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, Scott Rodger and Paul McCartney.
Thanks to Lee Eastman, Richard Ewbank, Scott Rodger, Aoife Corbett and Steve Ithell.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Pushkin. Hi, everyone, it's Paul Muldoon. 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.
(00:35):
Find Pushkin Plus on the McCartney A Life and Lyrics Show,
pedge in Apple Podcasts, or at pushkin dot Fm, slash Plus.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Yesterday, Oh my trouble seems so far.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Not sloud Dodge.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Really still day Uga kusum Meason you the sunwritten resou.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
What she.
Speaker 4 (01:23):
In?
Speaker 3 (01:24):
Yesterday?
Speaker 1 (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 Donald two. I'm
actually a performer.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
That is 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 1 (02:04):
This is McCartney A Life in Lyrics as 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 tho thereesday. Oh, I believe in Yesterday.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
What you heard at the top of the episode was
a supercut 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, that 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.
Speaker 6 (03:25):
Suddenly I'm not half the man I used to be.
Speaker 4 (03:35):
Elvis. There's a shadow hanging over Marvin Gay.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
Yesterday came all too suddy. Did she.
Speaker 4 (03:52):
Have to go? I don't know, Ray, Charles, unbelievable people
who's tune it? Oh God, this is incredible. But Sinatra, Elvis,
and Marvin all altered the lyric.
Speaker 7 (04:12):
I must have said something wrong alone.
Speaker 4 (04:19):
Today 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 1 (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 alver
some wrong. I must have done something wrong. I loved that.
It was like disclaimer, I must have.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Must have said something wrong.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Now, a long, long.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Long 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 Wimball Street. I stayed there and
it was only afterwards I thought I'd ever paid rent.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Well, that was a terrific must have been a terrific
boom to you.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
Yeah, in terms of your career, it 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 and The
kids were my girlfriend, her brother Peter, and her sister Claire.
(06:03):
So you know, it was like the Barretts of Wimpole Street,
The Barretts oft Wimpell Street. The year is eighteen forty five.
The place London.
Speaker 1 (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 1 (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've managed to get a piano
in there, a small sawn off piano, and I went
to sleep one night and dreamed. But you somewhere in
(07:27):
my dream I heard this tune, and when I woke up,
I thought, I love that tune. It's great. I love
that one.
Speaker 1 (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? Now? Is it? Is it? A Fredister?
Things are called portal things? It what is it? What
is it?
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Well?
Speaker 4 (08:02):
So I kind of fell out of the 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,
It's got to be some outstanding that I've just heard
years ago and I've forgotten forgotten it. So I worked
(08:24):
out chords and the two opening chords are kind of nice,
so I got very lucky there, so I didn't have
to go to those chords. So it's just a melody,
and I say i'd heard it in my head. It
was very clear, and it was just a little and
(08:54):
in order to solidify it in my memory, I just
blocked it out with some words which are scrambled egg
on my baby hal of your legs.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Scrambled that these provisional lyrics. Was that something you did
quite a lot, or it was.
Speaker 4 (09:15):
This, well, it was it was a kind of rare thing. Right.
We did that sometimes, 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 our stuff. Alan Ginsburg first thought,
(09:37):
best thoughts. Right, then he goes and revises every single
we ever wrote. But I 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 moment, So I
(10:01):
just thought of it. 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 what
(10:27):
I well, I dreamed it. Anyway, 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 1 (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've always have loved good tunes, and my dad played
them 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 as their all these things. I just
(11:31):
sort of these classics.
Speaker 5 (11:33):
Heaven. I'm in heaven and my heartbeats all that I
can hardly.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
Be, and I seem too fine the happiness I when
we're all together dancing cheap.
Speaker 4 (11:56):
Heaven. I'm in heaven, but 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.
So all that info is in my head. It was magical.
Yesterday 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. How the hell
(12:42):
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 can still remember standing
(13:03):
in the kitchen of fourth Lynn Road and hearing When
I Fall in Love by Nak and Cole as I
was reaching for an HP bod and thinking, my god,
this is good, this is class.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
When I fall in love, it will be forever.
Speaker 3 (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.
Speaker 5 (14:15):
There's a shadow hanging over yesterday, came said.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
Why.
Speaker 1 (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 was just looking at the countryside.
It was very hot and very dusty to say, and
sort of half asleep. But one of the things I
(15:54):
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 be?
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Yesterday?
Speaker 5 (16:09):
Love was such an easy game to play.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Here's the question, how do you know when it's right?
