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Wikipedia

Yesterday (song)

"Yesterday" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles, written 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.

"Yesterday"
US picture sleeve
Single by the Beatles
B-side"Act Naturally"
Released13 September 1965 (1965-09-13)
Recorded14, 17 June 1965
StudioEMI, London
Genre
Length2:03
LabelCapitol (US), Parlophone (UK)
Songwriter(s)Lennon–McCartney
Producer(s)George Martin
The Beatles US singles chronology
"Help!"
(1965)
"Yesterday"
(1965)
"Day Tripper" / "We Can Work It Out"
(1965)
The Beatles UK singles chronology
"Let It Be"
(1970)
"Yesterday"
(1976)
"Back in the U.S.S.R."
(1976)

McCartney's vocal and acoustic guitar, together with a string quartet, was essentially the band's first solo performance. It remains popular today and, with 2,200 cover versions,[3] is one of the most covered songs in the history of recorded music.[note 1] "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.[5]

"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.[6] 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 song's release as a single in the United Kingdom. However, other artists quickly recorded versions of it for single release. The Beatles recording was issued in the U.K. as a single in 1976 and peaked at number 8.

Origin edit

According to biographers of McCartney and the Beatles, the entire melody came to McCartney in a dream one night in his room at the Wimpole Street home of his then-girlfriend Jane Asher and her family.[7] Upon waking, he hurried to a piano and played the tune to avoid forgetting it.[8] 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."[8]

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.[9]

During the shooting of Help!, a piano was placed on one of the stages where filming was being conducted, and McCartney took advantage of this opportunity to tinker with the song. This eventually greatly annoyed the director Richard Lester, who lost his temper, telling McCartney to finish writing the song or he would have the piano removed.[10] The patience of the other Beatles was also tested by McCartney's work in progress; George Harrison summed this up when he said: "Blimey, he's always talking about that song. You'd think he was Beethoven or somebody!"[11]

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, A Hard Day's Night and Beatles for Sale, each of which could have included "Yesterday". Although McCartney has never elaborated on his claims, a delay may have been due to a disagreement between McCartney and George Martin regarding the song's arrangement or the opinion of the other Beatles who felt it did not suit their image.[8]

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.[12]

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.[13]

On 27 May 1965, McCartney and Asher flew to Lisbon for a holiday in Albufeira, Algarve, and he borrowed an acoustic guitar from Bruce Welch, in whose house they were staying, and completed the work on "Yesterday".[14] The song was offered as a demo to Chris Farlowe before the Beatles recorded it, but he turned it down as he considered it "too soft".[15] In a March 1967 interview with Brian Matthew, McCartney said that Lennon came up with the word that would replace "scrambled eggs": Yesterday.[16]

Resemblance to other songs edit

In 2001, Ian Hammond speculated that McCartney subconsciously based "Yesterday" on Ray Charles' version of Hoagy Carmichael's "Georgia on My Mind". Hammond concluded his article by saying that, despite the similarities, "Yesterday" is a "completely original and individual [work]".[12]

In July 2003, British musicologists stumbled upon superficial similarities between the lyric and rhyming schemes of "Yesterday" and Nat King Cole's and Frankie Laine's "Answer Me, My Love"; originally a German song by Gerhard Winkler and Fred Rauch called Mütterlein, it was a number 1 hit for Laine on the UK charts in 1953 as "Answer Me, O Lord", leading to speculation that the song had influenced McCartney. McCartney's publicists denied any resemblance between "Answer Me, My Love" and "Yesterday".[17] "Yesterday" begins with the lines: "Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away. Now it looks as though they're here to stay." In its second stanza, "Answer Me, My Love" has the lines: "You were mine yesterday. I believed that love was here to stay. Won't you tell me where I've gone astray".

Composition and structure edit

Ostensibly simple, featuring only McCartney playing an Epiphone Texan steel-string acoustic guitar[18] backed by a string quartet in one of the Beatles' first uses of session musicians,[19] "Yesterday" has two contrasting sections, differing in melody and rhythm, producing a sense of variety and fitting contrast.[20] The main melody is seven bars in length, extremely rare in popular songs, while the bridge, or "middle eight", is the more standard form of eight bars, often two four-bar phrases combined.

The first section ("Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away ...") opens with an F chord[21] (the 3rd of the chord is omitted[22]), then moving to Em7[23] before proceeding to A7 and then to D minor.[24] In this sense, the opening chord is a decoy; as musicologist Alan Pollack points out, the home key (F major) has little time to establish itself before "heading towards the relative D minor".[24] He points out that this diversion is a compositional device commonly used by Lennon and McCartney, which he describes as "deferred gratification".[24]

As is often the case with the over-exposed war horses of any artsy genre, whether or not you "like" this song, there's some good reason why it became so over-exposed in the first place. (hint) It's a fine piece of work with something going for it in virtually every department: the unique arrangement, an attractive tune, even some asymmetrical phrasing and a couple of off-beat chord progressions.[24]

– Musicologist Alan W. Pollack, 1993

According to Pollack, the second section ("Why she had to go I don't know ...") is less musically surprising on paper than it sounds. Starting with Em7,[23] the harmonic progression quickly moves through the A major, D minor, and (closer to F major) B, before resolving back to F major, and at the end of this, McCartney holds F while the strings descend to resolve to the home key to introduce the restatement of the first section, before a brief hummed closing phrase.[24]

Pollack described the scoring as "truly inspired", citing it as an example of "[Lennon & McCartney's] flair for creating stylistic hybrids";[24] in particular, he praises the "ironic tension drawn between the schmaltzy content of what is played by the quartet and the restrained, spare nature of the medium in which it is played".[24]

The tonic key of the song is F major (although, since McCartney tuned his guitar down a whole step, he was playing the chords as if it were in G[22]), where the song begins before veering off into the key of D minor. It is this frequent use of the minor, and the ii–V7 chord progression (Em and A7 chords in this case) leading into it, that gives the song its melancholic aura. The A7 chord is an example of a secondary dominant, specifically a V/vi chord. The G7 chord in the bridge is another secondary dominant, in this case a V/V chord, but rather than resolve it to the expected chord, as with the A7 to Dm in the verse, McCartney instead follows it with the IV chord, a B. This motion creates a descending chromatic line of C–B–B–A to accompany the title lyric.

