(The Hit Hammer is where I'm reviewing each #1 song on the Billboard Hot 100. Starting from when the chart started in 1958 and eventually working my way to the present. To see my inspiration and more information about this blog, please refer down below)
The Beatles - "Yesterday"
Hit Number 1: October 9, 1965
Stay at Number 1: 4 Weeks
Have you ever felt nostalgic for anything? Maybe that's a stupid question, because of course, we all experience some form of nostalgia several times throughout our lives. During this quarantine during the COVID-19 crisis, I'm just like the rest of you guys. I'm locked up in my house without anywhere to go. So out of boredom, I dusted off those old yearbooks from my early elementary school years in Collierville, Tennessee, where I moved from when I was in just second grade. After looking through those yearbooks, I've been reminiscing about those days there, the good memories I had, all the great friends I made there, and wondering what the hell they're up to these days now that I'm at the age of 22. I have great memories of that place, and I'm experiencing some pretty intense nostalgia for it this past week.
I know what you might be thinking. No, my years in Tennessee have absolutely nothing to do with "Yesterday" by the Beatles. Unless, if you count the fact that the song is about experiencing heavy nostalgia, but not for old school days from years ago. "Yesterday" by the Beatles is about a guy who had a great relationship with a girl, but it all came to a screeching halt, and she left him because of "something he said". Luckily for me, I've never had a nasty breakup where I was left feeling alone, cold, and sad. But this singer sure does, and man, he makes my situation look like nothing.
Even though the song is credited as being by the Beatles, I think we all know that this is strictly a Paul McCartney song, and none of the other Beatles even performed on the track. McCartney reportedly came up with the melody in a dream he had one night, and hurried to the piano after he woke up so he could play the tune and not forget it. He did have major concerns that he came up with the melody because he already heard it from somewhere, and he was scared that if he wrote his own words to the song, he would be accused of plagiarism by whoever first had the melody. In his own words, he said "For about a month I went round to people in the music business and asked them whether they had ever heard it before. Eventually it became like handing something in to the police. I thought if no one claimed it after a few weeks then I could have it".
Overtime, he was convinced that he had not stolen the melody, and he began writing his lyrics. On a comical note, as John Lennon and McCartney were known to do, they would often substitute their lyrics with something they wouldn't soon forget, so that the music and phrasing would stay in place. McCartney came up with "Scrambled Eggs" and it went like "Scrambled eggs/Oh my baby how I love your legs/Not as much as I love scrambled eggs". He became somewhat obsessed with his potential song. During the shooting of the movie "Help!", there was a piano on one of the stages where they were filming, and McCartney would take advantage of that, as he would tinker around with the song whenever he had the chance. Richard Lester, the director of the movie, was getting annoyed by McCartney, and apparently shouted at him to finish the song or he would have the piano removed. The other three Beatles were also pretty annoyed by it, with George Harrison of all of them saying "Blimey, he's always talking about that song. You'd think he was Beethoven or somebody!" McCartney was finally able to complete the song in May 1965, when him and his girlfriend, Jane Asher, took a trip to Lisbon and stayed with Shadows' member Bruce Welch. McCartney used Welch's guitar to help put the finishing touches on the song. Interestingly enough, McCartney said in 1967 that Lennon was the one that came up with the word "Yesterday" instead of the obviously temporary title of "Scrambled Eggs".
"Yesterday" is a lot different from all the other Beatles songs that have appeared in this blog so far. For one, only one Beatle performs on the song, and that it's a lot more toned down and quiet than the other Beatles #1 hits to date. McCartney is backed by a string quartet, which is something the Beatles would use a fair amount of in the coming years. The best known example of this besides "Yesterday" is "Eleanor Rigby", a song that could be about a million different things. ("Eleanor Rigby" made it to #11 in the U.S. It's a 9) But even "Eleanor Rigby" is still upbeat and energetic, to an extent. "Yesterday" is not. Instead, "Yesterday" is a song that's in its own moment of isolation. A brief, barely over 2 minutes in length tune that is soaked in sorrow and regret,
There's one thing that we all know here: McCartney screwed up, and he screwed up bad. However, he's pretty vague in how he screwed up, as he just says "I said something wrong". I mean, whatever you said had to be pretty bad to lead to this situation. But at the same time, thank God you said whatever you said, cause otherwise "Yesterday" wouldn't even exist. "Yesterday" is such a melancholy tune, that the world just stops whenever it's playing. I feel like whenever I listen to "Yesterday", there is nothing around me to distract me. All that exists is this song, and it makes me think about years gone by, and everything good that I once had that's no longer here. Not that my life sucks now, it's just that we all have those great memories from our childhood, high school, college, or whenever that we wish we could just rewind to the days of yesterday one more time, to live through those days again, and appreciate them more. "Yesterday" exposes that. That's the power of "Yesterday".
Also, the legacy tied to it is off the charts. "Yesterday" is apparently the most covered song in the history of music. In 1999, it was named the best song of the 20th century by Rolling Stone Magazine. That's a bold statement, cause there are so many great songs in all different eras of music in the 20th century. But if you were going to make a Top 10 best songs of all time list, "Yesterday" would probably appear on a lot of our lists. It's one of those rare true masterpieces to where if you say "Yesterday" is a bad song, you're just flat out wrong.
GRADE: 10/10
JUST MISSED:
Roy Head & the Traits' upbeat but pretty bland "Treat Her Right" peaked at #2 behind "Yesterday". It's a 6.
Also just missing out was the Toys' pretty good and mid-60s vibe heavy "A Lover's Concerto", which also was kept off #1 by "Yesterday" (and the next entry). It's a 7.
SONG REFERENCED:
The Beatles - "Eleanor Rigby"
MY INSPIRATION / MORE INFORMATION:
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