Paul McCartney woke up one morning with the melody of “Yesterday” ringing in his head. By his own account, he spent weeks fully convinced it belonged to someone else. He was staying with Jane Asher’s family on Wimpole Street when he heard the tune in his dream.
He’d squeezed an upright piano into the attic room, and once described fumbling out the chords after waking up: G, F-sharp minor seventh, then B7, E minor, and back to G. He assumed it was an old jazz tune his father used to know.
How Paul McCartney Spent a Month Figuring Out If He’d Stolen ‘Yesterday’
As Paul McCartney recalled, he spent the next month playing the tune of “Yesterday” to various people in the music business, checking if anyone could recognize it. He compared the process to “handing something in to the police.” For weeks, no one claimed any knowledge or ownership, so Macca finally decided it was his.
He had no lyrics for the song yet, so he fitted the melody with a nonsense verse built on “Scrambled Eggs.” He kept working on it through the “Help!” shoot. Director Richard Lester later said he threatened to have the piano removed from the set if McCartney didn’t either finish the song or quit working on it.
The Beatles member finally finished the lyrics on a 1965 trip to Portugal. However, the timeline of the song’s completion is a bit unclear. George Martin said he first heard the “Scrambled Eggs” version at the George V Hotel in Paris in January 1964. McCartney’s authorized biographer, Barry Miles, dated the composition to May 1965.
Paul McCartney Records ‘Yesterday’ in Two Takes
The Beatles recorded “Yesterday” on June 14, 1965, with Paul McCartney playing acoustic guitar and singing at the same time. He completed it in two takes. He’d originally written it in G, but wanted to record it in F, so he tuned all six strings down a whole tone rather than change the chord shapes.
George Martin suggested a string quartet, a first for the band, and Macca pushed for playing without vibrato. They eventually worked out the score together, though Martin wrote most of it. The quartet was recorded on June 17, with Tony Gilbert and Sidney Sax on violin, Kenneth Essex on Viola, and Francisco Gabarro on cello. McCartney was the only Beatles member on the record.
The Legacy of the Beatles’ ‘Yesterday’
Capitol released “Yesterday” as a U.S. single on September 13, 1965. It reached No. 1 on October 9 and kept the spot for four weeks. The UK didn’t get it as a single until 1976. It became one of the most popular Beatles songs ever, with more than 3,000 cover versions.
Funnily enough, Paul McCartney never forgot the placeholder. On December 9, 2010, he sang the “Scrambled Eggs” version as a duet with the host on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.