The string arrangement reinforces the song's air of sadness in the groaning cello line that connects the two halves of the bridge, notably the "blue" seventh in the second bridge pass (the E played after the vocal line "I don't know / she wouldn't say") and in the descending run by the viola that segues the bridge back into the verses, mimicked by McCartney's vocal on the second pass of the bridge.[25][24] This viola line, the "blue" cello phrase, the high A sustained by the violin over the final verse and the minimal use of vibrato are elements of the string arrangement attributable to McCartney rather than George Martin.[26]

When the song was performed on The Ed Sullivan Show, it was done in the key mentioned above of F, with McCartney as the only Beatle to perform and the studio orchestra providing the string accompaniment. However, all of the Beatles played in a G-major version when the song was included in tours in 1965 and 1966.

When McCartney appeared on The Howard Stern Show, he stated that he owned the original lyrics to "Yesterday" written on the back of an envelope. McCartney later performed the original "Scrambled Eggs" version of the song, plus additional new lyrics, with Jimmy Fallon and the Roots on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.[27]

When asked whether some of the lyrics from "Yesterday" are a reference to his early loss of his mother, Mary McCartney, he stated that "I didn't mean it to be, but ... it could be".[28]

Recording edit

 
Replica of the Epiphone Texan acoustic guitar played by McCartney on the song

The track was recorded at Abbey Road Studios on 14 June 1965, immediately following the taping of "I'm Down" and four days before McCartney's 23rd birthday. There are conflicting accounts of how the song was recorded. Some sources 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 Epiphone Texan steel-string acoustic guitar, later overdubbing a string quartet for backup. Regardless, none of the other band members were included in the final recording.[29][30]

McCartney performed two takes of "Yesterday" on 14 June 1965.[31][32] Take 2 was deemed better and used as the master take. On 17 June, an additional vocal track by McCartney and a string quartet were overdubbed on take two and that version was released.[32]

Take 1, without the string overdub, was later released on the Anthology 2 compilation. On take 1, McCartney can be heard giving chord changes to Harrison before starting. Still, while Harrison does not appear actually to play, he is most certainly present because his voice is captured on the session tapes. Take 2 had two lines transposed from the first take: "There's a shadow hanging over me"/"I'm not half the man I used to be",[33] though it seems clear that their order in take 2 was the correct one because McCartney can be heard, in take 1, suppressing a laugh at his mistake.

In 2006, just before the album Love was released, George Martin elaborated on the recording set-up of the song:[34]

Paul played his guitar and sang it live, a mic on the guitar and mic on the voice. But, of course, the voice comes on to the guitar mic and the guitar comes on to the voice mic. So there's leakage there. Then I said I'd do a string quartet. The musicians objected to playing with headphones, so I gave them Paul's voice and guitar on two speakers either side of their microphones. So there's leakage of Paul's guitar and voice on the string tracks.

The sound leakage from one track to another caused concern when the surround version of the song was mixed for Love, but it was decided to include the track nevertheless. As Martin explained in the liner notes of Love:[35]

We agonised over the inclusion of "Yesterday" in the show. It is such a famous song, the icon of an era, but had it been heard too much? The story of the addition of the original string quartet is well known, however, few people know how limited the recording was technically, and so the case for not including it was strong, but how could we ignore such a marvellous work? We introduced it with some of Paul's guitar work from "Blackbird", and hearing it now, I know it was right to include it. Its simplicity is so direct; it tugs at the heartstrings.

Release edit

Concerning the debate on how the song should be released, Martin later said: "['Yesterday'] wasn't really a Beatles record and I discussed this with Brian Epstein: 'You know this is Paul's song ... shall we call it Paul McCartney?' He said 'No, whatever we do we are not splitting up the Beatles.'"[36] Since "Yesterday" was unlike the Beatles' previous work and did not fit in with their image, the Beatles 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". His version made it into the top ten in the UK charts soon after its release in the autumn of 1965.[30]

The Beatles' influence over their US record label, Capitol, was not as strong as it was over EMI's Parlophone label in Britain. A single was released in the US, pairing "Yesterday" with "Act Naturally", a track which featured vocals by Starr.[37] The single was released on 13 September 1965 and topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart for four weeks, beginning on 9 October. The song spent a total of 11 weeks on the chart, selling a million copies within five weeks.[38] The single was also number one for three weeks on the US Cash Box pop singles chart the same year.

"Yesterday" was the fifth of six number-one Beatles singles in a row on the American charts, a record at the time.[39] The other singles were "I Feel Fine", "Eight Days a Week", "Ticket to Ride", "Help!" and "We Can Work It Out".[40] 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.[41] 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.

