The last of the new, original Beatles songs featured on the Apple LP/CD "Yellow Submarine" is an original composition written by George Harrison entitled "It's All too Much". This was the longest song on the LP/CD and was originally over 8 minutes long but edited in various forms over the years.
The recording of "It's All too Much" commenced on Thursday May 25 1978 at De Lane Lea Music Recording Studios in London. The basic track and rehearsals were completed on this with the instrumentation of organ, heavy guitar, drums and bass. Once the rehearsals were completed, four takes of the song were recorded with the fourth take kept as the basic track where upon overdubs would be laid (or lied...I'm not sure).
The next day on May 26 1968, once again at De Lane Lea Music Recording Studios, overdubs for this session included the lead vocal by George (who sings a few lines from the Mersey's hit song "Sorrow") and with John and Paul singing backing vocals. Other overdubs for this session included percussion and handclaps.
A week later on Friday June 02 1967 at De Lane Lea Music Recording Studios, four trumpets and a bass clarinet were added to the song. There was no score available for the wood wind musicians and the arrangement was taken care of by George Harrison.
On Thursday October 12 1967, the engineers returned to De Lane Lea Music Recording Studios in order to dust off the master tape of "It's All Too Much" and there were two mono mix attempts with the first attempt kept for the moment.
A month later on November 15 1967 from the control room of EMI studio two, the mono mix was tape copied for the film producers of "Yellow Submarine". This particular session also saw the editing of the original 8 and a bit master tape brought down to just two and a half minutes for the film which included the intro, the first verse, the second chorus, the trumpet bit, the fourth verse, the fifth chorus and the end. The film contained lyrics from a verse that would not appear on the commercial version of the song released on vinyl and CD.
Finally, "It's All Too Much" was remixed once again for mono and stereo on October 16 1968 (almost a year later !) from the control room of EMI studio two. The stereo mix completed at this session was released commercially on the the stereo LP and a fold down mix of the stereo was used for the PMC prefix version of the LP. This particular stereo mix was edited down from the original time of over 8 minutes to just over 6 minutes by editing out the third chours and the fouth verse as well as fading the song out early. The true mono mix was only released commercially in 2009 with the same edits as the stereo mix.
A third mix was completed in order to appear on the 1999 Apple/EMI LP/CD "Yellow Submarine Songtrack" as well as appearing in the film edit mode for the re-release of the VHS/DVD 1999 version of the film.
"It's All Too Much" appears on the Apple LP/CD "Yellow Submarine". The mono mix appearson the Apple/EMI 2-CD "Mono Masters" and a different stereo mix is available on the Apple/EMI LP/CD "Yellow Submarine Songtrack".
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