Speaker 4 (16:18):
Why didn't you try enough? Stuff that's wrong? Scrambled eggs
is wrong, and you try punctually sounds like punching someone
immediately it's not right. Yesterday, Okay, you've got it. It
(16:43):
just slots in like a slot machine, you know. Yeah,
that's that's the word to use. And also a word
like yesterday suddenly implies longing and sadness.
Speaker 6 (17:02):
Nine need a place to hide, really, yes, And I
also remember thinking people like sad songs.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
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. You know, a.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Suppose the more you've done, the more difficult it is.
I mean, do you feel that that?
Speaker 4 (17:38):
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 I had the original vein,
and I'm still enjoying digging it up just as much.
Speaker 1 (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 ca He said, well, yeah,
but you're lefty. It's right down there, 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 ups 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
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 my flat
(19:00):
and Albafa and I played it when I got back
to England on my own guitar and completed the middle eight.
Speaker 7 (19:09):
I said, the lyrics of Yesterday tell a story of loss,
the way heartbreak can make us nostalgic for a happier past.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Given the subject matter. It's even more remarkable that McCartney
was so young when he wrote it.
Speaker 4 (19:35):
I was twenty four, so half of that it's twelve,
but you know, so world weary. These lyrics brilliant. I'm
not half the I used to be. God, it's been
a hard life, mind you. It had because I'd lost
my mother ten years before that, and someone did suggest
(19:59):
to me that this was a losing my mother's song,
which I always sort of said, no, I don't think
so you know what you said, 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.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
It wasn't simply wasn't discussed.
Speaker 4 (20:20):
We didn't know what it was at all.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
Why she had to go. 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, or
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
above street level.
Speaker 8 (21:11):
So she had something so going for and she would
talk which reasons was a little bit bosh and it
was a little bit well she as well, she had
to connection. So her Auntie dyllis as well, and so
she taught a little bit of said. I remember she
said something like, Paul, will you ask him? If he's
going to ask ask, it's.
Speaker 9 (21:30):
Ask mom, you know, and she's got to got a
little embarrassed another later, thinking God, I wish I'd never
said that, and it stuck with me, you know, after
she died.
Speaker 4 (21:42):
Oh, 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 just think of. I
could just take a robber, just wrob that little moment
out be better. And when she died, I wonder I said.
Speaker 8 (22:04):
Something wrong and will we harken back to that crazy
little thing?
Speaker 5 (22:09):
I said, Sunday 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 quite.
(22:39):
It sort of fits if you look at the lyrics.
Speaker 5 (22:42):
I know for Yesterday Yesterday love was such an easy
game to play. I need a place to head away.
Speaker 3 (22:59):
Oh really.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
Yesterday.
Speaker 1 (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 quartet, 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,
but 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.
It lent a depth to the song and it sort
(24:14):
of made it seem kind of important, and so I
really liked it. And we said, of course you, we'll
keep it.
Speaker 10 (24:22):
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 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
(24:43):
to the top volum.
Speaker 4 (24:44):
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
within one octave knock and roll corde to just play
the whole chord straight as a clutch kind of thing.
(25:07):
And so he'd spread it out and that was a
bit of an eye opener to me.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
Oh, yesterday, gainsaidly, 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 7 (25:31):
Thank you, thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
We'd like to carry on now with a song from.
Speaker 5 (25:38):
Our new album in England and it'll be out in
America shortly, and it's a song with featuring j just Paul,
and it's called Yesterday.
Speaker 1 (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 someone
rather like yourself, you know what I'm saying. Yeah, but
(26:31):
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 yet if anyone
gives it a second thought, you want there to be
(26:51):
a little bit of depth in it, you know, we're
talking about that.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
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
(27:34):
before 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
(27:54):
almost photographic, beautiful, nile nude, and he's just like jaw dropping.
Then 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,
(28:15):
And if you look at the drawing on that, it
would appear to be hopeless. I mean it's you know,
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
(28:40):
think that's what I'm talking about him. I'm not lying
to myself with saysan, but I think there's 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
(29:01):
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 point before.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
Yesterday. All my trouble seems so far away, that.
Speaker 5 (29:18):
Looks as though there here to stay. Oh, I believe
in Yesterday.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Suddenly Yesterday from the Beatles nineteen sixty five album Help.
In our next episode, McCartney responds to adair from the
actor Dustin Hoffman.
Speaker 4 (29:40):
Tree to me.