On 8 March 1976, "Yesterday" was released by Parlophone as a single in the UK, featuring "I Should Have Known Better" on the B-side. The single peaked at number 8 on the UK Singles Chart. The release came about due to the expiration of the Beatles' contract with EMI, which allowed the company to repackage the Beatles' recordings as they wished. EMI reissued all 22 of the Beatles' UK singles, plus "Yesterday", on the same day, leading to six of them placing on the UK chart.[42]

In 2006, a version of the song was included on the album Love. The version begins with the acoustic guitar intro from the song "Blackbird" transposed down a whole step to F major from its original key G to transition smoothly into "Yesterday".

Reception and legacy edit

"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.[43] After Muzak switched in the 1990s to programs based on commercial recordings, its inventory grew to include about 500 "Yesterday" covers.[44] 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.[45]

"Yesterday" won the Ivor Novello Award for "Outstanding Song of 1965",[46] and came second in the "Most Performed Work of the Year" category, behind the Lennon–McCartney composition "Michelle". More recently, Rolling Stone ranked "Yesterday" at number 13 on its 2004 list "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time"[47] and fourth on its 2010 list of "The Beatles' 100 Greatest Songs".[48][49] In 1999, Broadcast Music Incorporated (BMI) placed "Yesterday" third on its list of songs of the 20th century most performed on American radio and television, with approximately seven million performances. "Yesterday" was surpassed only by the Association's "Never My Love" and the Righteous Brothers' "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'".[5] "Yesterday" was voted Best Song of the 20th century in a 1999 BBC Radio 2 poll.[50]

The song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1997. Although it was nominated for Song of the Year at the 1966 Grammy Awards, it lost out to Tony Bennett's "The Shadow of Your Smile".[51][52] "Yesterday" was nominated for six Grammys in total that year, and "Help!" was also nominated in four categories.[53] After the band had failed to win any of the ten awards, Alan Livingston, the head of Capitol Records, officially protested about the results, saying that "Yesterday" being passed over for the Song of the Year "makes a mockery of the whole event".[54]

 
Following the Beatles' break-up, McCartney (pictured with his wife Linda in 1976) began performing the song live in 1975 during his Wings Over the World tour.

Chuck Berry said that "Yesterday" was the song that he wished that he had written.[55] "Yesterday" has also been criticised for being mundane and mawkish. 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." Accompanied by Harrison, Dylan recorded his own version of "Yesterday" four years later,[when?], but it was never released.[29]

Shortly before he died in 1980, Lennon commented, "Although the lyrics don't resolve into any sense, they're good lines. They certainly work ... but if you read the whole song, it doesn't say anything" and added the song was "beautiful – and I never wished I'd written it".[56] Lennon made reference to "Yesterday" in his song "How Do You Sleep?" on his 1971 album Imagine. The song appears to attack McCartney with the line "The only thing you done was yesterday, but since you've gone you're just another day", a reference to McCartney's recent hit "Another Day".

In 2001, McCartney said that he had asked Yoko Ono to agree to change the writing credit for "Yesterday" from "Lennon/McCartney" to "McCartney/Lennon". He said that Ono refused, which was one of the reasons for their poor relationship at the time.[57]

At the 2006 Grammy Awards, McCartney performed "Yesterday" live as a mash-up with Linkin Park and Jay Z's "Numb/Encore".

In 2012, the BBC reported that "Yesterday" remained the fourth-most-successful song of all time in terms of royalties paid, having amassed a total of £19.5 million in payments.[58]

Personnel edit

According to Mark Lewisohn[31] and Ian MacDonald:[59]

The Beatles

Additional musicians and production

Charts edit

Weekly charts edit

Year-end charts edit

Chart (1965) Peak
Rank
US Cash Box[80] 68

Certifications edit

Region Certification Certified units/sales
Denmark (IFPI Danmark)[81] Gold 45,000
France 75,000[82]
Italy (FIMI)[83]
sales since 2009
Gold 25,000
Portugal (AFP)[84] Gold 20,000
Spain (PROMUSICAE)[85] Platinum 60,000
United Kingdom (BPI)[86]
sales since 2010
Platinum 600,000
United States (RIAA)[88] Gold 1,800,000[87]
Summaries
Worldwide 2,500,000[87]

Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone.

Notes edit

  1. ^ At one time, Guinness World Records cited "Yesterday" with the most cover versions of any song ever written – 2,200. However, "Summertime", an aria composed by George Gershwin for the 1935 opera Porgy and Bess has been claimed to have well over 30,000 recorded performances, far more than the 1,600 claimed for "Yesterday".[4]

References edit

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  9. ^ Miles 1997, pp. 201–202.
  10. ^ Miles 1997, p. 203.
  11. ^ Coleman 1995, p. 11.
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  22. ^ a b Pedler, Dominic (2003). The Songwriting Secrets of the Beatles. Omnibus Press. p. 29. ISBN 0711981671. Listen to the start of 'Yesterday' to sample McCartney's 'no thirds' G5 shape (though, as he explains on the Anthology 2 version, he is tuned down a whole tone to F).
  23. ^ a b Pollack calls it an E diminished, the published sheet music shows Em7.
  24. ^ a b c d e f g h Pollack 1993.
  25. ^ Cahill 2005, p. 162.
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  83. ^ "Italian single certifications – The Beatles – Yesterday" (in Italian). Federazione Industria Musicale Italiana. Retrieved 26 November 2020. Select "2019" in the "Anno" drop-down menu. Select "Yesterday" in the "Filtra" field. Select "Singoli" under "Sezione".
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  87. ^ a b Murrells, Joseph (1985). Million selling records from the 1900s to the 1980s : an illustrated directory. Arco Pub. p. 203. ISBN 0668064595. This plaintive romantic song proved to be a colossal hit in the U.S.A., selling over one million in 10 days plus R.I.A.A. Gold Disc award and staying at No 1 there four weeks with 11 weeks in the bestsellers, with a final total of 1,800,000 sold. ... Total sales estimated at well over two and a half million
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Sources edit

