes, jazz, or whatever' (Brown 1994, p. 39). I have used the term
broadly to refer to both the folk idiom (gypsy/dance music) and popul
(the Beatles' rock-and-roll music).3 The Beatles' repertoire contains elem
genres, including folk, classical and ethnic music, but in a sense, all of
'vernacular', simply because they are pop musicians. I have categorised
songs in Yellow Submarine as belonging to one category or another based
musical style referenced: 'classical' refers to songs that use string orches
'vernacular' refers to songs with 'folk' instruments such as acoustic guit
long tradition of pitting different musical styles against each other to f
style by the end (see Feuer 1982, pp. 54-69; Rodman 2000, pp. 187-206),
musical genres also 'blur and shift' as audiences gain greater expos
(Barlow 2001, pp. 31-52). The Beatles' own music outside the film brou
orchestrations to a wider audience, with the help of producer George M
In addition to softening the boundaries between musical genre
'incur the multiple textualities of film and self by emphasizing the lac
boundaries between past and present, fiction and reality, screen
(Everett 2000, p. 112). That is, songs in a film can call upon the au
experience and associations to multiply the number of possible interpre
film itself. Music is normally subordinate to a film's narrative, 'unhear
1987), because 'its narrative functions are folded into, or readily overcom
on the soundtrack, dialogue routinely takes precedence over music' (B
and Neumeyer 2000, p. 1). There is a 'strong historical tradition in cinema st
'considers music as subordinate to the image and narrative' (ibid., p. 2).
particular have 'considerable emotive and nostalgic potency' to create
response in many listeners by recalling memories of historical moments (Ev
pp. 102, 104). If pop music in films draws attention to itself as music, it can
spectator from the narrative (Steiner 1963, in Everett 2000, p. 103). In Yello
the use of pop music continually reminds spectators that they are watc
movie and reinforces the conventional stereotypes of George as the mys
as happy-go-lucky, etc., which actually strengthens the narrative by ap
audience's pop-culture awareness and their 'insider' status as Beatles fa
Any message the viewer receives from Yellow Submarine should not, ho
read as wholly endorsed by and emanating from the 'real' Beatles, wh
involvement in the film and did not even do their own voiceovers. K.J. Don
the irony that 'the British film that most fully develops a sense of indi
edelic culture [Yellow Submarine] was made virtually without the Beatl
prime movers in British cultural activity throughout the decade' (Don
p. 21). Although the message of cultural unity through music can be
Beatles' recordings of the time, the film is more credibly examined as a
from which the viewer can glean a certain message, whether or not it w
or the filmmakers' intent.5 Within the film, the cartoon Beatles const
filmmakers take on the collective persona of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts
order to save Pepperland (see Figure 1). Just as the real Beatles were a
leading the band during any given song, Sgt. Pepper is never identified
individual. The Beatles had constructed this group persona for the album Sg
Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967), perhaps as an attempt to distance them
their stifling fans. When the non-cartoon Beatles appear in a live sequen
of the film, they are dressed identically in conservative grey suits, r

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 Sky of blue, sea of green 3

MM - ® ® ® ®

Beatles -> Sgt. Pepper's band (Beatles' construction)

ji ji ji ji -► ©©©©

Beatles songs -► Cartoon Beatles (Filmmakers' con

Cartoon Beatles -► Sgt. Pepper's band (Filmmakers'

of real Beatles' construction)
Figure 1. Personae in Yellow Submarine.

'uniforms' of an earlier time in their career. If the film functions as if it were a live
show, as the original Sgt . Pepper album did, it is striking that when the Beatles take off
their gaudy Sgt. Pepper persona at the end of the show, moving from cartoon to real
life, they reveal another constructed persona underneath.
Jean-Jacques Nattiez's (1990a and 1990b) tripartition model is helpful in decon-
structing the levels of production involved in making Yellow Submarine. The classical
communication schema posits that a message proceeds from the producer to the
receiver, but in Nattiez's system, both the producer and the receiver act on the trace.
The producer represents the poietic level, and the receiver/consumer, the esthesic.
The 'essence' of a musical work is 'at once its genesis [poietic], its organisation [trace],
and the way it is perceived [esthesic]' (Nattiez 1990b, p. ix). The trace is the 'material
reality of the work . . . the physical traces that result from the poietic process', or the
'neutral level', but it 'remains merely an amorphous physical reality, until it is
entrapped by analysis'. Because of this, 'the listener will project configurations upon
the work that do not always coincide with the poietic process' (ibid., pp. 15-17). TTius
the message derived from a given text is not necessarily the one embedded in it by its
creator. The songs used in Yellow Submarine constitute a 'trace' in that they were, for
the most part, created prior to the movie, then interpreted by the filmmakers to form
another trace, the film (see Figure 2). The Beatles' original creation of the songs and the
filmmakers' subsequent development of the movie exemplify the poietic level; the
esthesic level is evidenced by both the filmmakers' translation of the songs into a
narrative and the viewers' reaction to the film as filtered through their response to the
original songs.
The esthesic level can also be thought of in terms of Michel Chion's 'audio-
vision', the spectators' mode of reception (Chion 1994, p. xxv). Chion uses the term
'semantic listening', in which the receiver 'refers to a code or a language to interpret an
image' (ibid., p. 28). Because the Beatles' music is such a familiar part of the collective

