February 21, 2024 • 30 mins
The Beatles’ songbook became standard repertoire for artists to perform almost as quickly as they kicked off “the British invasion.” But one was covered more than all the rest: Yesterday.
“McCartney: A Life in Lyrics” is a co-production between iHeart Media, MPL and Pushkin Industries.
The series was produced by Pejk Malinovski and Sara McCrea; written by Sara McCrea; edited by Dan O’Donnell and Sophie Crane; mastered by Jason Gambrell with assistance from Jake Gorski and sound design by Pejk Malinovski. The series is executive produced by Leital Molad, Justin Richmond, Lee Eastman and Scott Rodger.
Thanks to Lee Eastman, Richard Ewbank, Scott Rodger, Aoife Corbett and Steve Ithell.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Hi, everyone, it's Paul Moldoin. Before we get to this episode,
I wanted to let you know that you can binge
all twelve episodes of McCartney A Life and Lyrics right now,
add free by becoming a Pushkin Plus subscriber. Find Pushkin
Plus on the McCartney A Life and Lyrics Show, pedge
(00:41):
in Apple Podcasts, or at pushkin dot Fm, slash Plus.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Yesterday, Oh my trouble seems so far slow Dodge really
still day Yugakusumason you the sun met and RESO.
Speaker 4 (01:20):
What she.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
In Yesterday?
Speaker 2 (01:30):
I'm Paul muldoon For a while now, I've been fortunate
to spend time with one of the greatest songwriters of
our era.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
And will you look at me? I'm going on to
I'm actually a performer, that is.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Sir Paul McCartney. We worked together on a book looking
at the lyrics of more than one hundred and fifty
of his songs, and we recorded many hours of our conversations.
Speaker 4 (01:55):
It was like going back to an old snapshot album
looking back on work I hadn't ever analyzed.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
This is McCartney A Life in Lyrics, class a memoir
and an improvised journey with one of the most iconic
figures in popular music in this episode, Yesterday.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Yesterday, All my trouble seems so far way.
Speaker 5 (02:34):
God looks as oover thereesday.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Oh, I believe in Yesterday.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
What you heard at the top of the episode was
a super cut of Yesterday, covers just a tiny fraction
of the renditions that exist out there. The most covered
song of all the I think, perhaps, isn't it.
Speaker 4 (02:59):
Yeah, the magic didn't sort of end with our recording,
but it sort of continued. One of the fun things
I said to We had a publicist I was a
friend of mine, and I suddenly thought, three thousand persons,
I've never heard them. So I said to him, get
me the top ten I'll do for now. So he
(03:23):
got me Sinatra. Suddenly I'm not half the man I
used to be. Elvis, there's a shadow hanging over Marvin
Gay Yesterday.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Came all too suddenly.
Speaker 6 (03:47):
Hello, did she have the door?
Speaker 4 (03:55):
I don't know, Ray Charles, unbelievable people, who's true it?
Oh God, this is incredible. But Sinatra, Elvis, and Marvin
all altered the lyric.
Speaker 5 (04:13):
Must have said something wrong alone yesterday.
Speaker 4 (04:22):
Because there were much old men. They said why she
had to go. I don't know. She wouldn't say I
must have done something.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Wrong, rather than I did something wrong.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
So I don't do things wrong. I'm Sinatra, I'm over
some wronger. I must have done something wrong. I loved that.
It was like disclaimer, I must have must have seen
something wrong.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Now, a long, long long.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Covered by so many of the great artists of the
twentieth century and beyond, Paul McCartney's Yesterday has taken its
place among the timeless standards of our age. So it's
fitting that when the melody first came to Paul, he
assumed the song had already been written by someone else.
(05:20):
He was in his early twenties and living at his
girlfriend Jane Asher's family home in London.
Speaker 4 (05:27):
Asher's House fifty seven Wimpole Street. I stayed there forever,
and it was only afterwards I thought I'd ever paid rent.
That was a terrific must have been a terrific boom
to you. Yeah, in terms of your career, was it
was very good? Yeah, it was very nice. Yeah. The
mom was a great cook and a fun lady and
liked me. The father was an eccentric, super intelligent doctor,
(05:54):
and the kids were my girlfriend, her brother Peter, and
her sister Claire. So you know, it was like the
Barretts of Wimpole Street.
Speaker 7 (06:07):
The Barrett's of Wimpbell Street. The year is eighteen forty five.
The place London.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
The Parretts of Wimple Street was a nineteen thirty play
about star crossed lovers. It was so popular that during
the course of McCartney's life, it was adapted for film, musical,
theater and television.
Speaker 7 (06:30):
The action takes place in Elizabeth Barrett's bed sitting room
in her father's house at fifty Wimpole Street.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
The story is set on the very London street where
McCartney lived with the Asher family for three years in
the mid nineteen sixties.
