Mysterious Slovak words in the Yellow Submarine by Beatles

yellowsubmarineBratislavaIt became a kind of urban legend. Dan Brown would write an another conspirational theory about it. Interestingly enough, it still remains an uncovered mystery, even 40 years from its origin.

When you listen carefully the original Yellow submarine song by Beatles, you will hear at one moment- 1 min 35 sec of the song- a single famous (or better infamous) sentence in Slovak language.

This secret the fathers were passing on to their sons over generations but with lowered voice.

A sentence is not part of the offical song lyrics. Although a message is quite clear and understandable in Slovak, it is not very polite. It could be translated to English as “Piss off!” but in much ruder as well as funnier form.

What does this sentence mean? Is it a John Lennon/Paul McCartney’s political message to the communist regime? Is it a message of an emigrant to his forbidden country? Or just a coincidence?

Futher theories has emerged over the ages trying to attribute the sentence to some person of Slovak origin which could happen to be at the studio during the recording of Yellow submarine. Slovakia-born Dezo Hoffman, a famous Beatles dedicated photographer has been selected  among the most prominent candidates.

To make a complex problem even more complicated, I suggested an alternative explanation of the meaning of words used in the song.
“Mozte mi vylizat” could be no rude words at all. Same slang sentence meanign “You can take off” used to be shout out by the Bratislava tram conductors during the stops in 20’s and 30’s of 19th century.

More to this topic can be found also on this blog (in Slovak) or here in Czech.