Speaker 3 (29:44):
To take to ma.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
Gje 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 Iheartmeat Media NPL and Pushkin
(30:11):
Industries
Pushkin. Hi, everyone, it's Paul Muldoon. 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.
(00:35):
Find Pushkin Plus on the McCartney A Life and Lyrics Show,
pedge in Apple Podcasts, or at pushkin dot Fm, slash Plus.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Yesterday, Oh my trouble seems so far.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Not sloud Dodge.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Really still day Uga kusum Meason you the sunwritten resou.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
What she.
Speaker 4 (01:23):
In?
Speaker 3 (01:24):
Yesterday?
Speaker 1 (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 Donald two. I'm
actually a performer.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
That is 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 1 (02:04):
This is McCartney A Life in Lyrics as 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 tho thereesday. Oh, I believe in Yesterday.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
What you heard at the top of the episode was
a supercut 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, that 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.
Speaker 6 (03:25):
Suddenly I'm not half the man I used to be.
Speaker 4 (03:35):
Elvis. There's a shadow hanging over Marvin Gay.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
Yesterday came all too suddy. Did she.
Speaker 4 (03:52):
Have to go? I don't know, Ray, Charles, unbelievable people
who's tune it? Oh God, this is incredible. But Sinatra, Elvis,
and Marvin all altered the lyric.
Speaker 7 (04:12):
I must have said something wrong alone.
Speaker 4 (04:19):
Today 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 1 (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 alver
some wrong. I must have done something wrong. I loved that.
It was like disclaimer, I must have.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Must have said something wrong.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Now, a long, long.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Long 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 Wimball Street. I stayed there and
it was only afterwards I thought I'd ever paid rent.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Well, that was a terrific must have been a terrific
boom to you.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
Yeah, in terms of your career, it 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 and The
kids were my girlfriend, her brother Peter, and her sister Claire.
(06:03):
So you know, it was like the Barretts of Wimpole Street,
The Barretts oft Wimpell Street. The year is eighteen forty five.
The place London.
Speaker 1 (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 1 (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've managed to get a piano
in there, a small sawn off piano, and I went
to sleep one night and dreamed. But you somewhere in
(07:27):
my dream I heard this tune, and when I woke up,
I thought, I love that tune. It's great. I love
that one.
Speaker 1 (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? Now? Is it? Is it? A Fredister?
Things are called portal things? It what is it? What
is it?
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Well?
Speaker 4 (08:02):
So I kind of fell out of the 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,
It's got to be some outstanding that I've just heard
years ago and I've forgotten forgotten it. So I worked
(08:24):
out chords and the two opening chords are kind of nice,
so I got very lucky there, so I didn't have
to go to those chords. So it's just a melody,
and I say i'd heard it in my head. It
was very clear, and it was just a little and
(08:54):
in order to solidify it in my memory, I just
blocked it out with some words which are scrambled egg
on my baby hal of your legs.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Scrambled that these provisional lyrics. Was that something you did
quite a lot, or it was.
Speaker 4 (09:15):
This, well, it was it was a kind of rare thing. Right.
We did that sometimes, 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 our stuff. Alan Ginsburg first thought,
(09:37):
best thoughts. Right, then he goes and revises every single
we ever wrote. But I 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 moment, So I
(10:01):
just thought of it. 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 what
(10:27):
I well, I dreamed it. Anyway, 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 1 (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've always have loved good tunes, and my dad played
them 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 as their all these things. I just
(11:31):
sort of these classics.
Speaker 5 (11:33):
Heaven. I'm in heaven and my heartbeats all that I
can hardly.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
Be, and I seem too fine the happiness I when
we're all together dancing cheap.
Speaker 4 (11:56):
Heaven. I'm in heaven, but 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.
So all that info is in my head. It was magical.
Yesterday 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. How the hell
(12:42):
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 can still remember standing
(13:03):
in the kitchen of fourth Lynn Road and hearing When
I Fall in Love by Nak and Cole as I
was reaching for an HP bod and thinking, my god,
this is good, this is class.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
When I fall in love, it will be forever.
Speaker 3 (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.
Speaker 5 (14:15):
There's a shadow hanging over yesterday, came said.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
Why.
Speaker 1 (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 was just looking at the countryside.
It was very hot and very dusty to say, and
sort of half asleep. But one of the things I
(15:54):
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 be?
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Yesterday?
Speaker 5 (16:09):
Love was such an easy game to play.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Here's the question, how do you know when it's right?