Speaker 4 (06:45):
The fact that it was in Wimpole Street was, you know,
it didn't go unnoticed. So it was this lovely family
in this great old Georgian building in Wimpole Street, and yeah,
it was great. It was really nice. So they very
kindly let me stay in the upstairs, the attic room
(07:05):
perfect for an artist. I to get a piano in there,
a small sawn off piano, and I went to sleep
one night and dreamed a chune somewhere in my dream
(07:28):
I heard this tune, and when I woke up, I thought,
I love that tune. It's great. I love that one.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
The melody lilting and grand was clear in McCartney's mind,
but he couldn't remember who had written it. Perhaps it
was one of the classics he had heard in his childhood.
Speaker 4 (07:51):
What is it?
Speaker 3 (07:52):
Now?
Speaker 4 (07:52):
Is it? Is it? A Fredist thing? Is a cold
porta thing? Is it? What is it? What is it? Da? Well,
so I kind of fell out of bed and the
piano was right now to the left of my bed,
so I just sort of thought, well, I'll I'll try
and work out how this song goes. What it is,
(08:17):
It's got to be some outstanding that I've just heard
years ago and I've forgotten forgotten it. So I worked
out chords and the two opening chords are kind of nice.
I got very lucky there, so I didn't have to
go to those chords. So it's just a melody. And
(08:39):
I say i'd heard it in my head. It was
very clear, and it was just a little and in
order to solidify it in my memory, I just blocked
(09:00):
it out with some words which are scrambled egg or
my baby. I'll love your legs. No no, no, no,
scrambled these provisional lyrics. Was that something you did quite
a lot? Or it was this? It was it was
was kind of rare thing, right. We did that sometimes,
(09:21):
but not often because you know it mainly were just
sitting there writing it. So you'd get your final lyrics
pretty quickly. Yeah, your only lyrics. You never really revised
or stuff. Alan Ginsburg first thought, best thoughts, right, then
he goes and revises every single ever wrote. But I
(09:42):
like the theory. So I had this tune, and I
think the first person I saw was John I said,
what's this? Been bugging me? What's this song? I think
you'd hear though it? So so I just thought of it.
(10:02):
I treamed it. He said, I don't know. I never
heard it. So then I went to George Martin. Must
have been doing sessions at the time. He'll know it
because he's got a much wider knowledge as he would know.
I said, what's this? So well, I dreamed it. Anyway,
(10:30):
After a couple of weeks of this, it became clear
that no one knew it and it didn't exist except
in my head, and so I claimed it. It's like
finding it on the street.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
There may have been a degree of luck to McCartney
waking up with this melody fully formed in his head.
But if writing the song was like finding it on
the street, all of Paul's musical influences, all the way
back to his childhood, had paved the way.
Speaker 4 (11:10):
I always have loved good tunes, and my dad played
on his piano. I listened to them. My cousin Betty
introduced me to my funny Valentine. I loved sort of
classic pieces that I would hear. I would love cheeky
geek friend Astaire, all these things. I just sort of
(11:31):
these classics. Heaven, I'm in heaven, and my heartbeats so
that I can hardly be.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
And I seem too fine. The happiness I when we're
all together dancing cheape.
Speaker 4 (11:56):
Heaven. I'm in heaven, and answer me and only back
to heaven. So I had a lot of information in
my head of those tunes. My dad just in the
New Year's Eve, and that would be three hours of songs,
(12:18):
and the pretty much didn't repeat them, just did them all.
Even so all that info is in my head. It
was magical. Yes, they was definitely magical. People I've said
to me, do you believe in magic? And I say
I have to because of that song. I have to
(12:41):
How the hell did that come into my brain? Now,
if you really want to try and work it out,
I think I'd loaded my computer so strongly with teacher
Cheek star dust when I fall in love, these beautiful
songs I'd heard all my childhood. I mean, I still
(13:03):
remember standing in the kitchen of Fort Lynn Road and
hearing When I fall in Love by Nac and Cole.
That's I was reaching for an HP bod and thinking,
my god, this is good, this is class.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
When I fall in love, it will be forever.
Speaker 6 (13:32):
I'll never fall.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
In love, so you know, that's all. That's all I
can think is that all of that data used modern
terminology had gone into my very sophisticated computer. The human
brain had jumbled up, done all that sort of stuff,
(13:58):
and somehow, as a dream it just tumbled out this song.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
Suddenly I'm not half the man I used to be.
There's a shadow hanging over yesterday, came said why.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Usually McCartney's lyrics have come to him along with his
melodies in a flash of inspiration, almost all at once.
