Yesterday (song)

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

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.

Related Topics:
London - Flat - Wimpole Street - Jane Asher - Tape recorder

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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".

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

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Scrambled Eggs,

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Have an omelette with some Muenster cheese,

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Put your dishes in the washbin please,

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So I can clean the scrambled eggs.

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Join me, do,

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There's a lot of eggs for me and you,

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I've got ham and cheese and bacon too,

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So go get two and join me do.

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Fried or sunny side,

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Just aren't right,

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The mix-bowl begs,

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Quick, go get a pan, and we'll scramble up some eggs, eggs, eggs, eggs.

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Scrambled eggs,

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Good for breakfast, dinner time or brunch,

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Don't buy six or twelve, buy a bunch,

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And we'll have a lunch on scrambled eggs.

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A common, mythical variation on this lyric 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."

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During the shooting of Help!, 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 would have the piano removed.

Related Topics:
Help! - Richard Lester

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McCartney originally claimed he had written "Yesterday" during the Beatles' tour of France in 1964; however, the song was not released until 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.

Related Topics:
France - 1964 - 1965 - Beatles For Sale - A Hard Day's Night - George Martin

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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."

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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. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/3050614.stm Others speculate that McCartney may have subconsciously based "Yesterday" on Ray Charles' version of "Georgia On My Mind". http://www.icce.rug.nl/~soundscapes/VOLUME05/Oldsweetsongs.html

Related Topics:
2003 - Nat King Cole - Ray Charles - Georgia On My Mind

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