Yesterday (song)

"Yesterday" is the name of a song written by Paul McCartney, originally recorded by The Beatles for their album Help! in 1965. The song remains popular today with over 3000 recorded cover versions, the first hitting the United Kingdom top 10 three months after the release of Help!. According to the Guinness Book of Records, "Yesterday" has the most cover versions on Earth, while BMI asserts that it was performed over seven million times in the 20th century alone.

"Yesterday" was the first official recording by the Beatles which relied upon a performance by a single member of the band, although the background accompaniment of a string quartet was added a few days later during the editing stage. It is a ballad about unrequited love, and differed greatly from other works by the Beatles, leading the other three members of the band to veto the song's release as a single in the United Kingdom. Although solely written by McCartney, due to his contract with the Beatles, the song was credited to both him and John Lennon as "Lennon/McCartney".

Origins

According to biographers of McCartney and the Beatles, McCartney composed the entire song in a dream one night at the London flat in Wimpole Street belonging to his then girlfriend, Jane Asher. Upon waking, he hurried to a piano, turned on a tape recorder, and played the tune to avoid letting it slip into the recesses of his mind.

McCartney's initial concern was that he had subconsciously plagiarised someone else's work. As he put it, "For about a month I went round to people in the music business and asked them whether they had ever heard it before. Eventually it became like handing something in to the police. I thought if no-one claimed it after a few weeks then I could have it".

Upon being convinced that he had not robbed anybody of his melody, McCartney began hammering out lyrics to suit it. As the Beatles were wont to do at the time, a substitute working lyric, entitled "Scrambled Eggs", was used for the song until something more suitable was written:

Scrambled Eggs,
Have an omelette with some Muenster cheese,
Put your dishes in the washbin please,
So I can clean the scrambled eggs.

Join me, do,
There's a lot of eggs for me and you,
I've got ham and cheese and bacon too,
So go get two and join me do.

Fried or sunny side,
Just aren't right,
The mix-bowl begs,
Quick, go get a pan, and we'll scramble up some eggs, eggs, eggs, eggs.

Scrambled eggs,
Good for breakfast, dinner time or brunch,
Don't buy six or twelve, buy a bunch,
And we'll have a lunch on scrambled eggs.

A common, mythical variation on these lyrics often found is "Scrambled eggs / Oh my darling you've got lovely legs". Jane Asher makes a reference to this in her book "Things He Said Today": "Don't believe that part about 'how I loved your legs.' That's bunk. My legs are horrid."

During the shooting of Help! the movie, a piano was placed on one of the stages where filming was being conducted. McCartney would take advantage of this opportunity to perform "Scrambled Eggs" accompanied by the piano. Richard Lester was greatly annoyed by this, and eventually lost his temper, telling McCartney to finish writing the song, or he'd have the piano removed.

McCartney originally claimed he had written "Yesterday" during the Beatles' tour of France in 1964; however, the song was not released till the summer of 1965. During the intervening time, the Beatles released two albums, Beatles For Sale and A Hard Day's Night, both of which could have included "Yesterday". Although McCartney has never elaborated his claims, it is likely that the reason for such a long delay, if it existed, was a disagreement between McCartney and George Martin regarding the song's arrangement, or, equally likely, the distaste of the other Beatles for the song.

Lennon later indicated that the song had been around for a while before: "The song was around for months and months before we finally completed it. Every time we got together to write songs for a recording session, this one would come up. We almost had it finished. Paul wrote nearly all of it, but we just couldn't find the right title. We called it 'Scrambled Eggs' and it became a joke between us. We made up our minds that only a one-word title would suit, we just couldn't find the right one. Then one morning Paul woke up and the song and the title were both there, completed. I was sorry in a way, we'd had so many laughs about it."

In July 2003, British musicologists stumbled upon remarkable similarities between the lyric and rhyming schemes of "Yesterday" and Nat King Cole's "Answer Me", leading to speculation that McCartney had been influenced by the song. Others speculate that McCartney may have subconsciously based "Yesterday" on Ray Charles' version of "Georgia On My Mind".

The release

While on holiday in Portugal at The Villa of Shadows in June 1965, McCartney completed the finishing touches on the lyrics, which touched upon the death of his mother. Two days after returning home, the track was laid down at Abbey Road Studios on the 14th and 17th June 1965. There are conflicting accounts of how the song was recorded, the most frequent one being that McCartney recorded the song by himself, without bothering to call the other band members. Alternative sources, however, state that McCartney and the other Beatles tried a variety of instruments, including drums and an organ, and that George Martin later persuaded them to allow McCartney to play his acoustic guitar, later on editing in a string quartet for backup.