The lyrics of the tune he dreamed, however, required more
conscious deliberation.
Speaker 4 (14:48):
And I went with j Nasher to Portugal the holiday
and it was hot, so dusty. Day we landed in Lisbon,
we took a car ride three four hours down to
Albifaira on the coast, and we were going to stay
(15:09):
at Bruce Welsh's house. It was his flat. They were
very generous guys, and he was in the shadow. He
was in Cliffridge's shadows. And so I'd met Bruce a
few times. He said, if you ever want to know,
it was like you kidding what You let me have
your flat? So we were heading down to it, and
(15:32):
so I had a lot of time in the back
of the car doing nothing, just sort of swaying around.
And you didn't have iPads or iPhones, thank god, you
just had yourself. So I'm just looking at the countryside.
It was very hot and very dusty to say, and
sort of half asleep. But one of the things is
(15:53):
that I like to do when I'm when I'm in
that mode is too I've got plenty of time now
to try and think. Okay, scrambled eggs ba ba ba,
what can that be?
Speaker 3 (16:06):
Yesterday love was such an easy game to play.
Speaker 4 (16:14):
Here's the question, how do you know when it's right?
Why did you try enough? Stuff that's wrong? Scrambled eggs
is wrong, and you try punctually sounds like punching someone
(16:35):
immediately it's not right. Yesterday, Okay, you've got it. It
just slots in like a slot machine, you know. Yeah,
that's that's the word to use. And also a word
(16:56):
like yesterday suddenly implies longing and sadness.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
Nine needed place to hide. Yes, And I also.
Speaker 4 (17:12):
Remember thinking people like sad songs. Remember sort of thinking
I like sad songs. People like sad songs. It's kind
of you know, it's a place where we can put
our sorrow a sad song for the three minutes less.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
You know as much, the more you've done, the more
difficult it is.
Speaker 4 (17:33):
I mean, do you feel that that? Well? I think so.
You know. It's like how much gold can you find
in a mind endless supply? Well, there is an endless supply,
but the quality of it may not be quite as
fine as the original vein. But it doesn't matter because
(17:56):
I had the original vein and I'm still enjoying digging
it up just as much.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
By the time McCartney and Sure reached Bruce Welch's flat
in southern Portugal. Paul had completed the lyrics.
Speaker 4 (18:16):
When I got to Bruce's house, he said to me,
a couple of years ago, he said, don't you remember,
so you said, have you got a guitar? Have you
got a guitar? You got a car? He said, well, yeah,
but you're lefty. It's right on it, I said, because
I used to turn them upside down because I worked
with John a lot. So I had to grab his
guitar and I could so I could play upside that,
(18:38):
so could he. So I grabbed this thing, and I
know the chords because I've written them on the piano.
So I go, oh, wait a minute. I just had
an idea coming down. So he said, you sang it
for me, he said, and that was the first public
performance ever of yesterday. You sang it to me in
(18:59):
my flat and albefra. Then I played it when I
got back to England on my own guitar and completed
the middle eight.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
I said, the lyrics of Yesterday tell a story of loss,
the way heartbreak can make us nostalgic for a happier past.
Given the subject matter. It's even more remarkable that McCartney
(19:33):
was so young when he wrote it.
Speaker 4 (19:35):
I was twenty four, so after that it's twelve. But
you know, so world weary. These lyrics brilliant. I'm not
half the used to be. God, it's been a hard life,
mind you. It had because I'd lost my mother ten
(19:56):
years before that, and so did suggest to me that
this was a losing my mother song, which I always
sort of said, no, I don't think, so, you know,
think about it. Why she had to go? I don't know.
She wouldn't say losing your mother to cancer. And no
one said anything. We didn't nurse, it wasn't simply wasn't discussed.
(20:20):
We didn't know what it was at all.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
Why she had to go.
Speaker 6 (20:27):
I don't know she.
Speaker 4 (20:31):
She had to go? Why I don't know. Did I
say something wrong? You know? It may be because there's
so much tumbled into your youth. Of course there is,
and your formative years that you can't appreciate it all.
Sometimes it's only in retrospect you can appreciate it. And
(20:51):
I remember very clearly one day feeling very embarrassed because
I embarrassed my mom. We were out in the backyard
and she talked posh compared to work. She was of
Irish origin and she was a nurse, so she was
about street level. So she had something sort of going
(21:13):
from and she would talk, but reasons was a little
bit bosh and it was a little bit well she
as well. She had to connection to her Auntie Dyllis
as well, and so she taught her a little bit
of this. And I remember she said something like, Paul,
will you ask him? If he's going to ask, ask,
it's ask more, you know, and she's got to got
(21:33):
a little embarrassed another later, thinking God, I wish I'd
never said that, and it stuck with me, you know,
after she died. Oh fuck, I really wish I got
a couple of those little things that I know the
people would forgive me because they're not big things. Of
course they're little things, but they're little things that I
(21:56):
just think of. I could just take a robber, just
rub that little moment, be better. And when she died,
I wonder I said something wrong and will be HARKing
back to that crazy.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
Little thing I said, soundy love?
