4 Kid-Friendly Beatles Songs

Many music experts recognize The Beatles as the band that helped to create the rock and roll genre as we now know it. If that’s accurate, it means that whatever the band did became a standard others followed.

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In that case, kids everywhere should thank them profusely, because The Beatles wrote a handful of songs that children of all ages can enjoy. Here are four of those kid-friendly numbers.

“Yellow Submarine” from Revolver (1966)

For many years, the assumption was Paul McCartney was largely behind this colorful track that was given to Ringo Starr to sing. When the reissued version of Revolver was issued a few years back, a demo of John Lennon singing the verse melody, with much darker lyrics, was found. At some point, the song underwent a major transformation to the cheerful, chipper thing it turned out to be. Starr was a natural voice to sing lead, as his is a voice that’s warm and generally free of guile. The sound effects conjured by Lennon and McCartney in the middle portion of the song add whimsy. This was a kid-friendly track well before it was turned into one of the most inventive animated movies of its era.

“Your Mother Should Know” from Magical Mystery Tour (1967)

Paul McCartney wrote this track that would serve as the closing song in the trippy Magical Mystery Tour film that arrived at the end of 1967. It even gave the Fab Four a chance to indulge in a Hollywood production number, replete with dance steps. Like “Yellow Submarine,” “Your Mother Should Know” easily could have gone in a darker direction. The demo found on Anthology 2 sounds downright spooky in places. But McCartney understood it would benefit from a gentler treatment, which helped render it quite kid-friendly. After all, it doles out good advice to the youngsters by suggesting they should respect their parents, because they just might be savvier than imagined.

“Good Night” from the White Album (1968)

The Beatles gave us a lot of heavy stuff on the White Album. From the sexual imagery rampant in songs like “Happiness Is a Warm Gun” and “Why Don’t We Do It in the Road?” through the blistering rock of “Helter Skelter” and “Yer Blues,” all the way to the chaotic maelstrom of “Revolution 9.” Maybe they sensed that, which is why they saved one of the softest tracks they’d ever recorded for the final song. John Lennon wrote the bulk of it knowing it would be Starr singing it, again honing in on that connection between Ringo and the kiddies. At times, his vocal is so lilting it sounds as if the singer himself might be ready to doze off. But he pulls it together for one more last whisper of a wish on this utterly charming track.

“All Together Now” from Yellow Submarine (1969)

Yellow Submarine turned out to be the final resting place for a few of The Beatles’ musical leftovers. “All Together Now,” which was mostly written by Paul McCartney, was actually recorded not long before the release of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. While it likely would have broken the spell of that album, it fits well in an animated film. McCartney was fond of writing songs that could speak to kids at their level and make them jump around with abandon. Even the instrumentation has a simplicity to it, with John Lennon chipping in ukulele and harmonica parts. If you’re sick of singing your ABCs and 123s the same old way, “All Together Now” provides a nice alternative.

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