Many songs by The Beatles include weird outtakes that make their way into the final recording. From a curse word in “Hey Jude” to Ringo Starr’s “blisters on me fingers” exclamation at the end of “Helter Skelter”, it’s amazing how many memorable moments in Beatles’ history happened by accident. One bizarre moment at the end of a Beatles song features Paul McCartney acting like a dog, but it does fit the theme considering the title.
Paul McCartney barked like a dog on The Beatles’ ‘Hey Bulldog’
“Hey Bulldog” was released in 1969 on the Yellow Submarine soundtrack. John Lennon wrote the song, but the recording of it was improvisational and free-spirited. The end of the track features a skit where Lennon is talking to a dog, played by McCartney. The dog howls and barks in response to Lennon while the two cackle like hyenas.
In an interview shared by meetthebeatlesforreal.com, McCartney said it wasn’t planned, and he just started barking in response to Lennon. It’s a segment he likes because it captures the “spirit of that session.”
“I like the bit when I’m harmonizing with John, and he says something about a dog, and I just started barking and being a dog,” McCartney said. “Then John sort of says, ‘Have I got any more of that?’ and then I’m off, I‘m howling! And the spirit of that session is brought back by the recording. It’s a very free and open spirit that I like a lot, and it’s very artistic. And it’s a very cool riff. I still remember us making up that riff. So, I think the lyrics are great, John sings it good and I think my dog impression is terrific.”
The Beatles recorded ‘Hey Bulldog’ at a random moment
“Hey Bulldog” wasn’t a song The Beatles planned to release. It was a half-baked idea from Lennon that the band decided to record on a whim. They were supposed to film a promotional video for “Lady Madonna”, but Lennon decided to record another song. As explained by Paul McCartney, the crew who filmed “Lady Madonna” stuck around and got footage of The Beatles doing an impromptu recording of “Hey Bulldog”….
“What happened was that we were in the studio, and we’d just done ‘Lady Madonna’, and some film people were coming along to the studio to do a video for that,” McCartney shared. “So, we did that, and just as they were packing up, they asked if we’d mind if they shot a little bit of general stuff. We said we had to get on working on doing this other song. They said that was OK if we didn’t mind them being there. So, they were just laying on the floor filming. Anyway, we were recording ‘Hey Bulldog,’ and they got a lot of this live footage of us recording that.”
It was considered a throwaway song for ‘Yellow Submarine’
The Beatles had little involvement with “Yellow Submarine”, despite the movie using their music and likeness for the characters. However, they still needed to provide a soundtrack, so it became a dumping ground for songs they didn’t want. This included songs like “Only a Northern Song”, “All Together Now”, and “It’s All Too Much”.
In the 1980 Playboy interview, Lennon admitted that “Hey Bulldog” was a “good-sounding record that means nothing.” He called the people releasing the movie “gross animals” and just wanted to fulfill his obligations by giving them whatever song he had.
“They lifted all the ideas for the movie out of our heads and didn’t give us any credit,” Lennon explained. “We had nothing to do with that movie, and we sort of resented them. It was the third movie that we owed United Artists. Brian had set it up, and we had nothing to do with it. But I liked the movie, the artwork. They wanted another song, so I knocked off ‘Hey Bulldog’.”