Speaker 4 (22:15):
But yeah, so so I don't know these does this happen?
Do you find yourself unconsciously putting songs into girl lyrics
that are really your dead mother, And what do you think.
I suspect it might be true. I think so it
(22:39):
sort of fits if you look at the lyrics.
Speaker 8 (22:42):
I know for Yesterday, Yesterday love was such an easy
game to play.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
I need a place to head away. Oh really Etuday.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
When it came time to record Yesterday, McCartney opted for
simple but striking orchestration with the help of George Martin.
Speaker 4 (23:26):
It was just me and guitar, solo, Me and guitar,
and George Martin said it would be really good to
try a string quartette, and I very firmly said no,
we're a rock combo. So George, being very smart and
wonderful and having the best bedside manner of any producer
(23:48):
you would ever want to meet, said well, let's try it,
and if you don't like it, we'll take it off. Yeah.
So I thought, well that's fair enough. So we did
retried it, and I remember sitting up in the control
room and hearing it and going, oh my god. George
was so right. Lent a depth to the song, and
(24:14):
it sort of made it seem kind of important, and
so I really liked it, and we said, of course you,
we'll keep it. And what I loved was then George
would then say, well, if he voiced it for a
string quartet, that note would go there down there on
the cello, and this middle note in the chord would
(24:36):
come here with viola, and this next note higher up,
we'll go to the second violin, and the sort of
top note, we'll go to the top one. So he
spread it out and he said, you know that's how
Bach would have voiced it. Yes, And I thought, wow,
it's like a revolution idea because our chords are always
(24:57):
within one octave knock and roll chords, to just play
the whole chord straight as a clutch kind of thing, yes,
And so he'd spread it out and that was a
bit of an eye opener to me.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
Oh, yesterday, game said, relying as it does on Paul's
voice his guitar. Yesterday was the first Beatles song that
featured just one of the band members.
Speaker 4 (25:31):
Thank you, thank you very much.
Speaker 6 (25:35):
We'd like to carry on now with a song from
our new album in England and it'll be out in
America shortly, and it's a song with featuring just Paul
and it's called Yesterday.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
One of the things that makes it such a great song,
surely is that it's presented in simple terms. But it's
a very complex personality that's describing let's say, his predicament.
Speaker 4 (26:06):
Yeah, well, you know, I'm pretty complex character. You know,
you don't come from being a schoolboy in Liverpool to
where I am now without some complexity sneaking in somewhere.
Rather like yourself, I'm very simple, you know what I'm saying. Yeah,
(26:31):
but the song, you know, I think the thing that
you want to try and get is complex simplicity or
simple complexity. You want it to seem easy and yeah,
if anyone gives it a second thought, you want there
(26:51):
to be a little bit of depth in it.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
You know, we're talking about the magic of this in
a strange way, the ease of it. What do you
make though of those who believe as many seem to
then writing a song, actually, he must be a pretty
simple thing today that.
Speaker 4 (27:13):
It must be simple to do. Well, that's let's see
them do it well exactly. That's fair enough. Now. I
think the thing about it is if you if you
write good songs and you make it look easy, what
what you don't want to forget is what went on before,
(27:36):
all the stuff that you put into it before you
try to write a song. I was looking at a
Saisan exhibition with a friend of mine and the first
picture in it was an academic drawing. He'd done almost photographic,
beautiful male nude and he's just like jaw dropping. Then
(28:00):
as you go through he appears to go off and
in the end you come out. My friend came out
thinking he couldn't draw it off. He said, why didn't
he stick with that? He ended up with the bathers,
And if you look at the drawing on that, it
would appear to be hopeless. I mean it's you know,
(28:22):
someone would say I could definitely do the better than that.
This is what happens. But everyone who goes to an
academy can pretty much do that because they have to
to get the degree. But what he goes on to
do based on that skill is something else. And I
think that's what I'm talking about him. I'm not relying
to myself with it says that, but I think there's
(28:47):
a lot goes into it before you arrive at the song.
All the little songs you whistled as a kid, all
the little poems, you read all the little poems you
made up, all the little things you did, and now
you're going to write a song, and you do it
and it seems very easy. But it's easy because there's
a lot of stuff went before.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
Yesterday. All my trouble seems so far away.
Speaker 5 (29:17):
That looks is over there to stay. Oh, I believe
in Yesterday.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
Suddenly Yesterday from the Beatles nineteen sixty five album Help.
