It's All Too Much

The details are pretty sketchy right now, but apparently there's some sort of remake of Yellow Submarine in the works. At the helm is Robert Zemeckis, who delighted creeped out kids the world over with The Polar Express and still views Jim Carrey as a viable form of entertainment. What could possibly go wrong?

Of course Beatlemaniacs are flipping their original 1964 vintage-with-a-certificate-of-authenticity wigs over the prospect, and I can't say as I blame them. For children of the '60s, the Beatles presented a chance to be part of a communal experience as their alarmingly rapid musical and mustachial growth took place before their eyes. For later generations, they've been a way to opt out of the mainstream, to say "thanks but no thanks" to Boston or A Flock of Seagulls or Mandy Moore. Either way, the relationship people have with the Beatles is an invariably personal one.

While Yellow Submarine is a pretty minor chapter in the Beatles' story (the group's participation was minor, from their "cameo" at the end of the film to the cast-off songs they contributed), it still carries the weight of history. And whoever attempts to emend that part of people's lives needs to tread cautiously, lest ye wind up delivering another Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (the movie, that is). Can Robert Zemeckis be counted on to handle what was many children's first exposure to the Beatles with sensitivity? All signs point to "probably not."

Let's put aside this unpleasantness, then, with one of the more curious intersections of Beatledom and film. In the 1960s, Morgana King was a jazz and pop singer who recorded for Emarcy and Verve and palled around with Charlie Parker. But today she might be best known as Carmella Corleone, wife of Don Vito and mother to Sonny, Connie, Michael and stupid, weak Fredo. Here she is getting all psychedelic with her version of "Tomorrow Never Knows." (Sorry about the wma file.)

Tomorrow Never Knows.wma