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4 Marianne Tatom Letts

Poietic Trace Esthesic

Beatles -►-*-► songs «-«-«- audience

Beatles -►-►-► songs 4-4-4- filmmakers

Filmmakers -> -► -> film 4-4-4- audience

Note: The Beatles referenced here are the 'real' ones.

Figure 2. Nattiez's tripartition model in Yellow Submarine.

pop consciousness, we may tend to privilege the film's music over its visual images;
the filmmakers cater to this perception by foregrounding the musical references in the
dialogue and banter between the members of the cartoon Beatles. Semiotics requires
cultural coding, a 'transaction between the sound and the listener', in order to
communicate with the audience through 'recognisable elements within certain con-
texts' (Donnelly 2001a, pp. 2-3). Because music's meaning is 'imprecise', it requires
some kind of decoding by the listener. David Neumeyer and James Buhler (2001, p. 23)
note film's use of 'style topics' similar to Claudia Gorbman's 'cultural musical codes';
for example, an 'anguished atonal cluster' can represent the 'monster behind the door'
in a horror movie, and a saxophone melody can stand for the femmefatale in a film noir.
The effectiveness of such topics depends on to what extent the musical traits are
characteristic of the topic, but also the 'degree and manner in which a particular cue
invokes the topic', and how the topic is deployed dramatically in the film sequence
(ibid., p. 24).
We can further problematise the issue of the music in Yellow Submarine by noting
that it does not actually emanate from the performers on-screen, the cartoon Beatles.
Music in films has normally been described as either diegetic or non-diegetic.
Donnelly (2001b, p. viii) defines 'diegetic' as music happening on-screen, produced by
the performers in the film, while 'non-diegetic' music emanates from an off-screen
source. He further breaks down 'diegetic' into 'performance mode' versus 'lip-synch
mode', depending on whether the instruments are shown onscreen.6 Buhler (2001,
p. 40) defines diegetic music more simply as 'source music', while non-diegetic is
'background'. Here it seems appropriate also to use Feuer's (1982, p. 93) term 'extra-
filmic', which refers to 'material connected to a performer's life and reputation outside
the film'. The success and appeal of Yellow Submarine hinge on the audience's
knowledge of the Beatles, as the film makes overt references to the Beatles' real-life
activities and pre-existing music. It is ultimately the 'narrative context, the interrela-
tions between music and the rest of the film's system, that determine the effectiveness
of film music' (Gorbman 1987, in Buhler 2001, p. 39). It is not only the narrative
constructed by the filmmakers from pre-existing songs, but also the cultural associ-
ations between the audience and the Beatles, that function to make Yellow Submarine
an effective film.
The cultural consciousness of the Beatles' audience relies on a sort of mythology
created by the band's history and music; the filmmakers play on this mythology when
spinning their narrative. Myth can be defined as 'the degree to which a given
character, object, or situation escapes from the moment of time and piece of space in
which he/she/it appears in a given narrative ... to link with other characters, objects,

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 Sky of blue, sea of green 5
Vernacular Classical Mediated

Acoustic Pop elements Classical

'Yellow Submarine' 'Eleanor Rigby' 'A Day in the Life'

'AH Together Now' 'Nowhere Man' 'Think for Yourself

Dance-hall style * Pure* style Vernacular

'When I'm Sixty-Four' 'Air on a G String' 'Only a Northern Song'

'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds' Union of codes

'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band' 'All You Need Is Love'

'Hey Bulldog'

'It's All Too Much'

Note: The songs listed function as signifiers of each style, without presuming to be the thing itself. All the Beatles songs are

still pop music, regardless of the style being referenced. The signifiers are thus not enacting, but merely representing, the

codes.

