What You Didn't Know About Paul McCartney

May 2024 ยท 2 minute read

Although the Beatles already had massive popularity before they released "Yesterday," the song made the world take them seriously as musicians. It's now one of the most covered songs of all time, as Guinness World Records reported, with "thousands of different versions" recorded. It might not have become a worldwide classic, however, if Paul McCartney had stuck with his original title. As the musician revealed in his biography "McCartney," he wrote the song after hearing the tune in a dream at his girlfriend Jane Asher's house. At first, he assumed that it must have been one of the old standards that his father loved. "This one, I was convinced, was just something I'd heard before. I said to people: well, it can't be mine, I just woke up dreaming it!" McCartney recalled.

The musician described the experience as "mystical," adding, "It was the only song I ever dreamed." He began showing it off to friends, with the hastily-written lyrics, "Scrambled eggs, oh my baby how I love your legs..." as a placeholder. When the actual words finally came to him, however, they felt just as natural as the melody. Unusually, McCartney recorded the track without the other Beatles, performing with a guitar and backed up by a string quartet. 

He also admitted to Stephen Colbert in 2019 that the melancholy lyrics may have been inspired by his mother's death, even if he hadn't consciously been inspired by Mary McCartney at the time.

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