Today in 1965, Paul McCartney sat down in Abbey Road Studios and recorded “Yesterday” with just a guitar and a microphone.
11 Facts About “Yesterday” You Probably Didn’t Know
- McCartney composed the entire melody in a dream one night in his room at the Wimpole Street home of his then girlfriend Jane Asher and her family. Upon waking, he hurried to a piano and played the tune to avoid forgetting it
- Originally titled ”Scrambled Eggs”
- There are more than 2,200 cover versions making it one of the most covered songs in the history of recorded music.
- Voted the best song of the 20th century in a 1999 BBC Radio 2 poll of music experts and listeners
- In 2000 voted the No. 1 Pop song of all time by MTV and Rolling Stone magazine
- The song was performed over seven million times in the 20th century alone
- The first official recording by The Beatles that relied upon a performance by a single member of the band, Paul McCartney
- Although credited to “Lennon–McCartney”, the song was written solely by McCartney
- In 2000 McCartney asked Yoko Ono if she would agree to change the credit on the song to read “McCartney–Lennon” in the The Beatles Anthology but she refused
- The track was recorded at Abbey Road Studios on 14 June 1965, four days before McCartney’s 23rd birthday
- McCartney owns the original lyrics to “Yesterday” written on the back of an envelope
- It is believed that he wrote the lyrics while on the toilet
