Written by George Martin, ‘Sea Of Time’ was part of the score for the Yellow Submarine animated film.
The 41-piece George Martin Orchestra performed the soundtrack’s instrumental pieces at Abbey Road on 22 and 23 October 1968. The players were conducted by the composer himself, with John Burgess and Ron Richards co-producing.
‘Sea Of Time’ was notable among Martin’s Yellow Submarine compositions for its use of Indian instrumentation. It opens with a tambura drone, and a winding melody similar to that of George Harrison’s ‘Within You Without You’.
The Yellow Submarine soundtrack was released in January 1969, with Martin’s pieces filling the second half. The US version treated ‘Sea Of Holes’ and ‘Sea Of Time’ as a single track. The UK LP, meanwhile, listed the two pieces separately, as did the 1987 international CD reissue and subsequent reissues.
I don’t know a single person that ever listened to the entire Side 2 of the Yellow Submarine LP
I certainly did. Strangely it became part of the whole Beatles deal for me. I was 13. I knew the Fab Four weren’t involved, but somehow it just made sense. Great instrumentation, and there were some lovely tunes in there, but you really had to listen to everything to find them. Mostly you could hear it was programmatic – describing something. But I couldn’t remember the details of the film until dvd came out decades later. Sounds just like ordinary film music too.
I had a little Yellow Submarine book. A paperback of about 100 pages. I wonder what happen to that?! Maybe that helped with the overall Beatle feel. Remember, he was involved in Beatle orchestration, so kinda being the ‘fifth’ older Beatle gave it a strength any other MD wouldn’t have had.
I’m a 15-year-old just getting into the Beatles music and I can relate to this. I knew that the Beatles themselves had nothing to do with the B-Side of Yellow Submarine, but I loved George Martin’s work on the other Beatles songs (and I was listening to every Beatles album in order), so I listened to it and I loved it. All the songs felt right and felt like it was made by the Beatles themselves, likely because George Martin shaped what we know as “the Beatles’ sound”. I feel that the album gets more criticism than it deserves.
You do now!
I am very glad to see Man-ley’s post. I salute you and your responses.
But my experience is more in line with Samlata’s. I own the LP version of Yellow Submarine and I’m sure I’ve listened to Side 2 in its entirety multiple times. But it made zero impression on me. I would love to have there be some example of a great Beatles-independent opus from George Martin, and maybe there is–that Mahavishnu Orchestra album, or those America albums, or that Seatrain album–but this is not it.
I think George Martin was a great producer/collaborator, but he was able to amplify the Beatles’ recordings in a specific way.
I have never listened to Side Two of this album in it’s entirety either, and I believe I’ve only “stuck my toe in” once. Truthfully, the only thing I ever really get this CD out for is to listen to “Hey Bulldog” – YS (the song) is on Revolver, and the rest I don’t care about (I never thought AYNIL was much of a song either).