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  • Coleman, Ray (1995). Yesterday & Today. London: Boxtree Limited. ISBN 0-7522-1669-4.
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External links edit

yesterday, song, this, article, about, beatles, song, other, songs, yesterday, disambiguation, songs, yesterday, song, english, rock, band, beatles, written, paul, mccartney, credited, lennon, mccartney, first, released, album, help, august, 1965, except, unit. This article is about the Beatles song For other songs see Yesterday disambiguation Songs Yesterday is a song by the English rock band the Beatles written 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 Yesterday US picture sleeveSingle by the BeatlesB side Act Naturally Released13 September 1965 1965 09 13 Recorded14 17 June 1965StudioEMI LondonGenreChamber pop 1 pop rock 2 Length2 03LabelCapitol US Parlophone UK Songwriter s Lennon McCartneyProducer s George MartinThe Beatles US singles chronology Help 1965 Yesterday 1965 Day Tripper We Can Work It Out 1965 The Beatles UK singles chronology Let It Be 1970 Yesterday 1976 Back in the U S S R 1976 McCartney s vocal and acoustic guitar together with a string quartet was essentially the band s first solo performance It remains popular today and with 2 200 cover versions 3 is one of the most covered songs in the history of recorded music note 1 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 5 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 6 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 song s release as a single in the United Kingdom However other artists quickly recorded versions of it for single release The Beatles recording was issued in the U K as a single in 1976 and peaked at number 8 Contents 1 Origin 1 1 Resemblance to other songs 2 Composition and structure 3 Recording 4 Release 5 Reception and legacy 6 Personnel 7 Charts 7 1 Weekly charts 7 2 Year end charts 8 Certifications 9 Notes 10 References 10 1 Sources 11 External linksOrigin editAccording to biographers of McCartney and the Beatles the entire melody came to McCartney in a dream one night in his room at the Wimpole Street home of his then girlfriend Jane Asher and her family 7 Upon waking he hurried to a piano and played the tune to avoid forgetting it 8 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 8 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 9 During the shooting of Help a piano was placed on one of the stages where filming was being conducted and McCartney took advantage of this opportunity to tinker with the song This eventually greatly annoyed the director Richard Lester who lost his temper telling McCartney to finish writing the song or he would have the piano removed 10 The patience of the other Beatles was also tested by McCartney s work in progress George Harrison summed this up when he said Blimey he s always talking about that song You d think he was Beethoven or somebody 11 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 A Hard Day s Night and Beatles for Sale each of which could have included Yesterday Although McCartney has never elaborated on his claims a delay may have been due to a disagreement between McCartney and George Martin regarding the song s arrangement or the opinion of the other Beatles who felt it did not suit their image 8 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 12 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 13 On 27 May 1965 McCartney and Asher flew to Lisbon for a holiday in Albufeira Algarve and he borrowed an acoustic guitar from Bruce Welch in whose house they were staying and completed the work on Yesterday 14 The song was offered as a demo to Chris Farlowe before the Beatles recorded it but he turned it down as he considered it too soft 15 In a March 1967 interview with Brian Matthew McCartney said that Lennon came up with the word that would replace scrambled eggs Yesterday 16 Resemblance to other songs edit In 2001 Ian Hammond speculated that McCartney subconsciously based Yesterday on Ray Charles version of Hoagy Carmichael s Georgia on My Mind Hammond concluded his article by saying that despite the similarities Yesterday is a completely original and individual work 12 In July 2003 British musicologists stumbled upon superficial similarities between the lyric and rhyming schemes of Yesterday and Nat King Cole s and Frankie Laine s Answer Me My Love originally a German song by Gerhard Winkler and Fred Rauch called Mutterlein it was a number 1 hit for Laine on the UK charts in 1953 as Answer Me O Lord leading to speculation that the song had influenced McCartney McCartney s publicists denied any resemblance between Answer Me My Love and Yesterday 17 Yesterday begins with the lines Yesterday all my troubles seemed so far away Now it looks as though they re here to stay In its second stanza Answer Me My Love has the lines You were mine yesterday I believed that love was here to stay Won t you tell me where I ve gone astray Composition and structure edit nbsp Yesterday sample source source track Problems playing this file See media help Ostensibly simple featuring only McCartney playing an Epiphone Texan steel string acoustic guitar 18 backed by a string quartet in one of the Beatles first uses of session musicians 19 Yesterday has two contrasting sections differing in melody and rhythm producing a sense of variety and fitting contrast 20 The main melody is seven bars in length extremely rare in popular songs while the bridge or middle eight is the more standard form of eight bars often two four bar phrases combined The first section Yesterday all my troubles seemed so far away opens with an F chord 21 the 3rd of the chord is omitted 22 then moving to Em7 23 before proceeding to A7 and then to D minor 24 In this sense the opening chord is a decoy as musicologist Alan Pollack points out the home key F major has little time to establish itself before heading towards