Listen to John Lennon’s unearthed downbeat outtake of The Beatles’ ‘Yellow Submarine’

21 October 2022, 13:26 | Updated: 15 January 2024, 11:52

"In the town where I was born, lived a man who sailed to sea."

"And he told us of his life, in the land of submarines" go the famous opening lines to The Beatles' classic track 'Yellow Submarine'.

Sang by the band's legendary drummer Ringo Starr, the aquatically themed song is one of the Fab Four's most obviously joyous.

So much so, that it inspired the colourfully psychedelic 1968 animated film of the same name - that infamously didn't feature any of The Beatles' own voices.

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But it wasn't always intended to be an upbeat children's song, as we now know.

An acoustic demo of John Lennon singing 'Yellow Submarine' from The Beatles iconic album Revolver has now been revealed.

The newly revitalised demo has been shared ahead of the Super Deluxe reissue of the band’s 1966 album.

In what is quite the surprise, the song had very different origins as we can now hear as Lennon sings in a melancholic demo.

The lyrics originally read: "In the place where I was born, no one cared, no one cared. And the name that I was born, no one cared, no one cared."

The demo has been bootlegged - or even rumoured for that matter - making the album's reissue all the more enticing to die-hard Beatles fans when it hits shelves on 28th October 2022.

Revolver: Special Edition features 31 outtakes and three home demos from the Beatles’ recording archive as well as a four-track EP with ‘Paperback Writer’ and ‘Rain’.

You can listen to the outtake to 'Yellow Submarine' below.

Giles Martin, the son of The Beatles' original producer George Martin has produced the new version, working together with engineer Sam Okell in stereo and Dolby Atmos.

The pair made use of the "de-mixing" technology developed by Peter Jackson’s audio team for the 2021 documentary Get Back.

Martin recently told Rolling Stone magazine he had no clue there was a vault of unused demos from the album: "I had no idea until I started going through the outtakes."

"This was a Lennon-McCartney thing. I said to Paul, ‘I always thought this was a song that you wrote and gave to Ringo and that John was like, ‘Oh, bloody ‘Yellow Submarine.’ Not at all."

Hearing Lennon's moody starting point for the track won't change it's legacy however, with Paul McCartney recalling it's origins in a foreword for Revolver: Special Edition:

"One twilight evening, lying in bed before dozing off, I came up with a song that I thought would suit Ringo and at the same time incorporate the heady vibes of the time. ‘Yellow Submarine’ — a children’s song with a touch of stoner influence, which Ringo still wows audiences with to this day."