In our next episode, McCartney responds to adair.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
From the actor Dustin Hoffman, Tree to me, take MATJ.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
Picasso's last words, drink to me next time on McCartney
A Life in Lyrics. McCartney A Life in Lyrics is
a co production between I Heart Me India, NPL and
Pushkin Industries
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Hi, everyone, it's Paul Moldoin. Before we get to this episode,
I wanted to let you know that you can binge
all twelve episodes of McCartney A Life and Lyrics right now,
add free by becoming a Pushkin Plus subscriber. Find Pushkin
Plus on the McCartney A Life and Lyrics Show, pedge
(00:41):
in Apple Podcasts, or at pushkin dot Fm, slash Plus.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Yesterday, Oh my trouble seems so far slow Dodge really
still day Yugakusumason you the sun met and RESO.
Speaker 4 (01:20):
What she.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
In Yesterday?
Speaker 2 (01:30):
I'm Paul muldoon For a while now, I've been fortunate
to spend time with one of the greatest songwriters of
our era.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
And will you look at me? I'm going on to
I'm actually a performer, that is.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Sir Paul McCartney. We worked together on a book looking
at the lyrics of more than one hundred and fifty
of his songs, and we recorded many hours of our conversations.
Speaker 4 (01:55):
It was like going back to an old snapshot album
looking back on work I hadn't ever analyzed.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
This is McCartney A Life in Lyrics, class a memoir
and an improvised journey with one of the most iconic
figures in popular music in this episode, Yesterday.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Yesterday, All my trouble seems so far way.
Speaker 5 (02:34):
God looks as oover thereesday.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Oh, I believe in Yesterday.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
What you heard at the top of the episode was
a super cut of Yesterday, covers just a tiny fraction
of the renditions that exist out there. The most covered
song of all the I think, perhaps, isn't it.
Speaker 4 (02:59):
Yeah, the magic didn't sort of end with our recording,
but it sort of continued. One of the fun things
I said to We had a publicist I was a
friend of mine, and I suddenly thought, three thousand persons,
I've never heard them. So I said to him, get
me the top ten I'll do for now. So he
(03:23):
got me Sinatra. Suddenly I'm not half the man I
used to be. Elvis, there's a shadow hanging over Marvin
Gay Yesterday.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Came all too suddenly.
Speaker 6 (03:47):
Hello, did she have the door?
Speaker 4 (03:55):
I don't know, Ray Charles, unbelievable people, who's true it?
Oh God, this is incredible. But Sinatra, Elvis, and Marvin
all altered the lyric.
Speaker 5 (04:13):
Must have said something wrong alone yesterday.
Speaker 4 (04:22):
Because there were much old men. They said why she
had to go. I don't know. She wouldn't say I
must have done something.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Wrong, rather than I did something wrong.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
So I don't do things wrong. I'm Sinatra, I'm over
some wronger. I must have done something wrong. I loved that.
It was like disclaimer, I must have must have seen
something wrong.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Now, a long, long long.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Covered by so many of the great artists of the
twentieth century and beyond, Paul McCartney's Yesterday has taken its
place among the timeless standards of our age. So it's
fitting that when the melody first came to Paul, he
assumed the song had already been written by someone else.
(05:20):
He was in his early twenties and living at his
girlfriend Jane Asher's family home in London.
Speaker 4 (05:27):
Asher's House fifty seven Wimpole Street. I stayed there forever,
and it was only afterwards I thought I'd ever paid rent.
That was a terrific must have been a terrific boom
to you. Yeah, in terms of your career, was it
was very good? Yeah, it was very nice. Yeah. The
mom was a great cook and a fun lady and
liked me. The father was an eccentric, super intelligent doctor,
(05:54):
and the kids were my girlfriend, her brother Peter, and
her sister Claire. So you know, it was like the
Barretts of Wimpole Street.
Speaker 7 (06:07):
The Barrett's of Wimpbell Street. The year is eighteen forty five.
The place London.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
The Parretts of Wimple Street was a nineteen thirty play
about star crossed lovers. It was so popular that during
the course of McCartney's life, it was adapted for film, musical,
theater and television.
Speaker 7 (06:30):
The action takes place in Elizabeth Barrett's bed sitting room
in her father's house at fifty Wimpole Street.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
The story is set on the very London street where
McCartney lived with the Asher family for three years in
the mid nineteen sixties.