Figure 3. Musical codes in Yellow Submarine.

and situations from other narratives' (Brown 1994, pp. 8-9). That is, the filmmakers'
linking of the cartoon Beatles back to the real Beatles is what creates a plausible myth
from the movie's narrative. Roland Barthes (1972, p. 109) speaks of myth as a 'mode of
signification', a 'system of communication, or message', or a 'type of speech'. Myth
represents a second-order semiological system, in which a sign in the first system
becomes a signifier in the second. Thus, a sign in the system of language becomes a
signifier in the mythic system, and a song that blends elements of various musical
genres can be made to represent universal peace. That is, the filmmakers of Yellow
Submarine can use songs at the 'language' level to then signify something larger at the
'mythic' level. Barthes states that 'myth has in fact a double function: it points out and
it notifies, it makes us understand something, and it imposes it on us' (ibid., pp. 114,
115, 117). In Yellow Submarine, the use of overly familiar Beatles' songs is meant to
make us recognise something about ourselves and about popular culture; through the
cartoon Beatles' saving of Pepperland, we should be inspired to make similar changes
in the real world, through the uniting force of music.
In addition to appealing to the Beatles' own mythos, the setting of Yellow
Submarine fulfils many of the requirements of classical mythology. Pepperland is
described as an 'unearthly paradise . . . 80,000 leagues beneath the sea'. The Beatles
observe that their quest is 'reminiscent in many ways of the great Mr. Ulysses'. Not
only must the heroes of the tale wend their way through a series of obstacles on their
quest to defeat evil, they must also negotiate the musical codes that symbolise
conflicting generational attitudes (see Figure 3). The Blue Meanies first paralyse the
'vernacular' element, Sgt. Pepper's band, then continue their onslaught in the direc-
tion of the string quartet led by the elderly Lord High Mayor, which embodies the
'classical' musical code. When the submarine captain 'Young Fred' (called 'Old Fred'

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6 Marianne Tatom Letts

by the Beatles) tries to warn the cello-playing mayor of the approaching

mayor refuses to believe that such 'high art' could be targeted for destructio
'Not here . . . they wouldn't dare!' The mayor's classical persona even ext
speech, with exclamations of 'Bless my metronome!' and 'Holy pizzicato!
ing conversation between Fred and the mayor further establishes the
and satisfies Eero Tarasti's (1979, pp. 67-8) stipulation that a myth refer t
earlier, in the distant past, to which the mythical message must be relat

Lord Mayor: Four scores and thirty-two bars ago, our forefathers . . .

Young Fred: A quartet . . .

Lord Mayor: . . . and foremothers . . .

Young Fred: . . . another quartet . . .

Lord Mayor: . . . made it in this yellow submarine to Pepperland!

In addition to being an obvious extroversive reference to Abraham

Gettysburg address, the conversation about the cyclic use of the submar
to new lands recalls Raymond Monelle's (1992, p. 251) comment that m
time tends to be circular. The Beatles' quest can be mapped onto Josep
model of the cyclic hero's adventure in The Hero with a Thousand Face
Figure 4). While Campbell's general work has fallen on scholarly hard tim
of the circular quest, though perhaps oversimplified, still presents a usef
looking at the plot of Yellow Submarine. The mayor tells Fred he can take th
'anywhere' to find help (Campbell's 'call to adventure'), and the ship pi
Liverpool as the song 'Yellow Submarine' comes in over the opening cre
minutes into the movie). This song introduces the 'vernacular' musical cod
instrumentation and its lyrics. A casual atmosphere is established by the
singer (Ringo Starr), strummed acoustic guitar, simple drum beat, and
chorus. The vernacular code is further illustrated by the lyrics 'We all liv
submarine' and 'Our friends are all aboard' [italics added], as well as th
people heard chattering and clinking glasses in the background. An ext
reference to the non-classical musicians Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Clu
made in the line, 'And the band begins to play', at which point a brass ba
a few measures before the singer and guitar fade back in. The singer first de
'man who sailed to sea' who 'told us of his life in the land of submarines
on the persona of that man himself as he narrates the actual journey: 'So
to the sun, till we found the sea of green, and we lived beneath the waves in
submarine'. This journey is depicted by the sound effects of splashing
captain shouting directions to the crew. The 'town where I was bor
Liverpool, the birthplace of the Beatles, and the narrative of the film
previous contact has been established between Liverpool and Pepperland
yellow submarine steered itself there, Liverpool could be the land from
musicians of Pepperland originally fled.
A further link between the two places is established in the song 'Elea
which is played as Fred guides the submarine through Liverpool to find help.
Beatles recording to feature no 'pop' instruments, the classically co
Rigby' features a string octet (O'Grady 1983, p. 98) - perhaps the two string
'forefathers and foremothers' mentioned by the mayor. Not only has
submarine left one land for another, it has also left one musical realm for an

