Yesterday

The track deals in the motifs of self deprecation, nostalgia and softness, all of it confessional in manner. The lyric turns to extended metaphor ('Yesterday' as lost happiness), something the Beatles had already used on 'I'm a Loser' ten months earlier. A single triple rhyme arrives ("Yesterday/away/stay"), and the language is stripped to very little (short, plain-spoken, 80-odd unique words). A curiosity, the title is one word. Coincidence or not, the line "I don't know" turns up in 10 Beatles songs, among them 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps', 'Something' and 'Girl'.

In F major at roughly 96 BPM, 'Yesterday' is a ballad and baroque pop song, and the writing shows the influence of Nat King Cole and classical music. It features bowed strings, and nothing earlier in the catalogue has it. The record has fingerpicking rather than strumming and a detuned guitar (tuned down one whole tone). By accident or design, its Dm → B♭ → Dm/A → G7 → C7 → F chord sequence is one 'Drive My Car' plays too, there as Bm → G7 → Bm → E → A → D/G.

The tape rolled at EMI Studio 2. Paul recorded two takes solo on acoustic guitar. The quartet was overdubbed three days later with Martin's score. The Epiphone Texan FT-79 was played by Paul McCartney, and the sound was built with close mic'ing, as on 42 of their records. The day this one was started carried three songs in all, the 82nd to the 84th of their career.

McCartney wrote this one and sang it, and there is a role swap on it, McCartney on acoustic guitar. George Martin plays on this one as well as producing it, less common for a Beatles record, as he does on 'Tell Me Why' and 'And I Love Her'. McCartney is the only Beatle playing on it. The score adds cello, viola and violin, none of them heard on a Beatles record before.

The song came out as a US-only single at the time, hitting #1 for four weeks. UK single not issued until 1976, where it reached #8. It went gold (Capitol, certified 20 October 1965), and has been widely covered (2,200+ covers) ever since. Besides that it is a record in the Grammy Hall of Fame. This track was the 16th of 33 released in that year, and the 85th in the order the Beatles were recorded.