Speaker 4 (06:45):
The fact that it was in Wimpole Street was, you know,
it didn't go unnoticed. So it was this lovely family
in this great old Georgian building in Wimpole Street, and yeah,
it was great. It was really nice. So they very
kindly let me stay in the upstairs, the attic room
(07:05):
perfect for an artist. I to get a piano in there,
a small sawn off piano, and I went to sleep
one night and dreamed a chune somewhere in my dream
(07:28):
I heard this tune, and when I woke up, I thought,
I love that tune. It's great. I love that one.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
The melody lilting and grand was clear in McCartney's mind,
but he couldn't remember who had written it. Perhaps it
was one of the classics he had heard in his childhood.
Speaker 4 (07:51):
What is it?
Speaker 3 (07:52):
Now?
Speaker 4 (07:52):
Is it? Is it? A Fredist thing? Is a cold
porta thing? Is it? What is it? What is it? Da? Well,
so I kind of fell out of bed and the
piano was right now to the left of my bed,
so I just sort of thought, well, I'll I'll try
and work out how this song goes. What it is,
(08:17):
It's got to be some outstanding that I've just heard
years ago and I've forgotten forgotten it. So I worked
out chords and the two opening chords are kind of nice.
I got very lucky there, so I didn't have to
go to those chords. So it's just a melody. And
(08:39):
I say i'd heard it in my head. It was
very clear, and it was just a little and in
order to solidify it in my memory, I just blocked
(09:00):
it out with some words which are scrambled egg or
my baby. I'll love your legs. No no, no, no,
scrambled these provisional lyrics. Was that something you did quite
a lot? Or it was this? It was it was
was kind of rare thing, right. We did that sometimes,
(09:21):
but not often because you know it mainly were just
sitting there writing it. So you'd get your final lyrics
pretty quickly. Yeah, your only lyrics. You never really revised
or stuff. Alan Ginsburg first thought, best thoughts, right, then
he goes and revises every single ever wrote. But I
(09:42):
like the theory. So I had this tune, and I
think the first person I saw was John I said,
what's this? Been bugging me? What's this song? I think
you'd hear though it? So so I just thought of it.
(10:02):
I treamed it. He said, I don't know. I never
heard it. So then I went to George Martin. Must
have been doing sessions at the time. He'll know it
because he's got a much wider knowledge as he would know.
I said, what's this? So well, I dreamed it. Anyway,
(10:30):
After a couple of weeks of this, it became clear
that no one knew it and it didn't exist except
in my head, and so I claimed it. It's like
finding it on the street.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
There may have been a degree of luck to McCartney
waking up with this melody fully formed in his head.
But if writing the song was like finding it on
the street, all of Paul's musical influences, all the way
back to his childhood, had paved the way.
Speaker 4 (11:10):
I always have loved good tunes, and my dad played
on his piano. I listened to them. My cousin Betty
introduced me to my funny Valentine. I loved sort of
classic pieces that I would hear. I would love cheeky
geek friend Astaire, all these things. I just sort of
(11:31):
these classics. Heaven, I'm in heaven, and my heartbeats so
that I can hardly be.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
And I seem too fine. The happiness I when we're
all together dancing cheape.
Speaker 4 (11:56):
Heaven. I'm in heaven, and answer me and only back
to heaven. So I had a lot of information in
my head of those tunes. My dad just in the
New Year's Eve, and that would be three hours of songs,
(12:18):
and the pretty much didn't repeat them, just did them all.
Even so all that info is in my head. It
was magical. Yes, they was definitely magical. People I've said
to me, do you believe in magic? And I say
I have to because of that song. I have to
(12:41):
How the hell did that come into my brain? Now,
if you really want to try and work it out,
I think I'd loaded my computer so strongly with teacher
Cheek star dust when I fall in love, these beautiful
songs I'd heard all my childhood. I mean, I still
(13:03):
remember standing in the kitchen of Fort Lynn Road and
hearing When I fall in Love by Nac and Cole.
That's I was reaching for an HP bod and thinking,
my god, this is good, this is class.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
When I fall in love, it will be forever.
Speaker 6 (13:32):
I'll never fall.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
In love, so you know, that's all. That's all I
can think is that all of that data used modern
terminology had gone into my very sophisticated computer. The human
brain had jumbled up, done all that sort of stuff,
(13:58):
and somehow, as a dream it just tumbled out this song.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
Suddenly I'm not half the man I used to be.
There's a shadow hanging over yesterday, came said why.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Usually McCartney's lyrics have come to him along with his
melodies in a flash of inspiration, almost all at once.
The lyrics of the tune he dreamed, however, required more
conscious deliberation.
Speaker 4 (14:48):
And I went with j Nasher to Portugal the holiday
and it was hot, so dusty. Day we landed in Lisbon,
we took a car ride three four hours down to
Albifaira on the coast, and we were going to stay
(15:09):
at Bruce Welsh's house. It was his flat. They were
very generous guys, and he was in the shadow. He
was in Cliffridge's shadows. And so I'd met Bruce a
few times. He said, if you ever want to know,
it was like you kidding what You let me have
your flat? So we were heading down to it, and
(15:32):
so I had a lot of time in the back
of the car doing nothing, just sort of swaying around.