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 Sky of blue, sea of green 7

Call to Adventure ""^v^

Lord Mayor
.Fred sends
for help in*^^^^
^ ^
/Yellow Submarine Music pasted from
ThmihoM rm«nnn Supernatural Aid Beatles to audience
?s^av«s ThmihoM YS leaves Liverpool £Z£? rm«nnn Red flndS Beatl6S jn <*" ToQ^er"™)
YS leaves Liverpool Liverpool \
(A Day in the Life) (Eleanor Rigby) \ \
Belly of the Whale / jtj \
YS sails through ocean Road of jtj Trials 1 Return
(All Together Now) *" of Jim® Threshold Of Adventure 1 Beatl
( When Im 64) |
Abduction """ Sea of Signs I Masters of Two Worlds
Ringo lost in (On^ a Northern Song) I Beatles have crossed from
Sea of Monsters Sea of Monsters I cartoon world into real world
(Air on a G String) I

M6^odd^the ^Headlands"9
Headlai ids Sea of Holes {lfs Atl To° Much)
(Lucy in the Sky with Sea of Green y
Diamonds) \ Father Atonement
Helpers Approval of Lord High Mayor
Jeremy Hillary Boob, (Think for Yourself)
Ph.D. s^V
(Nowhere Man) ^>*-- Union of Musical Codes
Impersonation of Sgt. Pepper's band
(All You Need Is Love)

Flight
Beatles and Sgt. Pepper's band
battle Blue Meanies
(Hey Bulldog)

Figure 4. The hero's adventure in Yellow Submarine, based on Joseph Campbell's model in The Hero
with a Thousand Faces.

protagonists of the song, Father McKenzie and Eleanor Rigby herself, represent
Liverpool as a land where a satisfactory union cannot be achieved, as they are brought
together only in death, when the priest buries the spinster.7 The 'lonely people' of
'Eleanor Rigby', illustrated in the movie by black-and-white photographs of real
people8 boxed in by windows and telephone booths, can be linked to their descend-
ants in Pepperland, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Not only does Sgt. Pepper
presumably perform for a lonely hearts club, he is one of the 'lonely people' himself;
the repeated line in that song, 'Sgt. Pepper's lonely', can be read as a sentence: 'Sgt.
Pepper is lonely'. Yellow Submarine contains many such extroversive associations
between songs in the Beatles' oeuvre, even ones not included in the film.
By the time the Beatles make their appearance on-screen, the separate musical
codes have already been fixed. The sequence in which Fred convinces the Beatles
(Campbell's 'supernatural aid') to return to Pepperland with him to defeat the
Meanies establishes their caricatured personae. Ringo links himself to the 'lonely
people', a role he also portrays in the movie A Hard Day's Night (1964), with the
line 'Compared with my life, Eleanor Rigby's was a gay mad whirl'. John Lennon
is pictured as Frankenstein's monster until he drinks a potion that transforms him
back into himself, a reference to his real-life experimentation with psychedelic
drugs. George Harrison is found meditating in a room filled with Hindu images,
accompanied by the opening sitar music of 'Love You To' from the album Revolver.
Paul McCartney is a dandy, appearing with a bouquet of flowers to the sound of
applause. The Beatles' musical credibility is established through musical puns like
'playing around', 'Sitar-day', and John's comment that Fred's babbling 'needs a
rehearsal'. Fred shows that he too has the ability to cross musical genres when