the relative D minor 24 He points out that this diversion is a compositional device commonly used by Lennon and McCartney which he describes as deferred gratification 24 As is often the case with the over exposed war horses of any artsy genre whether or not you like this song there s some good reason why it became so over exposed in the first place hint It s a fine piece of work with something going for it in virtually every department the unique arrangement an attractive tune even some asymmetrical phrasing and a couple of off beat chord progressions 24 Musicologist Alan W Pollack 1993 According to Pollack the second section Why she had to go I don t know is less musically surprising on paper than it sounds Starting with Em7 23 the harmonic progression quickly moves through the A major D minor and closer to F major B before resolving back to F major and at the end of this McCartney holds F while the strings descend to resolve to the home key to introduce the restatement of the first section before a brief hummed closing phrase 24 Pollack described the scoring as truly inspired citing it as an example of Lennon amp McCartney s flair for creating stylistic hybrids 24 in particular he praises the ironic tension drawn between the schmaltzy content of what is played by the quartet and the restrained spare nature of the medium in which it is played 24 The tonic key of the song is F major although since McCartney tuned his guitar down a whole step he was playing the chords as if it were in G 22 where the song begins before veering off into the key of D minor It is this frequent use of the minor and the ii V7 chord progression Em and A7 chords in this case leading into it that gives the song its melancholic aura The A7 chord is an example of a secondary dominant specifically a V vi chord The G7 chord in the bridge is another secondary dominant in this case a V V chord but rather than resolve it to the expected chord as with the A7 to Dm in the verse McCartney instead follows it with the IV chord a B This motion creates a descending chromatic line of C B B A to accompany the title lyric The string arrangement reinforces the song s air of sadness in the groaning cello line that connects the two halves of the bridge notably the blue seventh in the second bridge pass the E played after the vocal line I don t know she wouldn t say and in the descending run by the viola that segues the bridge back into the verses mimicked by McCartney s vocal on the second pass of the bridge 25 24 This viola line the blue cello phrase the high A sustained by the violin over the final verse and the minimal use of vibrato are elements of the string arrangement attributable to McCartney rather than George Martin 26 When the song was performed on The Ed Sullivan Show it was done in the key mentioned above of F with McCartney as the only Beatle to perform and the studio orchestra providing the string accompaniment However all of the Beatles played in a G major version when the song was included in tours in 1965 and 1966 When McCartney appeared on The Howard Stern Show he stated that he owned the original lyrics to Yesterday written on the back of an envelope McCartney later performed the original Scrambled Eggs version of the song plus additional new lyrics with Jimmy Fallon and the Roots on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon 27 When asked whether some of the lyrics from Yesterday are a reference to his early loss of his mother Mary McCartney he stated that I didn t mean it to be but it could be 28 Recording edit nbsp Replica of the Epiphone Texan acoustic guitar played by McCartney on the song The track was recorded at Abbey Road Studios on 14 June 1965 immediately following the taping of I m Down and four days before McCartney s 23rd birthday There are conflicting accounts of how the song was recorded Some sources 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 Epiphone Texan steel string acoustic guitar later overdubbing a string quartet for backup Regardless none of the other band members were included in the final recording 29 30 McCartney performed two takes of Yesterday on 14 June 1965 31 32 Take 2 was deemed better and used as the master take On 17 June an additional vocal track by McCartney and a string quartet were overdubbed on take two and that version was released 32 Take 1 without the string overdub was later released on the Anthology 2 compilation On take 1 McCartney can be heard giving chord changes to Harrison before starting Still while Harrison does not appear actually to play he is most certainly present because his voice is captured on the session tapes Take 2 had two lines transposed from the first take There s a shadow hanging over me I m not half the man I used to be 33 though it seems clear that their order in take 2 was the correct one because McCartney can be heard in take 1 suppressing a laugh at his mistake In 2006 just before the album Love was released George Martin elaborated on the recording set up of the song 34 Paul played his guitar and sang it live a mic on the guitar and mic on the voice But of course the voice comes on to the guitar mic and the guitar comes on to the voice mic So there s leakage there Then I said I d do a string quartet The musicians objected to playing with headphones so I gave them Paul s voice and guitar on two speakers either side of their microphones So there s leakage of Paul s guitar and voice on the string tracks The sound leakage from one track to another caused concern when the surround version of the song was mixed for Love but it was decided to include the track nevertheless As Martin explained in the liner notes of Love 35 We agonised over the inclusion of Yesterday in the show It is such a famous song the icon of an era but had it been heard too much The story of the addition of the original string quartet is well known however few people know how limited the recording was technically and so the