How ‘Alice in Wonderland’ Inspired The Beatles’ ‘Yellow Submarine’

TL;DR:

• Donovan helped Paul McCartney write The Beatles’ “Yellow Submarine.”
• Donovan discussed how Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland inspired him as a writer.
• The book inspired other classic rock artists such as Jefferson Airplane and Aerosmith.

Donovan had an influence over The Beatles. For example, he helped Paul McCartney write The Beatles’ “Yellow Submarine.” Notably, he said the song might not be the same without Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and Robert Louis Stevenson.

Why George Harrison cited Donovan as an influence on The Beatles’ ‘The White Album’

During a 2008 interview with Goldmine, Donovan was asked if he wrote several songs for The White Album without receiving credit. He said this was not the case. “We all wrote our own songs, but where that story came from was a comment from George who said once, ‘Donovan’s all over The White Album,'” he recalled.

“What [George] means is that we only had acoustic guitars,” Donovan said. “George brought the instruments, of course, Indian and otherwise, and the tablas … they were for Ringo. We were constantly playing.

“Whenever there was a guitar around, it was never out of hand, and I was performing all the time, constantly,” he added. “So, the three songwriters, John, Paul, and George, were constantly hearing folk styles that maybe they hadn’t heard, maybe they hadn’t known, so they hadn’t learned them.”

Donovan said his familiarity with ‘Alice in Wonderland’ made it easy for him to co-write The Beatles’ ‘Yellow Submarine’

In addition, Donovan said he helped out a little with The Beatles’ “Yellow Submarine.” “Well, the sea of green and all that, he already had in the song,” Donovan said.

“But, children’s songs were easy for me, because I had absorbed so much poetry,” he explained. “My father had read me Robert Louis Stevenson, Alice in Wonderland and an enormous amount of Victorian poems, and so I was well versed in those.”

How ‘Alice in Wonderland’ inspired other classic rock artists

Donovan wasn’t the only classic rock artist to reference Carroll. Carroll’s face can be spotted on the cover of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. In the 1997 book Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now, Paul says Carroll’s poem “Jabberwocky” from Through the Looking Glass was John’s inspiration when he wrote both “Strawberry Fields Forever” and “I Am the Walrus.”

Other bands took ideas from Alice in Wonderland. For example, Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit” might be the most famous musical adaptation of the book, as well as one of the most famous songs in the band’s catalog Aerosmith also prominently references the story in “Sunshine.”

“Yellow Submarine” is a class track and it wouldn’t be the same without Carroll and Donovan.