Yesterday

Now the title of a new romcom about a man who discovers he’s the only person who remembers the Fab Four, ‘Yesterday’ is a truly seminal piece of music that has stood the test of time.  But who wrote it, what inspired it and what is its legacy? Here are all the fascinating facts behind ‘Yesterday’.  Paul McCartney wrote it in a dream (but thought he stole it). McCartney is said to have composed the entire melody in a dream while staying at the Wimpole Street home of his then girlfriend Jane Asher. When he woke up, he quickly ran to a piano and played the tune to make sure he didn’t forget it. However, he was worried that he had subconsciously plagiarised another song. He said: “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.”   Like with all songs Lennon and McCartney wrote at the time, a substitute lyric, titled ‘Scrambled Eggs’ was used until he came up with something better.  The working opening verse was “Scrambled eggs/Oh my baby how I love your legs/Not as much as I love scrambled eggs”.