case for not including it was strong but how could we ignore such a marvellous work We introduced it with some of Paul s guitar work from Blackbird and hearing it now I know it was right to include it Its simplicity is so direct it tugs at the heartstrings Release editConcerning the debate on how the song should be released Martin later said Yesterday wasn t really a Beatles record and I discussed this with Brian Epstein You know this is Paul s song shall we call it Paul McCartney He said No whatever we do we are not splitting up the Beatles 36 Since Yesterday was unlike the Beatles previous work and did not fit in with their image the Beatles 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 His version made it into the top ten in the UK charts soon after its release in the autumn of 1965 30 The Beatles influence over their US record label Capitol was not as strong as it was over EMI s Parlophone label in Britain A single was released in the US pairing Yesterday with Act Naturally a track which featured vocals by Starr 37 The single was released on 13 September 1965 and topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart for four weeks beginning on 9 October The song spent a total of 11 weeks on the chart selling a million copies within five weeks 38 The single was also number one for three weeks on the US Cash Box pop singles chart the same year Yesterday was the fifth of six number one Beatles singles in a row on the American charts a record at the time 39 The other singles were I Feel Fine Eight Days a Week Ticket to Ride Help and We Can Work It Out 40 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 41 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 On 8 March 1976 Yesterday was released by Parlophone as a single in the UK featuring I Should Have Known Better on the B side The single peaked at number 8 on the UK Singles Chart The release came about due to the expiration of the Beatles contract with EMI which allowed the company to repackage the Beatles recordings as they wished EMI reissued all 22 of the Beatles UK singles plus Yesterday on the same day leading to six of them placing on the UK chart 42 In 2006 a version of the song was included on the album Love The version begins with the acoustic guitar intro from the song Blackbird transposed down a whole step to F major from its original key G to transition smoothly into Yesterday Reception and legacy edit 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 43 After Muzak switched in the 1990s to programs based on commercial recordings its inventory grew to include about 500 Yesterday covers 44 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 45 Yesterday won the Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Song of 1965 46 and came second in the Most Performed Work of the Year category behind the Lennon McCartney composition Michelle More recently Rolling Stone ranked Yesterday at number 13 on its 2004 list The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time 47 and fourth on its 2010 list of The Beatles 100 Greatest Songs 48 49 In 1999 Broadcast Music Incorporated BMI placed Yesterday third on its list of songs of the 20th century most performed on American radio and television with approximately seven million performances Yesterday was surpassed only by the Association s Never My Love and the Righteous Brothers You ve Lost That Lovin Feelin 5 Yesterday was voted Best Song of the 20th century in a 1999 BBC Radio 2 poll 50 The song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1997 Although it was nominated for Song of the Year at the 1966 Grammy Awards it lost out to Tony Bennett s The Shadow of Your Smile 51 52 Yesterday was nominated for six Grammys in total that year and Help was also nominated in four categories 53 After the band had failed to win any of the ten awards Alan Livingston the head of Capitol Records officially protested about the results saying that Yesterday being passed over for the Song of the Year makes a mockery of the whole event 54 nbsp Following the Beatles break up McCartney pictured with his wife Linda in 1976 began performing the song live in 1975 during his Wings Over the World tour Chuck Berry said that Yesterday was the song that he wished that he had written 55 Yesterday has also been criticised for being mundane and mawkish 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 Accompanied by Harrison Dylan recorded his own version of Yesterday four years later when but it was never released 29 Shortly before he died in 1980 Lennon commented Although the lyrics don t resolve into any sense they re good lines They certainly work but if you read the whole song it doesn t say anything and added the song was beautiful and I never wished I d written it 56 Lennon made reference to Yesterday in his song How Do You Sleep on his 1971 album Imagine The song appears to attack McCartney with the line The only thing you done was yesterday but since you ve gone you re just another day a reference to McCartney s recent hit Another Day In 2001 McCartney said that he had asked Yoko Ono to agree to change the writing credit for Yesterday from Lennon McCartney to McCartney Lennon He said that Ono refused which was one of the reasons for their poor relationship at the time 57 At the 2006 Grammy Awards McCartney performed Yesterday live as a mash up with Linkin Park and Jay Z s Numb Encore In 2012 the BBC reported that Yesterday remained the fourth most successful song of all time in terms of royalties paid having amassed a total of 19 5 million in payments 58 Personnel editAccording to Mark Lewisohn 31 and Ian MacDonald 59 The Beatles Paul McCartney vocal acoustic guitar Additional musicians and production Tony Gilbert violin Sidney Sax violin Kenneth Essex viola Peter Halling Francisco Gabarro cello George Martin producer string arrangement Norman Smith engineerCharts editWeekly charts edit Original weekly chart performance Chart 