The song was brought to light on June 14, 1965, a period in which 22-year-old McCartney had already impressed the world along with the band The Beatles. It was also, according to the British news network BBC, the most adapted song in musical history by more than 2,000 artists and broadcast on radio and television around seven million times.
It is important to say that the list of singers that have done covers of McCartney’s Yesterday includes names as Bob Dylan, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Ray Charles, Marvin Gaye and Spanish tenor Placido Domingo and that is some track for just a two-minute song!
Besides all the commercial stir caused by Yesterday, it also was the starting point to reach a more mature version of The Beatles, which were rather pigeonholed until then as a pop band of the time among the young audiences, with themes as courtships, parties and other trivial subjects.
Although it has been widely spread, some still do not know that several of Paul’s most successful songs, as “Let It Be” (1970), have been inspired by his mother Mary Yesterday, among the 13 best songs of all times, according to the Rolling Stones magazine, is not totally exempt from this fact.
A little more joky is that at first, the artist did not have a proper title for the song. Thus, he decided to call it temporarily “Scrambled Eggs” and did research into the musical circuits for about a month to confirm that those bars were his and no other composer’s.
According to statements years later by John Lennon, who accompanied McCartney artistically for 13 years, Paul woke up one morning, completed the lyrics and found the title. It made me a little sad, because we had many fanny moments at its expense, he said.
After spending more than one year in the production, editing and recording process, finally it was released as a single of the album Help,! to the delight of those that maybe at that time did not know that they were listening to one of the best songs by a band that would revolutionize the musical industry as it was known until then.
A Modernity Feel
In his more than seven decades of life, Paul has always found a way to be in the minds of his fans, since he joined efforts with late Michael Jackson in 1982 to record “The Girl Is Mine.” The man born in Liverpool showed his chameleonic instincts not to become a memory.
This duet with the King of pop meant to the British musician twelve years after The Beatles split up, a point of return to the people’s preference, which although never abandoned him, it was starting to become more admiration for his past achievements than for those at that time.
His recent collaboration with current stars Rihanna and Kanye West in the song “For Five Seconds” after a career of 50 years and a huge fortune, proved once more than to Paul, art is not just a means, but also a way of life.
The list of his joint works with figures of the current artistic world becomes more extensive with controversial Lady Gaga, who is currently collaborating with him in the soundtrack of an animated movie called “High in The clouds,” based on a homonym book for children he wrote in 2005.
This way, the ex-Beatle will became 73 years old, apart from the typical easy rest of those of his generation and surrounded by that spirit of renewal that has characterized him since the very beginning of his musical career, when he decided to grab a guitar and play in the busy Liverpool in 1957.