Beatles Track - “Yesterday”
Yesterday is one of the most enduring, most recognizable, most covered Beatles songs. From its 1965 release it was the most often played song on American radio for 11 years straight. But it didn’t exactly have such an auspicious beginning.
Paul McCartney originally wrote the tune in 1964. According to legend, he woke up from a dream with the tune in his head, and ran down to the piano to record it before he forget 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.” - Paul McCartney
Once he was convinced that it was original, Paul began the work of putting lyrics to the tune. This turned out to be no easy task. For months the song was known under the working title Scrambled Eggs. During shooting of the Beatles film Help! Paul would often sit at a piano on the set and plunk out the song, using nonsense lyrics such as, “Scrambled eggs, Oh, baby how I love your legs.” Help! director Richard Lester was not amused, and threatened to remove the piano if Paul didn’t finish writing the song.
Even after Paul had completed the lyrics, the rest of the band reportedly were not enthralled with the song, and were reluctant to record it. It was eventually recorded in two takes, with Paul singing solo accompanied by his own guitar. At the beginning of take one, Paul can be heard giving directions regarding the key, presumably to George Harrison. But no other Beatle is heard on either take. George Martin added strings to back up Paul’s second take.
The song was released on the album Help! Try as he might, Paul could not convince the rest of the band to agree to release a UK single. The band’s American label, Capitol Records, chose to release Yesterday as the B-side of US single Act Naturally. Soon enough, with the song exploding in popularity, Capitol reversed the order of the two sides, labelling Yesterday as the A-side. The song was finally released as a single in the UK in 1976, right before the expiry of EMI’s contract with the Beatles.
Tags: Beatles, George Martin, Help!, Paul-McCartney, scrambled eggs, single, strings, track, Yesterday
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