Rhys Eye - Yellow Submarine/ I Just Can't Lose That Tune

Fascinating but sombre reading of the jaunty Beatles tune

Label: Epic

Year of Release: 1975

"Yellow Submarine" is probably one of the less analysed Beatles songs in their oeuvre, despite being one of the best known. At my infant school, it was wheeled out for sing-a-longs in school assemblies in halls that whiffed of chips and baked beans, and it was a track I was used to hearing on cartoons or during intervals at local children's theatre shows. Marrying upbeat melodies to nonsense lyrics, it seemed like the very definition of "harmless fun".

Clearly not everybody thought that way, though. Paul Phillips, who would later on find brief fame as Driver 67, was troubled by the sense it was an "other-worldly excursion into all sorts of sub-conscious emotions that I couldn’t put my finger on". Whether this was something he talked about to his friends or decided to keep to himself, when he eventually had gainful A&R employment at CBS he was surprised to find someone who agreed with him turning up to an audition.

Peter Bennett, who recorded and wrote under the name Rhys Eye, dropped by insisting he had a fantastic idea, but if he simply told Phillips what it was there was every possibility he would be cut out of the picture and find it being used by another artist on CBS. Phillips arranged for a legal waiver to be signed stating that whether he accepted or rejected the idea, it would remain the intellectual property of Mr. Eye.

And this, amazingly, was it - something that confirmed Phillips wasn't the only one bowing his head to Ringo's honking about strangely coloured submersible warships. Bennett's idea was simply a heartfelt, bluesy, troubled take on a Beatles song most listeners haven't really bothered to read much into. In Rhys Eyes' hands, "Yellow Submarine" becomes reflective and regretful, sounding like a hymn to lost childhood, lost friends and perhaps lost innocence - or, more than that, a nostalgia for absurd, exaggerated things that were never truly as the singer believed eating away at him like a deadly, slow poison. 

Whether it works is something not everyone is going to agree on, but it certainly fits the current decade's model of finding sorrow or opportunities for plaintive, melancholy expression in the most unlikely source material. If an advertising executive from John Lewis hears this and doesn't use it in their next Christmas campaign, then I'll be lost for words.

Sadly, despite the faith of both Bennett and Phillips, the record failed to get any airplay and sold poorly, and was swiftly forgotten about. If you want to read more background information about this record, Paul Philips blogged about it in some detail (including mentioning John Lennon's apparent objections) here.

Apologies for the pop and crackles on this record. They're not too intrusive, but the single is pressed so quietly they might be noticeable here and there. I did give the vinyl a deep clean before ripping the audio, but sadly that didn't completely restore it. It did take me years to find a copy of this single, so frankly anything's better than nothing. Driver 67 has a much clearer version available on Soundcloud if you want to go and listen there.