Here's a question - in naming the Beatles song "yellow submarine," was there any influence from automotive racing history??

Here's an excerpt from Floyd Clymer's Those Wonderful Old Automobiles": "For many years, Barney Oldfield's name was synonymous with automobile speed throughout the world. In the closing days of his colorful career, Oldfield competed in the unique car, the Golden Submarine, which, because of its construction, supposedly offered added protection in case of accident.

(I would share this, but I haven't a digitizer for the book..) The car does look an awful lot like the Yellow Submarine's window area.. Anyhow, just some interesting tidbits! Enjoy!

:)

I guess it could well be a possibility!

I guess the big question is, would THEY have heard of that guy.

 

Because I haven't, and I was raised hearing about car racing history- my dad's obsessed.

103 years ago..

 

:)Well, this goes wayy back to the early days of racing history - "For many years Barney Oldfield's name was synonymous with automobile speed throughout the world". Yes, this was probably near when Rickenbacker was racing ~ 1917.

"...the first idol of the racetrack, colorful, cigar-smoking Barney Oldfield (pictured at bottom, in his Peerless "Green Dragon"), performed many spectacular feats and won many record on early tracks." And the painting is of "County Fair Auto Races" - vehicles appear to be circa 1905.

Rachel, quite the beautiful picture of this machine can be seen at: http://www.vintageracecars.com/sub.htm.

 

^That's what I thought. In other words, decades before they were born. So probably a coincidence.

Perhaps a stretch, unless they were into vintage racing, and when did the movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang! come out ?.. Influences can be surprising sometimes. The Beatles took a lot of songs from earlier R&B artists, so maybe the idea came from some old tune, or some historical film. Wasn't Yellow Submarine more of Ringo's idea?? Hmm! The song itself harkens to the days of early subs, with all the funny sounds in the background, etc.

And it does look so much like part of the sub on the album cover - the windows have that "look" to them..:)

"Paul McCartney wrote this as a children's story. The story goes - Paul was lying in bed late one night, and an idea popped into his head to write a children's song - the actual song may have been a spin-off from Bob Dylan's "Rainy Day Women #12 and 35." Paul was purposely using short words in the lyrics because he wanted kids to pick it up early & sing along.

So then we go to Bob Dylan from there?

One possible interpretation: Beatles, forced to stay in hotel rooms and live under pressure = Submarine. Because they were having a good time, it was Yellow (friends all aboard). Sea of green = money. Which leads to Coldplay's song "Yellow"!

How did I never see this?