(While no longer a national chart, CHUM continued publishing what deep down they always had always been: the Metro Toronto hit parade. Chart toppers by the Fab Four continued to be recognized as doubles with the exception of "Nowhere Man" in the spring of 1966. From that point forward, some were listed as one title while others were doubles. Thus, relatively innocuous Beatles releases like "I Don't Want to Spoil the Party", "Act Naturally" and "For You Blue" are all technically CHUM number ones)
For whatever reason, "Yellow Submarine" ended up getting propped up by "Eleanor Rigby" for their twelfth Canadian number one smash. I say "propped up" because the lettering of the former is clearly bigger than the latter on the single's cover, indicating that a hierarchy had initially been involved. Was there the worry that the public wasn't going to take a Ringo Starr-sung piece seriously? Were those stately Paul McCartney vocals considered a safer bet? Or were they afraid that the fans, who had been growing up with The Beatles, were going to reject the more childlike "Yellow Submarine"? It's also possible that their concerns could have been going in both directions: had "Eleanor Rigby" been the A-side, would the group's younger following have accepted it?
The dual "Yellow Submarine" / "Eleanor Rigby" single was released in conjunction with The Beatles' monumental seventh album Revolver. (A reminder that they did sometimes bend their unwritten rule of not releasing singles from their LPs) Quite why they chose these two songs over about eight or nine other perfectly good options is a mystery. Presumably, George Harrison's trio of excellent contributions — the startling album opener "Taxman", the lovely "Love You To" and the rather overlooked "I Want to Tell You" — were ruled out in a Lennon-McCartney power play (assuming any of them had even been up for consideration at all). McCartney's more overly commercial efforts — "Good Day Sunshine", "Got to Get You Into My Life" — would've made for smashing singles while some of John Lennon's varied contributions — "She Said She Said", "And Your Bird Can Sing", "Doctor Robert" — could've come in handy as B-sides. While it's true that the child-friendly catchiness of "Yellow Submarine" makes sense as a single release, the stark "Eleanor Rigby" is just about the last Revolver track I'd place on a 45. (That said, I don't wish to take swipes at it: along with some of the album's other standouts — "I'm Only Sleeping", "Here, There and Everywhere", "Tomorrow Never Knows" — "Eleanor Rigby" is almost too good for the pop charts)
Listening to it today, the pairing smacks of being a Revolver sampler instead of a single that is able to stand on its own merits. Perhaps this is somewhat due to tracks on other Beatles albums bring embargoed from the Top 40. Had there been a precedent of one single per album then it might not stick out so much. What if there had been "All My Loving" / "It Won't Be Long" from With The Beatles? "Eight Days a Week" / "I'm a Loser" from Beatles for Sale? "Norwegian Wood" / "I'm Looking Through You" from Rubber Soul? Maybe I'd hear this one differently but these fantasy singles also undermine it. The most commercially viable singles are the easiest to imagine which doesn't do "Eleanor Rigby" any favours. Or maybe it's just down to the album having simply too much quality on offer to have to pick just two.
But let's put all that aside in order to continue to look upon the development of The Beatles with customary awe. George Harrison would later observe that Rubber Soul and Revolver were like two sides of the same coin but it's hard to completely agree when the latter happened to be such a huge step forward from its predecessor (which, needless to say, had been a major advance in its own right). Even without the context of their parent album, both "Yellow Submarine" and "Eleanor Rigby" are astonishing. While a childhood singalong and the tale of lonely people may seem like an odd pairing, there are elusive links. Lennon's early work tape on the 2022 Revolver box set added a whole new depth to what had once been regarded as something of a throwaway: "In the place where I was born," John sings glumly, "no one cared, no one cared", which is as poignant as Eleanor picking up rice at a wedding that she can only fantasize of. It was only after working with McCartney that the Yellow Submarine fable began to form. Even then, it's of no little significance that the new line "in the town where I was born, lived a man who sailed the sea" came from a tune composed by Lennon, whose wayward father had been a merchant seaman.
The two songs are a counterpoint to the other. In "Yellow Submarine" there is a group of friends who've found this idyllic life living in their vessel. (The idea that "many more of them live next door" is one that has always fascinated me: do these subs park on the bottom of the sea, creating whole neighbourhoods or do they float in unison?) In "Eleanor Rigby" there are two people who haven't been so lucky. Chums living a life of ease and all the lonely people: are these stories of two separate groups of people or are they both about The Beatles themselves? The parties would have been something else when you're in the biggest group of all time with a sizable entourage and all kinds of hangers-on but the endless touring and isolation had taken their toll. With the kind of alienation they had already experienced (let alone what they would go through in Japan, The Philippines and the United States during their final tour in the summer of '66), is it any wonder they were in the mood for some fun in the middle of the ocean — or, failing that, on a Greek island, or in an Indian ashram...?
As I already stated, giving "Yellow Submarine" and "Eleanor Rigby" equal treatment ended up being a one off on the RPM hit parade. This is a shame since it ensured that its long-awaited follow-up — "Strawberry Fields Forever" / "Penny Lane", released the following February — would end up split. Being that it is arguably The Beatles' at the peak of their powers, the two deserved to share a place at the top of the charts. It didn't happen but 1966 and '67 marked a turning point when albums began to take precedence anyway. The Beatles were just about done as the greatest singles band in music history but their story is still far from over.
Score: 9
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