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8 Marianne Tatom Letts

he quotes from the Beatles' song 'Help!' (Help!, 1965): 'Won't you p
help me?'
Once the Beatles have established their musical authority, they can begin to
transform codes to further the plot. After the Beatles agree to accompany Fred back to
Pepperland, the yellow submarine blasts off to the sound of the lengthy closing
orchestral chord of 'A Day in the Life' (Sgt. Pepper, 1967), another extroversive
reference to the Beatles' repertoire as well as a signal that the classical code must be
reinterpreted to fulfil the quest. As the yellow submarine takes the travellers to
Pepperland (Campbell's 'crossing of the first threshold'), the first of four songs
composed for the movie, 'All Together Now', is heard. This tune employs vernacular
instruments (acoustic guitar and harmonica) and has the same inclusive sing-along
feel as 'Yellow Submarine', implying that the audience and the band are in it 'all
together'. The song makes casual reference to the movie in the line 'Sail the ship', but
otherwise is unrelated to the narrative. The submergence of the travellers in the ship
represents the 'womb image' of Campbell's l)elly of the whale' section of the hero's
adventure (Campbell 1948, p. 90). The 'road of trials' is described as 'a dream
landscape of curiously fluid, ambiguous forms, where . . . [the hero] must survive a
succession of trials' (ibid., p. 97). In Yellow Submarine, the ocean of colourful fishes that
surrounds the submarine provides this 'dream landscape' (or seascape), a sharp
contrast to the earlier bleak images of Liverpool. As the song continues, a black-and-
white photograph of a stern-looking man9 holding a pocket watch appears inside air
bubbles outside the ship, an image of the land they are leaving behind. Ringo attempts
to interact with him by asking the time, but the man gives no reply. Perhaps since he
dwells in the mythical realm, for him (and now for the Beatles) time does not exist.
The next song, 'When I'm Sixty-Four', furthers the vernacular code with its use
of a clarinet ensemble in a dance-hall style. As the submarine passes through the
Sea of Time, the Beatles first regress to childhood, then move abruptly forward in
time to old age. The Beatles grow long, flowing white beards as they reach the
advanced age of 'sixty-four', a skewed view that represents the conflict between
generations (the Beatles themselves were not yet thirty when the film was made). The
inclusive vernacular code is furthered near the end of the song, when these words
appear on the screen and the barrier between performer and audience begins to break
down:10

Sixty-four years is 33,661,440 minutes

and one minute is a very long time . . .

Let us demonstrate.

These words introduce a sequence in which the numbers one through sixty-four
are animated at the rate of about one per second. The fact that the numbers go up to
sixty-four rather than sixty in their demonstration of the length of a minute further
illustrates the fluidity of mythological time. Later in the film the performer-to-
audience interaction grows even more direct. During the performance of 'Sgt.
Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band', John turns to address the viewer with the words:
'We'd love to take you home'. Leaving the Sea of Time, the submarine passes through
the Sea of Signs to the accompaniment of another song written for the film, 'Only a
Northern Song', a tongue-in-cheek title that refers to the Beatles' publishing company
Northern Songs. The singer speaks directly to the audience and attempts to deflate the
importance that many fans had attributed to the Beatles' music:

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 Sky of blue, sea of green 9

It doesn't really matter what chords I play

What words I say or time of day it is

And I told you there's no one there.11

The lyrics bring to mind Nattiez's (1990a) statement that 'music expresses
nothing', a contrast to the message of the movie, which states that only by focusing on
music can the world literally be saved. The images of sound waves that accompany
the song reduce the music to its literal components, stripping away its expressive
quality. O'Grady (1983, p. 148) suggests that the electronic noises and static heard in
this song are a parody of the experimental style of many songs on Revolver and Sgt .
Pepper ('Tomorrow Never Knows', 'Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite', and others). Not
only does 'Northern Song' puncture the illusion of the real-life Beatles' musical
power, it begins to break down the vernacular musical code, as out-of-tune trumpets
are heard sporadically blaring through the static. The song also plays with Barthes's
notion (McCreless 1988, p. 8) that the reader (listener/viewer) constructs the text
himself, as the lyrics cause cognitive dissonance: 'You may think the chords are going
wrong, but they're not'. The listener may disagree and decide that the singer/
composer is lying to him, which ultimately doesn't matter if there really is 'no one
there'.
The submarine next passes through the Sea of Monsters, and Ringo is ejected
from the ship when he pushes the wrong button (similar to Campbell's 'abduction' of
the hero). This scene recalls a sequence in A Hard Day's Night in which Ringo
disappears for a walk and the other Beatles have to find him in time for the evening's
show. The Beatles ask Fred what they should do, and rather than suggesting that
they try to save Ringo, he replies 'Learn to sing trios', recalling the mayor's earlier
statements that he must 'finish the quartet . . . trio . . . duet . . . solo' as his quartet is
demobilised one at a time. Fred's statement equates the Beatles with the classical
musicians: although the Beatles might suffer the same fate, they must continue on
with their music anyway. As the submarine changes shape to defeat various monsters
in this sea, Fred pushes random buttons on the control panel, including one that
causes a Rolling Stones banner to fly out the back of the submarine, a reference to the
Beatles' real-life musical rivals. In another scene, a monster is given an exploding
cigar, which is lit to the tune of Bach's 'Air on a G String', a visual and musical
reference to the ad campaign for Hamlet cigars that was prevalent in Great Britain at
the time.12 This cultural reference to the commodification of classical music within a
commercially successful movie that used pop music to sell tickets further links the two
musical codes.
After Ringo is rescued by a cavalry troop sent forth from the submarine to a
fanfare of trumpets, a vacuum cleaner-shaped monster sucks up the submarine, the
sea, and finally itself, jettisoning the submarine into a vast blank void. In this Sea of
Nothing, the Beatles see a creature maniacally typing away at a manuscript, who
ultimately becomes their 'helper' in the hero-quest model. They discover his identity
after asking: 'Who in the Billy Shears are you?', a reference to the character at the end
of the song 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'. The creature, Jeremy Hillary
Boob, Ph.D., is termed a 'Nowhere Man' because of his short-sighted dedication to
academia with no thought for the real world. This skewering of academic life fore-
shadows the reaction of popular music fans to the analyses later conducted on the
Beatles' music by such scholars as Wilfrid Mellers (1974). The song 'Nowhere Man'
speaks directly to the audience: 'Isn't he a bit like you and me?' Later in the song, the

