Thanks to the use of artificial intelligence, 2023 offered the chance for The Beatles to close their discography with one final song. In fitting fashion, ‘Now and Then’ went on to claim number one, earning the band an unprecedented 21 chart-toppers. As the chief writer of around 90 tracks for the band, this means that Paul McCartney certainly knows his way around a smash hit.
When appraising the 20th century, an era where he was perhaps the most pivotal engine of influence in the arts, the Liverpudlian heaped praise upon his peers. “I figure no one is educated musically ’til they’ve heard Pet Sounds. I love the orchestra, the arrangements – it may be going overboard to say it’s the classic of the century – but to me, it certainly is a total, classic record that is unbeatable in many ways,” he once said of The Beach Boys masterpiece.
However, of all the lads in the Fab Four, Macca was the biggest cheerleader of his own band, and with pride he opines that ‘Yesterday’ was the “smash of the century”.
“It was my most successful song. It’s amazing that it just came to me in a dream,” he states in The Beatles Anthology. “That’s why I don’t profess to know anything; I think music is all very mystical. You hear people saying, ‘I’m a vehicle; it just passes through me.’ Well, you’re dead lucky if something like that passes through you.”
Nevertheless, the band honed it as youngsters, and keeping up appearances prevented them from releasing it in the UK, as they thought the ballad wasn’t quite rock ‘n’ roll enough. “I am proud of it. I get made fun of because of it a bit,” McCartney says, having warmed to its tenderness over the years. “I remember George saying, ‘Blimey, he’s always talking about ‘Yesterday’, you’d think he was Beethoven or somebody.’ But it is, I reckon, the most complete thing I’ve ever written.”
Considering that he has also penned the likes of ‘Hey Jude’ and ‘Maybe I’m Amazed’, among hundreds of other perfectly polished pieces of music, that’s high praise indeed. However, it is a track that typifies the transcendence of the band. Now, perhaps the song’s potency has been somewhat diluted on the whole, but that just proves its pervasiveness: can you imagine a world without ‘Yesterday’? Can you imagine hearing it for the first time?
Thus, the only thing McCartney regrets about the hit is the business side of things. “For ‘Yesterday’, which I wrote totally on my own, without John’s or anyone’s help, I am on 15%,” he continued. “To this day I am only on 15% because of the deals Brian [Epstein] made, and that is really unjust, particularly as it has been such a smash. It is possibly the smash of this century.”
In actual fact, the track’s official sales are far eclipsed by the likes of ‘She Loves You’, which remains The Beatles’ best-selling single, but ‘Yesterday’ is certified as the most covered song in history, showcasing its durable simplicity and endeared ubiquity.