Although McCartney had fallen in love with the song, he had a much harder time convincing the other members of the band that it was worthy of an album place, the main objection being that it did not fit in with their image, especially considering "Yesterday" was extremely unlike other Beatles' songs at that time. This feeling was so strong that John, George and Ringo refused to permit the release of a single in the United Kingdom. This did not prevent Matt Monro from recording the first of many cover versions of "Yesterday" to come — his version made it into the top ten in the UK charts soon after its release in the autumn of 1965.

In America, the Beatles' influence on their record label, Capitol, was not as strong. A single was released there, pairing "Yesterday" with "Act Naturally" on Side B. The single was charting by 29 September 1965, and topped the charts for a full month, beginning on October 9. The song spent a remarkable total of 11 weeks in the American charts, selling a million copies alone within five weeks. Notably, "Yesterday" was the most-played song on American radio for eight consecutive years, its popularity refusing to abate.

On March 4 1966, "Yesterday" was released as an EP in America, joined by "Act Naturally" on Side A, as well as Can't Buy Me Love / I Feel Fine on Side B. By 12 March it had begun its run on the charts. On March 26 1966, the EP went to number one, a position it held for two months.

Meanwhile, in the United Kingdom, Help! debuted at number one on August 14 1965 (the first album in history to do so), and continued to top the charts for nine weeks. McCartney also used "Yesterday" for vengeance – a couple of years earlier, the mother of his ex-girlfriend, Iris Caldwell, accused McCartney of having no feelings. McCartney phoned her and said, "You know that you said I had no feelings? Watch telly on Sunday and then tell me I've got no feelings." The following Sunday, the Beatles appeared on "Blackpool Night Out" on BBC, and performed "Yesterday" live for the first time.

On March 8, 1976, "Yesterday" was released by Parlophone as a single in the United Kingdom, featuring "I Should Have Known Better" on Side B. Entering the charts on March 13, the single stayed there for seven weeks, but it never rose higher than number 8 in the charts. The release actually came about due to the expiration of the Beatles' contract with EMI, Parlophone's parent. EMI released as many singles by the Beatles as they could on the same day, leading to 23 of them hitting the top 100 in the United Kingdom charts, including no less than six in the top 50.

Awards, accolades and brickbats

"Yesterday" has achieved recognition as being the most recorded song in the history of popular music; its entry in the Guinness Book of Records suggests over 3000 different cover versions to date, by an eclectic mix of artists including Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, Wet Wet Wet, Plácido Domingo, and Boyz II Men. Astonishingly, "Yesterday" laid claim to this record only two years after its release in 1965.

It won an Ivor Novello award for the 'Outstanding Song of 1965', and came second in their award for 'Most Performed Work of the Year', ironically losing out to another McCartney composition, Michelle.

The song has received its fair share of acclaim in recent times as well. MTV and Rolling Stone magazine have both declared "Yesterday" to be the greatest song since 1963. In 1999, BMI placed "Yesterday" third on their list of most performed songs of the 20th century, with approximately seven million performances. "Yesterday" was surpassed only by The Association's "Never My Love" and the Righteous Brothers' "You've Lost That Loving Feeling".

"Yesterday" has also had its own share of derisive comments. Bob Dylan had a marked dislike for the song, stating that "If you go into the Library of Congress, you can find a lot better than that. There are millions of songs like 'Michelle' and 'Yesterday' written in Tin Pan Alley". Ironically, Dylan recorded his own version of "Yesterday" four years later, but it was never released.

John Lennon himself snubbed "Yesterday" in "How Do You Sleep?", a song on his Imagine album, released a few years after the Beatles broke up. Lennon tells McCartney "The only thing you done was yesterday / and since you've gone you've just another day", just one of several condescending comments in the song.

Melody and lyrics

The tonic key of the song is F Major, where the song begins, before veering off into the relative minor key of D. It is this frequent use of the minor, and the dominant A seventh chord leading into it, that gives the song its melancholy aura. The string arrangement also adds to this feeling, especially in the groaning cello melody that connects the two halves of the bridge (on the line, "I don't know / she wouldn't say") as well as the descending line by the violin that segues the chorus back into the verses. This simple idea is so striking, McCartney mimicks it with his vocal on the second pass of the chorus.

As stated before, McCartney modified the original nonsensical lyrics about breakfast to cover a much more somber topic and fit the reflective melody. Although the lyrics are rather vague, they could be interpreted to reveal sadness about a lost loved one. When the song was written, the lyrics were considered unusual for a McCartney composition. Until then, the majority of McCartney's songs had been positive and upbeat; Lennon was considered the Beatle with the more introspective and sad lyrics. A sample of the song is available.