And you didn't have iPads or iPhones, thank god, you
just had yourself. So I'm just looking at the countryside.
It was very hot and very dusty to say, and
sort of half asleep. But one of the things is
(15:53):
that I like to do when I'm when I'm in
that mode is too I've got plenty of time now
to try and think. Okay, scrambled eggs ba ba ba,
what can that be?
Speaker 3 (16:06):
Yesterday love was such an easy game to play.
Speaker 4 (16:14):
Here's the question, how do you know when it's right?
Why did you try enough? Stuff that's wrong? Scrambled eggs
is wrong, and you try punctually sounds like punching someone
(16:35):
immediately it's not right. Yesterday, Okay, you've got it. It
just slots in like a slot machine, you know. Yeah,
that's that's the word to use. And also a word
(16:56):
like yesterday suddenly implies longing and sadness.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
Nine needed place to hide. Yes, And I also.
Speaker 4 (17:12):
Remember thinking people like sad songs. Remember sort of thinking
I like sad songs. People like sad songs. It's kind
of you know, it's a place where we can put
our sorrow a sad song for the three minutes less.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
You know as much, the more you've done, the more
difficult it is.
Speaker 4 (17:33):
I mean, do you feel that that? Well? I think so.
You know. It's like how much gold can you find
in a mind endless supply? Well, there is an endless supply,
but the quality of it may not be quite as
fine as the original vein. But it doesn't matter because
(17:56):
I had the original vein and I'm still enjoying digging
it up just as much.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
By the time McCartney and Sure reached Bruce Welch's flat
in southern Portugal. Paul had completed the lyrics.
Speaker 4 (18:16):
When I got to Bruce's house, he said to me,
a couple of years ago, he said, don't you remember,
so you said, have you got a guitar? Have you
got a guitar? You got a car? He said, well, yeah,
but you're lefty. It's right on it, I said, because
I used to turn them upside down because I worked
with John a lot. So I had to grab his
guitar and I could so I could play upside that,
(18:38):
so could he. So I grabbed this thing, and I
know the chords because I've written them on the piano.
So I go, oh, wait a minute. I just had
an idea coming down. So he said, you sang it
for me, he said, and that was the first public
performance ever of yesterday. You sang it to me in
(18:59):
my flat and albefra. Then I played it when I
got back to England on my own guitar and completed
the middle eight.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
I said, the lyrics of Yesterday tell a story of loss,
the way heartbreak can make us nostalgic for a happier past.
Given the subject matter. It's even more remarkable that McCartney
(19:33):
was so young when he wrote it.
Speaker 4 (19:35):
I was twenty four, so after that it's twelve. But
you know, so world weary. These lyrics brilliant. I'm not
half the used to be. God, it's been a hard life,
mind you. It had because I'd lost my mother ten
(19:56):
years before that, and so did suggest to me that
this was a losing my mother song, which I always
sort of said, no, I don't think, so, you know,
think about it. Why she had to go? I don't know.
She wouldn't say losing your mother to cancer. And no
one said anything. We didn't nurse, it wasn't simply wasn't discussed.
(20:20):
We didn't know what it was at all.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
Why she had to go.
Speaker 6 (20:27):
I don't know she.
Speaker 4 (20:31):
She had to go? Why I don't know. Did I
say something wrong? You know? It may be because there's
so much tumbled into your youth. Of course there is,
and your formative years that you can't appreciate it all.
Sometimes it's only in retrospect you can appreciate it. And
(20:51):
I remember very clearly one day feeling very embarrassed because
I embarrassed my mom. We were out in the backyard
and she talked posh compared to work. She was of
Irish origin and she was a nurse, so she was
about street level. So she had something sort of going
(21:13):
from and she would talk, but reasons was a little
bit bosh and it was a little bit well she
as well. She had to connection to her Auntie Dyllis
as well, and so she taught her a little bit
of this. And I remember she said something like, Paul,
will you ask him? If he's going to ask, ask,
it's ask more, you know, and she's got to got
(21:33):
a little embarrassed another later, thinking God, I wish I'd
never said that, and it stuck with me, you know,
after she died. Oh fuck, I really wish I got
a couple of those little things that I know the
people would forgive me because they're not big things. Of
course they're little things, but they're little things that I
(21:56):
just think of. I could just take a robber, just
rub that little moment, be better. And when she died,
I wonder I said something wrong and will be HARKing
back to that crazy.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
Little thing I said, soundy love?
