Barrow asked Leroy Aarons of The Washington Post to remove mention of the band's "latest" single slipping on the charts when Aarons presented his article for their approval. In author Robert Rodriguez's view, the radio bans were responsible for the song's failure to top the chart. The single sold 1,200,000 copies in four weeks and, on 12 September, earned the Beatles their twenty-first US Gold Record award, a total they had achieved in just over two-and-a-half years. Critical reception One of the UK's older pop journalists, Allen Evans of the NME expressed confusion at the Beatles' progressiveness on Revolver but predicted, "One thing seems certain... you'll soon all be singing about a 'Yellow Submarine'." Derek Johnson echoed this in his review of the single for the same publication, and described the song as "so different from the usual Beatles, and a compulsive sing-along". Melody Makers reviewer said that the song's basic qualities would make it a "nursery rhyme or public house singalong" and complimented Starr's vocal performance and the "fooling around" behind him. Billboard characterised it as the Beatles' "most unusual easy rocker to date" due to the Starr lead vocal and an arrangement that featured "everything... but the kitchen sink". Cash Box found the single's pairing "unique" and described "Yellow Submarine" as "a thumping, happy go lucky, special effects filled, highly improbable tale of joyous going on beneath the sea". In their joint review for Record Mirror, Peter Jones said he was not especially impressed by the track but that it demonstrated the band's versatility, while Richard Green wrote: "Sort of Beatle 'Puff the Magic Dragon'... Will be very big at about 9.30 on a Saturday morning on the Light Programme." Reporting from London for The Village Voice, Richard Goldstein stated that Revolver was ubiquitous around the city, as if Londoners were uniting behind the Beatles in response to the antagonism shown towards the band in the US. He said that "Yellow Submarine" depicted an "undersea utopia" and was "as whimsical and childlike as its flip side ['Eleanor Rigby'] is metaphysical". In her album review for The Evening Standard, Maureen Cleave wrote that "Ringo has the cheeriest song" and predicted that "it will have all the Americans at his feet once again." Ray Davies of the Kinks derided "Yellow Submarine" when invited to give a rundown of Revolver in Disc and Music Echo. He dismissed it as "a load