Speaker 4 (16:18):
Why didn't you try enough? Stuff that's wrong? Scrambled eggs
is wrong, and you try punctually sounds like punching someone
immediately it's not right. Yesterday, Okay, you've got it. It
(16:43):
just slots in like a slot machine, you know. Yeah,
that's that's the word to use. And also a word
like yesterday suddenly implies longing and sadness.
Speaker 6 (17:02):
Nine need a place to hide, really, yes, And I
also remember thinking people like sad songs.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
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. You know, a.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Suppose the more you've done, the more difficult it is.
I mean, do you feel that that?
Speaker 4 (17:38):
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 I had the original vein,
and I'm still enjoying digging it up just as much.
Speaker 1 (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 ca He said, well, yeah,
but you're lefty. It's right down there, 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 ups 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
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 my flat
(19:00):
and Albafa and I played it when I got back
to England on my own guitar and completed the middle eight.
Speaker 7 (19:09):
I said, the lyrics of Yesterday tell a story of loss,
the way heartbreak can make us nostalgic for a happier past.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Given the subject matter. It's even more remarkable that McCartney
was so young when he wrote it.
Speaker 4 (19:35):
I was twenty four, so half of that it's twelve,
but you know, so world weary. These lyrics brilliant. I'm
not half the I used to be. God, it's been
a hard life, mind you. It had because I'd lost
my mother ten years before that, and someone did suggest
(19:59):
to me that this was a losing my mother's song,
which I always sort of said, no, I don't think
so you know what you said, 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.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
It wasn't simply wasn't discussed.
Speaker 4 (20:20):
We didn't know what it was at all.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
Why she had to go. 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, or
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
above street level.
Speaker 8 (21:11):
So she had something so going for and she would
talk which reasons was a little bit bosh and it
was a little bit well she as well, she had
to connection. So her Auntie dyllis as well, and so
she taught a little bit of said. I remember she
said something like, Paul, will you ask him? If he's
going to ask ask, it's.
Speaker 9 (21:30):
Ask mom, you know, and she's got to got a
little embarrassed another later, thinking God, I wish I'd never
said that, and it stuck with me, you know, after
she died.
Speaker 4 (21:42):
Oh, 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 just think of. I
could just take a robber, just wrob that little moment
out be better. And when she died, I wonder I said.
Speaker 8 (22:04):
Something wrong and will we harken back to that crazy
little thing?
Speaker 5 (22:09):
I said, Sunday 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 quite.
(22:39):
It sort of fits if you look at the lyrics.
Speaker 5 (22:42):
I know for Yesterday Yesterday love was such an easy
game to play. I need a place to head away.
Speaker 3 (22:59):
Oh really.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
Yesterday.
Speaker 1 (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 quartet, 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,
but 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.
It lent a depth to the song and it sort
(24:14):
of made it seem kind of important, and so I
really liked it. And we said, of course you, we'll
keep it.
Speaker 10 (24:22):
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 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
(24:43):
to the top volum.
Speaker 4 (24:44):
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
within one octave knock and roll corde to just play
the whole chord straight as a clutch kind of thing.
(25:07):
And so he'd spread it out and that was a
bit of an eye opener to me.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
Oh, yesterday, gainsaidly, 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 7 (25:31):
Thank you, thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
We'd like to carry on now with a song from.
Speaker 5 (25:38):
Our new album in England and it'll be out in
America shortly, and it's a song with featuring j just Paul,
and it's called Yesterday.
Speaker 1 (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 someone
rather like yourself, you know what I'm saying. Yeah, but
(26:31):
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 yet if anyone
gives it a second thought, you want there to be
(26:51):
a little bit of depth in it, you know, we're
talking about that.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
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
(27:34):
before 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
(27:54):
almost photographic, beautiful, nile nude, and he's just like jaw dropping.
Then 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,
(28:15):
And if you look at the drawing on that, it
would appear to be hopeless. I mean it's you know,
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
(28:40):
think that's what I'm talking about him. I'm not lying
to myself with saysan, but I think there's 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
(29:01):
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 point before.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
Yesterday. All my trouble seems so far away, that.
Speaker 5 (29:18):
Looks as though there here to stay. Oh, I believe
in Yesterday.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Suddenly Yesterday from the Beatles nineteen sixty five album Help.
In our next episode, McCartney responds to adair from the
actor Dustin Hoffman.
Speaker 4 (29:40):
Tree to me.
Speaker 3 (29:44):
To take to ma.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
Gje 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 Iheartmeat Media NPL and Pushkin
(30:11):
Industries
Host
Paul McCartney
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