The Beatles
Yesterday

An ordinary morning within the 31 days allotted for January. London, Wimpole Street. It’s unbelievably cold.

What a strange dream. Something is pounding inside my brain. It's so intense that I place my bare feet on the cold floor without feeling any discomfort. The contact doesn’t make me jump to land them on the assuredly warmer rug.

A thin layer of dust, visible only in the backlight, rests on the piano but I can’t help but wake it abruptly by lifting it. The melody is rapidly spreading. From the brain to the fingertips. The thumbs are hanging in the air while the other fingers rest with some uncertainty on the keys: something, however, comes out. But haven’t I heard it somewhere else? Jane, does it remind you of something? I don’t think so…

“Guys? Have any of you heard anything like it before? I don’t remember my father ever playing or listening to it…does it ring a bell?

- No…I don’t think so…

- No!

- No, no!

No one knows it…how strange. Good for me, in the end…

I don’t have a title in mind. At least not for the moment. Just one word or two? Or something with the necessary syllables to fit the initial chords? How many measures…three…Scrambled eggs. What nonsense! John, what do you think of “Scrambled Eggs”?

I’d make myself a nice plate for breakfast! …little one, how I love your legs…but hell…

Between spring and summer of 1965, between London and the Bahamas.

“Paul! You’ve broken this melody! Next time, I’ll make that piano disappear from the scenes even if it means altering the script in progress!”

- You’ve broken, Paul!

- Stop it, Paul! You’re not Beethoven!

- What a drag, Paul!

- George, I thought of playing it with all the band’s instruments, what do you think?

- I don’t find it effective. What would you say about a string quartet?

- A string quartet? We’ve never done that before?

- Exactly!

- Are you sure, George? I'm not!

- Let’s do this: I'll contact some professionals and you try. If you think it doesn’t work, record it as you see fit, okay?

Fortunately, the scrambled eggs have been wisely set aside. Just as fortunately, Paul did not impose that skepticism which would lead him to commit a good number of blunders in the future, though they were forgiven. Miraculously, however, the skepticism, embodied by Chris Farlowe (the one who remedied late by picking “Out of Time” from the Stones’ Aftermath), prevailed against Paul, who would have otherwise given it to him. The melody is beautiful, and the lyrics are interesting, but it’s too melancholic, too “light.” Farlowe must still be trying to chew his elbows, much like Dick Rowe and Sidney Beecher-Stevens (respectively A&R Head and Commercial Director of Decca). Just with “Yesterday,” if they had chosen to earn a pound for every radio play recorded in the United States alone, they’d live off a mere 7 million bucks with the regal face of Her Majesty is a pretty nice girl, god seiv t cuin!

Never before has the number three become the embodiment of perfection. For the third time, Paul’s or others’ doubt yields to common sense. Paul would heed George Martin’s experience by incorporating the musical declination of the “viola.” Not the color. A mathematical syllogism and math is an exact science: Dream – Scrambled eggs = Beautiful melody with an interesting text. Beautiful melody with an interesting text – Giving it to others = Interesting and personal song. Interesting and personal song + String quartet = Yesterday. Not “The Divorced Duckling” either…

The other band members did not want to include it on the album “Help!”. Romantic love still prevails in a good part of the songs of the time. The turning point is near, and although John has already highlighted loneliness, sadness, melancholy, and death, "Help!" is an album too fresh, and at times even acid and vibrant to contain such a profound track. Perhaps, in hindsight, Paul could have listened to his other three friends. Perhaps. In my opinion, George Martin will make some mistakes in the production. In fact, "Yesterday" contrasts quite a bit when followed by the noisy and, in my view, unpleasant "Dizzy Miss Lizzy" at the end. The album could have balanced the atmospheres with the beautiful “Yes it is” instead of the embarrassing “It’s only love”, even detested by its own writer (but if you don’t like it, what the hell do you record it for, John?). An ending with "She’s a Woman" or "I’m Down" would surely have made the work decidedly more interesting. No matter, "Rubber Soul" is arriving in exchange.

Paul is alone in the studio with his Epiphone Casino semi-acoustic. George is leaning against a wall listening. The other George is in the recording room adjusting the mixers. A member of the quartet hasn’t sat properly and will slightly move the chair while Paul "believes in yesterday for the first time”.

The strings are barely plucked, almost mute. The voice is disarmingly sweet. Paul remembers and suffers. A love he misses, something deep he’s lost forever and can’t find the path to resignation. He can’t come to terms with it. He wishes to retreat to a past just fled or be sure of a too-imminent future perfect that even manages to frighten him. Mother Mary has been gone for a while now and it will be a few more years before she whispers words of wisdom…

The cello phrase at 1' and 26'' was added by Paul. Apparently, the idea of the strings convinced him so much that it will lead a poor soul to pick up the rice fallen from the hands of a marriage on the floor of a church…

Around an apparently tender soul exists an impenetrable armor. Someone tried to sink it, leaving full of wonder. First musicologist Spencer Leigh who would have found an unconscious textual resonance towards “Answer Me,” a Nat King Cole song from 1954. Then, and this is truly exceptional, record executive Italo “Lilli” Greco, who had discovered people like Francesco De Gregori and Paolo Conte in the past, unfortunately in the odor of oblivion, would claim in 2006 that the song was entirely copied based on a Neapolitan classic of the 1800s, "Piccerè che viene a dicere." The pulpit is remarkable but the sermon doesn’t hold. There is no trace of this song. No one, and I emphasize no one, not even the 2,000+ artists who have recorded their own version, knows it. Except Greco. And the latter does not even possess any evidence to convict McCartney with his hands in the jam. The band Shampoo, a Neapolitan group that had some success parodying some classics of the magnificent beetles, tried to give him a minimum of credit with no success. For that matter, even Vince Tempera believes that “Hey Jude” has the same metric as “O Sole Mio.” Oh well…

Regarding the other tracks that make up the EP, “Act Naturally,” “It’s Only Love,” and “You Like Me Too Much" I won’t even talk about. It wouldn’t make sense.

“Yesterday” is so beautiful it moves you to tears.