‘Yesterday’ is a song by the English rock band the Beatles, written primarily by Paul McCartney and credited to Lennon–McCartney. It was first released on the album Help! in August 1965, except in the United States, where it was issued as a single in September. The song reached number one on the US charts. It subsequently appeared on the UK EP Yesterday in March 1966 and made its US album debut on Yesterday and Today, in June 1966.
McCartney's vocal and acoustic guitar, together with a string quartet, essentially made for the first solo performance of the band. It remains popular today and, with 2,200 cover versions, is one of the most covered songs in the history of recorded music. ‘Yesterday’ was voted the best song of the 20th century in a 1999 BBC Radio 2 poll of music experts and listeners and was also voted the No. 1 pop song of all time by MTV and Rolling Stone magazine the following year. In 1997, the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Broadcast Music Incorporated (BMI) asserts that it was performed over seven million times in the 20th century.
‘Yesterday’ is a melancholic ballad about the break-up of a relationship. The singer nostalgically laments for yesterday when he and his love were together, before she left because of something he said. McCartney is the only member of the Beatles to appear on the track. The final recording was so different from other works by the Beatles that the band members vetoed the release of the song as a single in the United Kingdom, although other artists were quick to record versions of it for single release. The Beatles recording was issued as a single there in 1976 and peaked at number 8.
According to biographers of McCartney and the Beatles, McCartney composed the entire melody in a dream one night in his room at the Wimpole Street home of his then-girlfriend Jane Asher and her family. Upon waking, he hurried to a piano and played the tune to avoid forgetting it. Initially concerned though 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 copied the melody, McCartney began writing lyrics to suit it. As Lennon and McCartney were known to do at the time, a substitute working lyric, titled "Scrambled Eggs" (the working opening verse was "Scrambled eggs/Oh my baby how I love your legs/Not as much as I love scrambled eggs"), was used for the song until something more suitable was written. McCartney said the breakthrough with the lyrics came during a trip to Portugal in May 1965: “I remember mulling over the tune 'Yesterday', and suddenly getting these little one-word openings to the verse. I started to develop the idea ... da-da da, yes-ter-day, sud-den-ly, fun-il-ly, mer-il-ly and Yes-ter-day, that's good. All my troubles seemed so far away. It's easy to rhyme those a's: say, nay, today, away, play, stay, there's a lot of rhymes and those fall in quite easily, so I gradually pieced it together from that journey. Sud-den-ly, and 'b' again, another easy rhyme: e, me, tree, flea, we, and I had the basis of it.”
‘Yesterday’ was the fifth of six number one Beatles' singles in a row on the American charts, a record at the time. The other singles were ‘I Feel Fine’, ‘Eight Days a Week’, ‘Ticket to Ride’, ‘Help!’ and ‘We Can Work It Out’. On 4 March 1966, the song was issued as the title track of the British EP Yesterday. On 26 March, the EP went to number one, a position it held for two months. Later that year, ‘Yesterday’ was included as the title track of the North American album Yesterday and Today. ‘Yesterday’ was released on the album A Collection of Beatles Oldies, a compilation album released in the United Kingdom in December 1966, featuring hit singles and other songs issued by the group between 1963 and 1966.
‘Yesterday’ is one of the most recorded songs in the history of popular music. Its entry in Guinness World Records states that, by January 1986, 1,600 cover versions had been made. After Muzak switched in the 1990s to programs based on commercial recordings, its inventory grew to include about 500 "Yesterday" covers. In his 1972 article on the development of rock music, Joel Vance of Stereo Review magazine credited the song with originating the vogue for classical and baroque rock, anticipating the Rolling Stones' recording of ‘As Tears Go By’ and works by artists such as the Moody Blues and the Classics IV. The song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1997.
Labels – Capitol (US), Parlophone (UK)
Songwriters – John Lennon, Paul McCartney
Producer – George Martin
SONG LYRICS
[Verse 1]Yesterday
All my troubles seemed so far away
Now it looks as though they're here to stay
Oh, I believe in yesterday
[Verse 2]
Suddenly
I'm not half the man I used to be
There's a shadow hanging over me
Oh, yesterday came suddenly
[Bridge]
Why she had to go
I don't know, she wouldn't say
I said something wrong
Now I long for yesterday
[Verse 3]
Yesterday
Love was such an easy game to play
Now I need a place to hide away
Oh, I believe in yesterday
[Bridge]
Why she had to go
I don't know, she wouldn't say
I said something wrong
Now I long for yesterday
[Verse 3]
Yesterday
Love was such an easy game to play
Now I need a place to hide away
Oh, I believe in yesterday
[Outro]
Mmm-mmm-mmm-mmm-mmm, hmm-hmm