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10 Marianne Tatom Letts

Nowhere Man himself is addressed, as the singer asks, 'Please listen, you d
what you're missing' (Elicker 1997, pp. 108, 110-11). This plea could be direc
Blue Meanies as well, who (in contrast to fans who try too hard to interpret th
music) refuse to listen to any style of music at all. After Jeremy repairs the su
motor, the Beatles decide to take him along on their journey. Despite the
scepticism, they comment that Jeremy is 'getting better all the time', a refere
song 'Getting Better' from Sgt . Pepper.
In the next sequence, Jeremy accidentally causes Fred and the subma
blast off without the other travellers, who are left in the Headlands, a lan
large head-shaped mountains whose minds are open and visible to the onl
One mountain creates the colourful hallucinations of 'Lucy in the Sky with
(a link to Campbell's 'meeting with the goddess') as John alone sings
and cavorts with the animated characters, another reference to his p
drug use. The organ sound used throughout the song invokes the vernacula
code, as at this time Hammond organs were found on many English seaside
The colourful photographic scenes of dancing flappers mark a contrast to the b
black-and-white images presented in 'Eleanor Rigby'. The two chara
generational opposites; while Eleanor is a lonely spinster who 'picks up the
church where a wedding has been', Lucy is the carefree 'girl with kaleidos
The linking of the vernacular code to psychedelic images and the line
yourself on a boat on a river' and 'Waiting to take you away' invite the a
to participate in the submarine's journey from bleak Liverpool to the
Pepperland.
The travellers next find themselves in the Sea of Holes. The following exchange
recalls the Beatles song 'A Day in the Life':

Ringo: This place reminds me of Blackburn, Lancashire.

Paul: Oh boy.

Ringo: How many do you think there are in all?

Jeremy: Enough to fill the Albert Hall!

The original lyrics [italics added]:

I read the news today, oh boy

Four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire

And though the holes were rather small, they had to count them all

Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall14

As the Beatles comment that they 'must be near the Sea of Green', the destination
mentioned in 'Yellow Submarine', they reach Pepperland, described as 'bleak and
drab and quiet' - much like Liverpool. Fred arrives in the yellow submarine just after
the Beatles and suggests they try to revive the mayor with music. The Beatles choose
a lyric from 'Think for Yourself (Revolver, 1966): 'And you've got time to rectify . . .',
implying that the mayor's classical preference must be superseded by his love of
music in general for him to be of assistance. He wakes delighted with the Beatles'
sound and tells them: 'You could pass for the originals', that is, Sgt. Pepper's band.
The Beatles reply: 'We are the originals', as they had preceded Sgt. Pepper's band in
real life, but agree to the impersonation in an attempt to defeat the Blue Meanies. This

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 Sky of blue, sea of green 11