Speaker 4 (22:15):
But yeah, so so I don't know these does this happen?
Do you find yourself unconsciously putting songs into girl lyrics
that are really your dead mother, And what do you think.
I suspect it might be true. I think so it
(22:39):
sort of fits if you look at the lyrics.
Speaker 8 (22:42):
I know for Yesterday, Yesterday love was such an easy
game to play.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
I need a place to head away. Oh really Etuday.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
When it came time to record Yesterday, McCartney opted for
simple but striking orchestration with the help of George Martin.
Speaker 4 (23:26):
It was just me and guitar, solo, Me and guitar,
and George Martin said it would be really good to
try a string quartette, and I very firmly said no,
we're a rock combo. So George, being very smart and
wonderful and having the best bedside manner of any producer
(23:48):
you would ever want to meet, said well, let's try it,
and if you don't like it, we'll take it off. Yeah.
So I thought, well that's fair enough. So we did
retried it, and I remember sitting up in the control
room and hearing it and going, oh my god. George
was so right. Lent a depth to the song, and
(24:14):
it sort of made it seem kind of important, and
so I really liked it, and we said, of course you,
we'll keep it. And what I loved was then George
would then say, well, if he voiced it for a
string quartet, that note would go there down there on
the cello, and this middle note in the chord would
(24:36):
come here with viola, and this next note higher up,
we'll go to the second violin, and the sort of
top note, we'll go to the top one. So he
spread it out and he said, you know that's how
Bach would have voiced it. Yes, And I thought, wow,
it's like a revolution idea because our chords are always
(24:57):
within one octave knock and roll chords, to just play
the whole chord straight as a clutch kind of thing, yes,
And so he'd spread it out and that was a
bit of an eye opener to me.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
Oh, yesterday, game said, relying as it does on Paul's
voice his guitar. Yesterday was the first Beatles song that
featured just one of the band members.
Speaker 4 (25:31):
Thank you, thank you very much.
Speaker 6 (25:35):
We'd like to carry on now with a song from
our new album in England and it'll be out in
America shortly, and it's a song with featuring just Paul
and it's called Yesterday.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
One of the things that makes it such a great song,
surely is that it's presented in simple terms. But it's
a very complex personality that's describing let's say, his predicament.
Speaker 4 (26:06):
Yeah, well, you know, I'm pretty complex character. You know,
you don't come from being a schoolboy in Liverpool to
where I am now without some complexity sneaking in somewhere.
Rather like yourself, I'm very simple, you know what I'm saying. Yeah,
(26:31):
but the song, you know, I think the thing that
you want to try and get is complex simplicity or
simple complexity. You want it to seem easy and yeah,
if anyone gives it a second thought, you want there
(26:51):
to be a little bit of depth in it.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
You know, we're talking about the magic of this in
a strange way, the ease of it. What do you
make though of those who believe as many seem to
then writing a song, actually, he must be a pretty
simple thing today that.
Speaker 4 (27:13):
It must be simple to do. Well, that's let's see
them do it well exactly. That's fair enough. Now. I
think the thing about it is if you if you
write good songs and you make it look easy, what
what you don't want to forget is what went on before,
(27:36):
all the stuff that you put into it before you
try to write a song. I was looking at a
Saisan exhibition with a friend of mine and the first
picture in it was an academic drawing. He'd done almost photographic,
beautiful male nude and he's just like jaw dropping. Then
(28:00):
as you go through he appears to go off and
in the end you come out. My friend came out
thinking he couldn't draw it off. He said, why didn't
he stick with that? He ended up with the bathers,
And if you look at the drawing on that, it
would appear to be hopeless. I mean it's you know,
(28:22):
someone would say I could definitely do the better than that.
This is what happens. But everyone who goes to an
academy can pretty much do that because they have to
to get the degree. But what he goes on to
do based on that skill is something else. And I
think that's what I'm talking about him. I'm not relying
to myself with it says that, but I think there's
(28:47):
a lot goes into it before you arrive at the song.
All the little songs you whistled as a kid, all
the little poems, you read all the little poems you
made up, all the little things you did, and now
you're going to write a song, and you do it
and it seems very easy. But it's easy because there's
a lot of stuff went before.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
Yesterday. All my trouble seems so far away.
Speaker 5 (29:17):
That looks is over there to stay. Oh, I believe
in Yesterday.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
Suddenly Yesterday from the Beatles nineteen sixty five album Help.
In our next episode, McCartney responds to adair.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
From the actor Dustin Hoffman, Tree to me, take MATJ.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
Picasso's last words, drink to me next time on McCartney
A Life in Lyrics. McCartney A Life in Lyrics is
a co production between I Heart Me India, NPL and
Pushkin Industries
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