1965 Peakposition Australian Kent Music Report 60 2 Austria O3 Austria Top 40 61 10 Belgium Ultratop 50 Flanders 62 1 Denmark Salgshitlisterne Top 20 63 7 Finland Suomen virallinen lista 64 1 Canada Top Singles RPM 65 4 Italy Musica e Dischi 66 15 Netherlands Single Top 100 67 1 New Zealand Lever Hit Parade 68 2 Norway VG lista 69 1 Sweden Kvallstoppen 70 1 Sweden Tio i Topp 71 1 US Billboard Hot 100 72 1 US Cash Box Top 100 73 1 West German Media Control Singles Chart 74 6 Reissue weekly chart performance Chart 1976 Peakposition Australian Kent Music Report 60 86 Netherlands Single Top 100 67 26 Ireland IRMA 75 4 UK Singles OCC 76 8 Chart 2010 Peakposition Spain PROMUSICAE 77 44 Poland Polish Airplay Top 100 78 5 Chart 2019 Peakposition US Hot Rock amp Alternative Songs Billboard 79 14 Year end charts edit Chart 1965 PeakRank US Cash Box 80 68Certifications editRegion Certification Certified units sales Denmark IFPI Danmark 81 Gold 45 000 France 75 000 82 Italy FIMI 83 sales since 2009 Gold 25 000 Portugal AFP 84 Gold 20 000 Spain PROMUSICAE 85 Platinum 60 000 United Kingdom BPI 86 sales since 2010 Platinum 600 000 United States RIAA 88 Gold 1 800 000 87 Summaries Worldwide 2 500 000 87 Sales streaming figures based on certification alone Notes edit At one time Guinness World Records cited Yesterday with the most cover versions of any song ever written 2 200 However Summertime an aria composed by George Gershwin for the 1935 opera Porgy and Bess has been claimed to have well over 30 000 recorded performances far more than the 1 600 claimed for Yesterday 4 References edit Gorlinski 2010 p 275 All 214 Beatles Songs Ranked from Worst to Best 2 November 2023 Sir Paul is Your Millennium s greatest composer BBC News 3 May 1999 Retrieved 26 June 2023 The Summertime Connection Archived from the original on 7 September 2011 Retrieved 31 August 2011 a b BMI Announces Top 100 Songs of the Century BMI 13 December 1999 Retrieved 26 June 2016 Top 21 Songs About Nostalgia Consequence of Sound 3 September 2018 Retrieved 30 June 2019 Turner 2005 p 83 a b c Cross 2005 pp 464 465 Miles 1997 pp 201 202 Miles 1997 p 203 Coleman 1995 p 11 a b Hammond 2001 Miles 1997 p 204 Miles 1997 pp 204 205 Napier Bell 2001 p 100 Howlett Kevin 2013 The Beatles The BBC Archives 1962 1970 Harper Design ISBN 978 0 06 228853 0 BBC News 2003 Everett 1999 p 12 Everett 1999 p 13 Everett 1999 p 15 The New Beatles Complete Wise Publications 1992 p 284 ISBN 0711932824 a b Pedler Dominic 2003 The Songwriting Secrets of the Beatles Omnibus Press p 29 ISBN 0711981671 Listen to the start of Yesterday to sample McCartney s no thirds G5 shape though as he explains on the Anthology 2 version he is tuned down a whole tone to F a b Pollack calls it an E diminished the published sheet music shows Em7 a b c d e f g h Pollack 1993 Cahill 2005 p 162 Ray Colman A String Quartet McCartney Yesterday amp Today Paul McCartney sings Scrambled Eggs the original Yesterday Archived from the original on 26 December 2010 Paul McCartney Often Dreams of John Lennon The Late Show with Stephen Colbert 24 September 2019 Archived from the original on 17 November 2021 a b Mallick 2000 a b Unterberger 2006 a b Lewisohn 1994 p 10 a b Lewisohn 1988 p 59 The Beatles 2000 pp 2 10 Rees 2006 George Martin s liner notes to Love Apple Parlophone 094638078920 The Beatles 2000 p 175 Wallgren 1982 p 43 Cross Craig 2004 American singles Archived from the original on 22 March 2014 Retrieved 9 December 2004 Billboard Magazine Buy Mag Billboards Charts Top 10 20 40 100 Music Chart Singles Albums Music us Archived from the original on 7 February 2012 Retrieved 9 January 2012 Wallgren 1982 pp 38 45 Cross Craig 2004 BRITISH EPS Retrieved 14 January 2006 dead link Cross Craig 2004 British singles Retrieved 9 December 2004 permanent dead link Guinness World Records 2009 Owen 2006 Vance Joel February 1972 The Fragmentation of Rock PDF Stereo Review p 66 Retrieved 31 July 2021 Miles 2001 p 236 Rolling Stone 2007 Rolling Stone 2011 4 Yesterday 100 Greatest Beatles Songs Rolling Stone Retrieved 21 May 2013 BBC News 1999 GRAMMY Hall of Fame Archived from the original on 22 January 2011 Retrieved 27 January 2014 The Beatles Grammy com Retrieved 27 January 2014 Miles 2001 p 226 Miles 2001 p 227 FOX 2 Exclusive An Interview With Chuck Berry YouTube Archived from the original on 17 November 2021 Retrieved 28 December 2013 Sheff David 1981 The Playboy Interviews with John Lennon and Yoko Ono p 118 Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine Howard Interviews Paul McCartney 10 18 2001 retrieved 8 December 2021 BBC4 The World s Richest Songs Did You Watch It Archived from the original on 1 January 2016 MacDonald 2008 p 157 a b Kent David 2005 Australian Chart Book 1940 1969 Turramurra Australian Chart Book ISBN 0 646 44439 5 The Beatles Yesterday in German O3 Austria Top 40 Retrieved 16 May 2016 The Beatles Yesterday in Dutch Ultratop 50 Retrieved 16 May 2016 The Beatles Salgshitlisterne Top 20 Danske Hitlister Archived from the original on 4 November 2013 Retrieved 2 August 2022 Nyman Jake 2005 Suomi soi 4 Suuri suomalainen listakirja in Finnish 1st ed Helsinki Tammi ISBN 951 31 2503 3 Top RPM Singles Issue 5620 RPM Library and Archives Canada Retrieved 28 November 2021 Classifiche Musica e dischi in Italian Retrieved 31 May 2022 Set Tipo on Singoli Then in the Titolo field search Yesterday a b The Beatles Yesterday in Dutch Single Top 100 Retrieved 16 May 2016 Flavour of New Zealand 11 November 1965 Flavourofnz co nz Archived from the original on 19 October 2021 Retrieved 30 June 2019 The Beatles Yesterday VG lista Retrieved 16 May 2016 Hallberg Eric 1993 Eric Hallberg presenterar Kvallstoppen i P 3 Sveriges radios topplista over veckans 20 mest salda skivor 10 7 1962 19 8 1975 Drift Musik p 130 ISBN 9163021404 Hallberg Eric Henningsson Ulf 1998 Eric Hallberg Ulf Henningsson presenterar Tio i topp med de utslagna pa forsok 1961 74 Premium Publishing