Yesterday

September 13, 1965

Yesterday (German: , Yesterday ') is the title of a program written by Paul McCartney hits of the Beatles in 1965 on the album Help! been published and are initially coupled outside the UK as a single. Yesterday became the most covered pop song of all time.

Genesis

Paul McCartney was the basic melody during the night in the home of his then girlfriend Jane Asher in London. Because he believed wanted to know the tune, and avoid cryptomnesia, he asked for a month people from the music industry and his band members if they would know the tune. Since none were aware of the melody, McCartney drove the composition further progress. Music producer George Martin heard the song for the first time during the French tour of the Beatles between 14 January 1964 and February 4, 1964, played by Paul McCartney at the piano still under the working title Scrambled Eggs ( scrambled eggs ') in the Paris Hotel " George V ". The rough text was still during the tour of France in 1964, the lyrical breakthrough came during a Portugal travel from 27 May 1965.

Formally, it is a recapitulation format, formed from a seven-bar lug (a ), an eight-bar swansong ( b) and a two-bar coda ( c ) as an echo repeating the lug end: aabac. The tunnel consists of a short -bar opening motif, from which a two-bar melody arc developed, which is reversed in the following two bars and opens in a new subject. Between lugs and swan song in terms of the clay material a diastematischer context. The string arrangement came from the former Beatles producer George Martin. Yesterday, in contrast to most modern pop song written in 2/4-time. The key is F major, although McCartney tuned his guitar to two semitones down, so he could use the fingerings for G major. The melancholy ballad is lyrically of a terminated relationship. The protagonist has chosen the wrong words ( " Said something wrong " ), whereupon the partner left him and he longs for the past ( " long for yesterday" ). The title Yesterday So here is less for the "Yesterday ", but rather as a synonym for the past.

George Martin suggested the string accompaniment, but rejected Paul McCartney vibrato from the strings. The unusual for a pop song instrumental band consisted Francisco Gabarro (cello), Tony Gilbert / Sidney Sax ( violin) and Kenneth Essex ( viola); Paul McCartney sings and accompanies himself on an acoustic guitar ( Epiphone FT -79, " Texan " ), which he only used his thumb and forefinger. The cello accompanied Paul McCartney's solo voice and gave the piece a sense of chamber music. Thus, it was the first recording without the full band. On June 14, 1965 in two takes Paul McCartney was at Abbey Road Studios ( Studio 2 ) singing with his guitar accompaniment, with Take 2 served as the basis for the recordings on 17 June 1965. That day was overdubbing of the String Quartet and the final mix. The strings accompanied ballad should develop trendsetting.

Publication and success

The remaining Beatles voted against publication as a single in the UK, so there Yesterday only as part of the album Help! appeared on August 6, 1965. Although Paul McCartney Yesterday had written alone, were named as authors, as usual, Lennon / McCartney. On August 8, 1965 Yesterday was ( Blackpool ABC Theatre, ) presented in the British TV show Blackpool Night Out live. Outside the UK, the single was released Yesterday / Act Naturally, as in the U.S. on September 13, 1965, where it ranked 1 in the Billboard charts for four weeks. Degrees less than three weeks after the release was given on October 2, 1965, a gold record in the U.S., because Yesterday sold in the first year after publication in the U.S. 1.8 million copies, 2.5 million worldwide. In Germany Yesterday was performed live three times during the BRAVO Beatles lightning tour, namely on 24 June 1966 ( Circus Krone-Bau, Munich), June 25, 1966 ( Grugahalle, Essen) and on 26 June 1966 in the Ernst Merck -Halle, Hamburg. In Germany, the single climbed in November 1965 to sixth. The status as a number -one hit, she won also in Belgium, Spain, Norway, Finland and Hong Kong. On March 4, 1966 Yesterday appeared on the eponymous EP in the UK, which remained at rank one for two months. Only in March 1976, the single was released in the UK and reached there Rank 8 of UK Top 40 ( the I Should Have Known Better B-side ). The BMI assumes that the piece with more than seven million performances of pop song most listed is at all around the world.

Yesterday was declared by MTV and Rolling Stone for best pop song since 1963. On the Rolling Stone list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time Yesterday space occupied 13 Even on the radio, it is considered that annually the most played piece of music.

Cover versions

Already up on 1 January 1986, there were 1600 cover versions, whose number has increased to more than 3,000 now. So Yesterday is the most gecoverte pop song of all time. Called from the multitude of versions had Matt Monro ( October 1965; Rank 8 ), Marianne Faithfull ( October 1965 ), Cilla Black ( January 1966 ), Ray Charles with a Soul version ( November 1967; Rhythm & Blues charts rank 8, Pophitparade Rank 25), Gladys Knight ( December 1968 ), Frank Sinatra ( March 1969 ), Marvin Gaye ( January 1970 ), Elvis Presley (June 1970), Dionne Warwick ( December 1970 ), Wings ( December 1976), Billie Jo Spears ( October 1978 ), Paul McCartney ( October 1984), LeAnn Rimes (July 1994), an a cappella version of Boyz II Men ( August 1994 ) or Neil Diamond ( November 2010). Finally, the variety of cover versions made ​​Yesterday a timeless evergreens.

Knut Kiesewetter published in 1965 by Polydor a German version of the song with the title yesterday.

Accusations of plagiarism

From July 2003, came to accusations of plagiarism from different sides. First, the trade press tripped over textual similarities in the rhyming structure to David Whitfield Answer Me ( October 1953 ) and the hit version by Nat King Cole ( February 1954; Rank 6 ). McCartney denied any similarity between the pieces. In July 2006, claiming the Italian composer Lilli Greco that the melody of Neapolitan folk song Piccere ' Che Vene a dicere (' Here's looking at you, kid ') from 1895 came from. In the latter case, however, no one could prove the existence of the song as a record or in the form of notes.