The Journey of 'Yesterday' by The Beatles. A Rolling Stone Magazine Article.

In this episode, I delve into song number 13 from Rolling Stone's '500 Greatest Songs of All Time.' The spotlight is on 'Yesterday' by The Beatles, an emotional ballad composed by Paul McCartney that holds the record as the most recorded song in history. Released in 1965, 'Yesterday' was unique for featuring classical instruments, a deviation from the typical rock and roll sound of the band. The script covers its inception, production, and the song's monumental success, including its various covers by iconic artists and its deep impact on music history.

00:00 Introduction to the Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs
00:29 Unveiling Song Number 13: Yesterday by The Beatles
01:24 The Impact and Legacy of 'Yesterday'
02:29 Behind the Scenes: Creation and Recording
04:00 The Song's Journey and Reception
04:57 Conclusion and Teasers for Future Content

Transcript

[00:00:00] Hello, rock and roll fan. Today, I'm going to read you about song number 13 from this pretty awesome magazine, Special Collector's Edition, Rolling Stone, 500 greatest songs of all time. I don't remember when I picked this up. It was years and years ago. And, uh, very, very interesting stuff. I'm always fascinated about lists.

[00:00:20] A lot of times I don't agree with the list, but in this one, 500 songs, I think it's pretty safe that all the songs that I think are awesome are pretty much in this list of 500. , you'll never guess what 13 is, according to the Rolling Stone magazine, it is Yesterday by The Beatles. Yes. 

[00:00:38] Yesterday is probably one of their most emotional songs. I love that song every time I hear it come on the radio. It just puts you in this trance, , like the beautiful picking, Paul McCartney's amazing melody, amazing lyrics, and on top of the minor chords, it has that melancholic feeling, that very reflective, pensive feeling, and just immediately puts you into that trance.

[00:01:03] All great songs have that kind of effect on you, now whether it's a melancholic, pensive feeling, an overjoyed feeling, or a super angry feeling, I think every song pulls that emotion out of you. Especially if you're ready to receive it at that time, I mean, nothing beats it.

[00:01:20] Better than drugs. Okay. 

[00:01:22] so let's see what the Rolling Stones has to say about this

[00:01:24] All right number 13 out of 500 yesterday by the Beatles writers John Lennon and Paul McCartney producer George Martin released September 65 by Capitol Records 11 weeks at number one Paul McCartney's greatest ballad holds a Guinness World Record as the most recorded song of all time. Wow! Seven years later, there were 1, 186 versions by artists as varied as Frank Sinatra, Otis Redding, and Willie Nelson. Now since this was printed, that number has jumped up to 2, 200 recorded versions by various artists according to our good friend ChadGPT here. 

[00:02:05] But McCartney's original reading, cut on June 14th, 1965, at EMI's Abbey Road Studios in London, remains the most beautiful and daring of all. A frank poem of regret, scored and sung with haunted elegance. There are no other Beatles songs on the record. None were needed. this is the first Beatles song with only one member being recorded. That's right. Unlike typical Beatles songs where everyone, participated, yesterday was performed solely by Paul McCartney, accompanied by a string quartet, making a departure from the band's usual rock and roll sound. 

[00:02:41] George Martin's arrangement for a string quartet emphasized lower octave melancholy while McCartney's almost whispered vocal reverberated with longing in the big dark spaces where drums and electric guitars would have been. This was the first song that featured classical instruments in a Beatles song, and back then it was really taboo for rock and roll bands to feature a classical music instrument, and this really set the precedent for the rest of the Beatles repertoire and how they approached songs with orchestral instruments back then. The melody, he said, came to him in a dream. My dad used to know a lot of old jazz tunes.

[00:03:17] I thought maybe I just remembered it from the past. McCartney auditioned the song for Martin with the working title Scrambled Eggs in a hotel room in Paris we were a little bit embarrassed about it, McCartney confessed. We were a rock and roll band. A number one single in America yesterday was, in his own words, the most complete song I have ever written. Wow. And there's from the horse's mouth itself,

[00:03:41] man. Can you imagine to think that the Beatles were actually embarrassed by that song? Incredible, incredible how these things work out. , there's so many stories about bands where the song barely made it to the album or it was a last minute cut that is huge and is pretty much the biggest hit of their repertoire.

[00:04:00] What's also crazy is that this song almost did not make the help album. John Lennon was really hesitant to include this on the album because it just didn't really fit with the rest of the songs. Rightfully not because this was the biggest hit of that album.

[00:04:16] So needless to say, yesterday was released in 1965 and topped the US Billboard charts and stayed at number one for four weeks and to that point, that was the biggest Beatles song ever. So even though it became a massive hit worldwide, It was only released in the UK in 1976, so more than a decade after it's debut on the 1965 album, Help! So I wonder how that came about and what the story behind that is. Unless they wanted people who really liked the song to buy the whole album versus just the single, maybe?

[00:04:49] I know that was a big deal back then. Could have been a good strategy, I'm sure it worked.

[00:04:53] And so, yeah, yesterday. Wow. What a classic number 13. I'm happy to bring you more of these. , so stay tuned. Rock with you later.