p 53 ISBN 919727125X The Beatles Chart History Hot 100 Billboard Retrieved 16 May 2016 Hoffmann Frank 1983 The Cash Box Singles Charts 1950 1981 Metuchen NJ amp London The Scarecrow Press Inc pp 32 34 Offizielle Deutsche Charts Enter Beatles in the search box in German GfK Entertainment Charts Retrieved 16 May 2016 The Irish Charts Search Results Yesterday Irish Singles Chart Retrieved 16 May 2016 Official Singles Chart Top 100 Official Charts Company Retrieved 16 May 2016 The Beatles Yesterday Canciones Top 50 Retrieved 17 May 2016 Listy bestsellerow wyroznienia Zwiazek Producentow Audio Video Polish Airplay Top 100 Retrieved 10 December 2011 The Beatles Chart History Hot Rock amp Alternative Songs Billboard Retrieved 2 May 2021 Cash Box Year End Charts Top 100 Pop Singles December 25 1965 Archived from the original on 1 June 2015 Retrieved 11 June 2021 Danish single certifications The Beatles Yesterday IFPI Danmark Retrieved 7 June 2023 Syndicat National de l Edition Phonographique SNEP Fabrice Ferment ed TOP 1965 40 ans de tubes 1960 2000 les meilleures ventes de 45 tours amp CD singles in French OCLC 469523661 Archived from the original on 30 May 2022 Retrieved 28 March 2023 via Top France fr Italian single certifications The Beatles Yesterday in Italian Federazione Industria Musicale Italiana Retrieved 26 November 2020 Select 2019 in the Anno drop down menu Select Yesterday in the Filtra field Select Singoli under Sezione Portuguese single certifications The Beatles Yesterday PDF in Portuguese Associacao Fonografica Portuguesa Retrieved 3 October 2021 The Beatles Yesterday El portal de Musica Productores de Musica de Espana Retrieved 16 January 2024 British single certifications Beatles Yesterday British Phonographic Industry Retrieved 25 August 2023 a b Murrells Joseph 1985 Million selling records from the 1900s to the 1980s an illustrated directory Arco Pub p 203 ISBN 0668064595 This plaintive romantic song proved to be a colossal hit in the U S A selling over one million in 10 days plus R I A A Gold Disc award and staying at No 1 there four weeks with 11 weeks in the bestsellers with a final total of 1 800 000 sold Total sales estimated at well over two and a half million American single certifications The Beatles Yesterday Recording Industry Association of America Sources edit All We Are Saying Three Weeks with John Lennon NPR News 9 October 2010 Retrieved 9 October 2010 Artist chart history Wet Wet Wet The Official Charts 2010 Retrieved 8 December 2010 The Beatles 2000 The Beatles Anthology San Francisco Chronicle Books ISBN 0 8118 2684 8 Cahill Greg June July 2005 Encore It Was 40 Years Ago Today How the Beatles Launched a String Playing Revolution Strings Go to Journal Record 20 1 130 Coleman Ray 1995 Yesterday amp Today London Boxtree Limited ISBN 0 7522 1669 4 Cross Craig 2005 The Beatles Day by Day Song by Song Record by Record Lincoln NE iUniverse Inc ISBN 0 595 34663 4 ENTERTAINMENT Bruch and Beatles top radio polls BBC News 6 April 1999 Retrieved 3 February 2009 Everett Walter 1999 The Beatles as Musicians Revolver through the Anthology Oxford University Press USA ISBN 978 0 19 512941 0 Gorlinski Gini ed 2010 The 100 Most Influential Musicians of All Time New York NY Britannica Educational Publishing ISBN 978 1 61530 006 8 Hall Claude 30 October 1965 Billboard p 40 ISSN 0006 2510 Hammond Ian 2001 Old sweet songs Archived from the original on 29 June 2012 Retrieved 28 August 2009 Help Yesterday Beatles Interview Database 2009 Retrieved 17 May 2009 Ignatius Adi 19 December 2007 A Tsar Is Born Time Archived from the original on 20 December 2007 Retrieved 3 February 2009 King Cole influenced Beatles hit BBC News 7 July 2003 Lewisohn Mark 1988 The Beatles Recording Sessions New York Harmony Books ISBN 0 517 57066 1 Lewisohn Mark 1994 Anthology 2 booklet The Beatles London Apple Records 31796 MacDonald Ian 2008 Revolution in the Head 2nd revised edition London Vintage Books ISBN 978 0 09 952679 7 Mallick Heather 22 November 2000 Past Perfect Globe and Mail Canada Retrieved 2 January 2011 Miles Barry 1997 Paul McCartney Many Years From Now New York Henry Holt amp Company ISBN 0 8050 5249 6 Miles Barry 2001 The Beatles Diary Volume 1 The Beatles Years London Omnibus Press ISBN 0 7119 8308 9 Most Recorded Song Guinness World Records 2009 Archived from the original on 10 September 2006 Retrieved 12 May 2009 Napier Bell Simon 2001 Black Vinyl White Powder The Real Story of the British Music Industry Ebury Press ISBN 978 0 09 186992 2 Ortiz Marcos 2005 Marcos Beatles Page Yesterday Archived from the original on 20 December 2005 Retrieved 14 January 2006 Pollack Alan W 1 February 1993 Notes on Yesterday Notes On Series Retrieved 14 January 2006 Rees Jasper 25 October 2006 The Beatles as never before The Telegraph Archived from the original on 12 January 2022 Retrieved 20 December 2011 The RS 500 Greatest Songs of All Time Rolling Stone 2007 Archived from the original on 15 August 2006 Retrieved 28 February 2007 The RS 100 Greatest Beatles Songs of All Time Rolling Stone 2011 Retrieved 19 September 2011 Owen David 10 April 2006 The Soundtrack of Your Life The New Yorker Archived from the original on 4 January 2013 Retrieved 18 April 2006 Scott Kirsty 2 June 2003 Lennon and McCartney Let it be The Guardian Retrieved 24 January 2010 Turner Steve 2005 A Hard Day s Write The Stories Behind Every Beatles Song 3rd ed New York Harper Paperbacks ISBN 0 06 084409 4 Unterberger Richie 2006 Review of Yesterday Allmusic Retrieved 14 January 2006 permanent dead link Wallgren Mark 1982 The Beatles on Record New York Simon amp Schuster ISBN 0 671 45682 2 External links edit nbsp Wikiquote has quotations related to Help album Yesterday on YouTube Yesterday at SecondHandSongs Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Yesterday song amp oldid 1220898690, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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