Randoms by Rach

Yesterday

Yesterday
Album: Help!, 1965
Lead vocalist: Paul




Lyrics ▼

Yesterday
All my troubles seemed so far away
Now it looks as though they're here to stay
Oh, I believe in yesterday
Suddenly
I'm not half the man I used to be
There's a shadow hanging over me
Oh, yesterday came suddenly
Why she had to go
I don't know, she wouldn't say
I said something wrong
Now I long for yesterday
Yesterday
Love was such an easy game to play
Now I need a place to hide away
Oh, I believe in yesterday
Why she had to go
I don't know, she wouldn't say
I said something wrong
Now I long for yesterday

I state that Paul is the lead vocalist, but he’s also the only Beatle to perform on this song. It was the first time the band had recorded a song as one person only, but none of the other three felt they had anything they could add to it. George Martin did convince Paul to allow a string quartet to be dubbed onto the recording. Apparently, it took some effort to persuade Paul to do that. And the result: the most recorded song in music history.

I love the story of where this song came from. Paul was staying in Jane Asher’s parents’ loft room at the time. He awoke one morning with the tune for ‘Yesterday’ in his head, and he assumed it was some old song he’d heard as a kid. He asked everyone he knew what the song was, and nobody else had heard of it. Finally, after a couple of weeks, Paul realised he must have dreamt it up in his sleep. So he tinkered with it (driving the other band members half-crazy with it), struggling to find the lyrics. For quite a while, the song was called ‘Scrambled Eggs’ because he just couldn’t figure out the lyrics. All he had was, “Scrambled eggs, baby how I love your legs,” which really makes me chuckle. Eventually, the lyrics he did write were haunting, absolutely beautiful.

This is a song about lost love, on the face of it. A man who wishes he could turn back time and change the inevitable. Who hasn’t been there before? But then, there is the other side of the lyrics. The side that made me appreciate the song on a whole other level. And the side that Paul only acknowledges now was probably a subconscious meaning. Paul’s mum died of breast cancer when he was fourteen. His parents had never spoken of her illness. Paul and his brother were told their mum was going to the hospital for tests. But she never came home again. So, “Why she had to go, I don’t know, she didn’t say” makes perfect sense in relation to that. Also, Paul says that he had heard his parents talking about money and saying that his mum was the breadwinner (she was a nurse) and his dad didn’t earn much money at all. At his mother’s funeral, standing by her graveside, Paul asked his dad what they were going to do for money. It sounded mercenary, heartless, and he was deeply ashamed of it afterwards. And so, “I said something wrong, now I long for yesterday” also makes perfect sense. Is this people trying to read too much into it? I don’t know. Paul does accept that these events happened, so maybe it was a subconscious inclusion. It definitely makes me feel even sadder than I did before when I listened to this.