musical appeal to the 'old guard' and Fred's subsequent embracing of the newer style
depicts Campbell's 'atonement with the father'.
In addition to serving as the constructed group persona for both the real and the
cartoon Beatles, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band represents the vernacular
musical code in Yellow Submarine and the working-class brass bands of Northern
England that the real-life Beatles grew up hearing (Martin and Pearson 1994, p. 64).
Impersonating the band to perform the song 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band',
the cartoon Beatles refer again to a mythical past with the lyrics: 'It was twenty years
ago today, Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play'. The impersonation is complete when
they sing: 'We're Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band' in the chorus. As the
Beatles-as-Sgt. Pepper's band perform 'Sgt. Pepper', the inhabitants of Pepperland are
awakened and the Blue Meanies retreat. With the introduction of Billy Shears, who
will sing the next song, John steps forward as though he is the singer announced and
takes off his mask and uniform, although the singer of the original song is Ringo. This
singer has multiple personae: Ringo the real-life singer, Ringo as Billy Shears within
the song, the constructed Beatle John in the movie, John impersonating a member of
Sgt. Pepper's band, then John as Ringo-as-Billy Shears singing the song. When the
Beatles liberate the real Sgt. Pepper's band, they are surprised to discover that they
look just like them (although, oddly enough, Sgt. Pepper's band look more like the
early 'real' Beatles, without the facial hair that characterised their look in the late
1960s). John's look-alike says to him: T am the alter ego man', to which John responds:
T am the ego man, goo goo ga joob', a reference to the song T Am the Walrus' (The
Magical Mystery Tour, 1967) as well as a nod to the real-life Beatles' construction of Sgt.
Pepper's band as an alternate group persona.
While the characters of Fred, the mayor, and the Beatles have been defined
through musical codes, the Blue Meanies must be constructed through non-musical
means, since they refuse to embrace any musical style. The filmmakers compare
the Meanies, perhaps a bit harshly, to the Nazis. When the Meanies try to regroup
their forces after the Beatles have roused the land through music, the second-in-
command Meanie, Max, says to his leader: 'The hills are alive with the sound of
music', a reference to the then-current (1965) movie 'The Sound of Music', in which an
Austrian family use their talents at singing folk music to escape from Nazis.15 Later,
as the head Meanie cries from frustration, an unseen accordion plays a sad gypsy
tune, invoking the vernacular code. As gypsy groups were also targeted by the
Nazis, the folk tune is not sincere in evoking sympathy. Max also suggests the Meanies
leave Pepperland for Argentina, the country of refuge for many Nazis after World
War II.
Confused by the Beatles' impersonation of Sgt. Pepper's band, the Meanies try
to figure out who is responsible for Pepperland's awakening. Max evokes both
musical codes, suggesting first the classical composer Rimsky-Korsakov, then big-
band leader Guy Lombardo. Verbally juxtaposing these two codes sets the stage for
the Beatles-as-Sgt. Pepper's band to unite the land through music with the song 'All
You Need Is Love'. The song's introduction, the French national anthem and call to
arms 'La Marseillaise', is ironically followed by the chant 'Love, love, love'. Ver-
nacular instruments (acoustic guitar and tambourine) are accompanied by 'classical'
strings and a 'vernacular' brass band. The coda to the song quotes both classical and
vernacular codes: Bach's F-major keyboard invention (Everett 1999, p. 125), Glenn
Miller's 'In the Mood', and 'Greensleeves', in addition to the Beatles' own songs 'AH
Together Now' and 'She Loves You'. The animated lyrics of the song issue from

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12 Marianne Tatom Letts

John's mouth, and the Meanies' secret weapon Glove is transformed into t
less 'Love' when John lights the word 'Glove' like a cigarette (or a joint) an
dissolves into ash and falls away. This song was first performed in real l
globally televised BBC programme Our World (Martin and Pearson 1994,
60), which featured musician friends of the Beatles singing along and ho
placards with the chorus translated into different languages. The ending so
movie, 'All Together Now', also features its title translated on-screen int
different languages.
After uniting the land through song, the Beatles liberate their 'alter eg
the combined forces vanquish the Meanies' four-headed bulldog, an allusi
three-headed dog Cerberus, who guarded the gates of Hades in Greek my
(Campbell's 'flight'). The song accompanying this sequence, 'Hey Bulld
inspired by screenwriter Erich Segal's post as a classics professor at Yale16 and w
from the original movie due to length. This song falls within the vernacular co
its bluesy piano style. The animation shows the Beatles and Sgt. Pepper's ba
in a player piano, implying that although the music is coming from an externa
it still has the power to rescue them. The head Meanie seems to have turned a n
as he now demands to be called 'Your Newness' rather than 'Your Blueness'. When he
grudgingly admits that his cousin is the Bluebird of Happiness, an electric guitar and
organ introduce the song 'It's All Too Much', the final song composed for the movie.
The title could refer to the over-the-top animation, in which colourful images of
positive behaviour abound, but the lyrics also effect a reconciliation between the
two codes: 'It's all too much for me to take, the love that's shining all around here'.
The formerly separate codes have now been joined visually as well as musically,
representing the 'apotheosis' of the quest.
After the last animated sequence, the Beatles make a live appearance. Contrac-
tually they were not obligated to appear, but they decided to do so after viewing and
enjoying the animated portion of the film (Everett 1999, pp. 160-1). This live sequence
implies that although the film was a cartoon, the real Beatles have been on the
submarine's journey. The 'crossing of the return threshold' has entailed moving from
the fantasy world of animation back to the real world. In doing so, the Beatles have
become 'masters of the two worlds', which Campbell defines as having the '[f]reedom
to pass back and forth across the world division'. In addition, they have mastered the
two musical codes of vernacular and classical. In the final moments of the film,
real-life John peers through a periscope as the other Beatles show off their souvenirs
from the trip: George holds a spinning gadget, Paul displays the animated word
'love', and Ringo has a hole in his pocket from the Sea of Holes. George asks: 'What can
he do with half a hole?' to which Paul replies: 'Fix it to keep his mind from wandering',
a reference to the song 'Fixing a Hole' from Sgt. Pepper. John addresses the audience
one last time when he exclaims: 'Newer and bluer Meanies have been sighted within
the vicinity of this theatre!' The Beatles then state: 'There's only one way to go out -
singing!' and count off the reprise of 'All Together Now'. Some of the words appear on
the screen for the audience to sing along, reinforcing the inclusive message. By
suggesting that the audience sing in order to defeat the Blue Meanies in their vicinity,
the Beatles demonstrate that they have brought back an 'elixir' from Pepperland, that
of music. Not only has it literally saved the Cartoon world, it can be used in the real
world as well. This final message brings the circular myth full-circle: one can antici-
pate an endless series of quests in which the healing power of music is passed along to
future generations.

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 Sky of blue, sea of green 13

Acknowledgements
Many thanks to the readers of various drafts, including Byron Alm6n, for whose
graduate seminar the article was initially conceived; audiences at the International
Association for the Study of Popular Music, UK, and Popular Culture Association /
American Culture Association conferences; James Buhler; Richard Letts; John Kulas;
and the anonymous reviewers of Popular Music.

Endnotes

1. Original story by Lee Minoff; screenplay bysongs include throngs of adoring fans to
Minoff and Al Brodax, Jack Mendelsohn andheighten the authenticity of the performance.
Erich Segal. 7. For a more detailed analysis of the lyrics of
2. Edward Gross (1990, p. 45) refers to this journey 'Eleanor Rigby', see Elicker (1997, pp. 123-6).
as a 'Modyssey'. 8. Many of these 'lonely people' were people
3. Jane Feuer (1982, pp. 2-3) notes that the emer- who worked on the film. See http://www.21st
gence of 'stars' in the British music-hall tra- centuryradio.com/NP-10-01-99.html.html, ac-
dition 'marked the transition from "folk" art cessed 19 April 2000.
to "popular" art'. The Hollywood musical (a9. This man has been identified as Ian Cowan, a
category into which Yellow Submarine can be Scottish watercolourist who worked on the film.
placed) is 'one degree farther removed from E-mail correspondence with nankerphlg@aol
"folk" art in that it involves mechanical repro- .com, 17 April 2000.
duction and mass distribution'. 10. See McCreless (1988, pp. 1-29) for discussion of
4. Ronald Rodman (2000, pp. 187-206) has dis- the reader's interaction with the text.
cussed the use of operetta to mediate between11. George Harrison, 'Only a Northern Song',
the categories of opera and popular song. See Yellow Submarine, 1968.
also Feuer's (1982, pp. 54-65) discussion of12. See http://www.classiccd.co.uk/reference/
opera versus jazz in musicals such as Bye Bye works/b/bachjs-air.html, accessed 19 April
Birdie, The Jazz Singer and Fame. More recent 2000. Allegedly the use of this piece in these
examples include various dance-themed mov- commercials inspired the Bach-like organ
ies, such as Take the Lead or Step Up (both 2006), melody in Procol Harum's 'A Whiter Shade of
which pit street dancers against classically Pale'.
trained ones. 13. The Beatles actually used a Lowry organ on this
5. This approach can be contrasted with the song (Martin and Pearson 1994, p. 101).
Monkees' involvement in their film Head, which14. Lennon-McCartney, 'A Day in the Life', Sgt.
exploded and deconstructed the Monkees' Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, 1967.
15. Max could be named for the von Trapp family's
myth rather than using it to market more of the
same product to their core audience (Ramaeker impresario in the movie, Max Detweiler. See
2001, pp. 74-102). http: / / www.foxhome.com/soundofmusic/
6. Donnelly mentions A Hard Day's Night as hav- cas/casm.html, accessed 9 May 2000.
ing an unprecedented use of pop songs as non-16. See http://www.21stcenturyradio.com/NP-
diegetic music. Strikingly, the film's diegetic 10-01-99.html.html, accessed on 19 April 2000.

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