As someone who has spoken with many songwriters, I can tell you that songwriting is not a science. Everyone has their little tips and tricks in this indescribable craft. Many songs seem to materialize out of thin air. You could almost call it magic.
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Paul McCartney certainly believes in that magic. But what song made him a believer? Find out which Beatles song opened up McCartney‘s eyes to the unseen world, below.
The Beatles Song That Made Paul McCartney Believe in Magic
McCartney has penned many songs that seem stupifying to us mere mortals. Songwriters dream of writing something even remotely similar to his timeless catalog. But, there is one Beatles song in particular that mystified the songwriter himself: “Yesterday.”
Few rock ballads are as soothing yet invigorating as “Yesterday.” Though simple in scope, this song has a universality that will keep it in rotation for the foreseeable future. It has already survived decades. It has the staying power to survive centuries.
Unsurprisingly, the ideation of this song was unique. Such a singular song couldn’t have a boring backstory, could it? According to McCartney, the melody for “Yesterday” came to him in a dream.
“People say, ‘Do you believe in magic?’ and I say, ‘I have to,’” McCartney once said. “Because I woke up one morning with this [hums the tune to Yesterday], and I went, ‘I love that. What was that?’ I thought I was dreaming someone else’s song.”
“So for about two weeks I asked John, George Martin, George, and Ringo, ‘What is this? Do you know this song? There were no lyrics,” he added. “I bluffed it out with ‘Scrambled eggs / Oh my baby, how I love your legs.’”
He eventually found the right words to pair with his mysterious melody, creating one of the most iconic songs in the Beatles’ discography.
John Lennon’s Envy
You know you’ve written a great song when your bandmate is green with envy. Though McCartney and John Lennon shared a lot of the Beatles’ songwriting load, there was inevitably some healthy competition between the two. Lennon reportedly was only ever really jealous of “Yesterday.”
“I have had so much accolade for ‘Yesterday,’” Lennon once said of this song. “That’s Paul’s song and Paul’s baby. Well done. Beautiful.”
While Lennon’s public comments on this song were relatively tame, behind the scenes, he used it as a metric to measure his songwriting against. According to Ian Leslie, author of John & Paul: A Love Story in Songs, the success of “Yesterday” triggered Lennon’s “insecurity.”
“I think ‘Yesterday’ really triggered his insecurity that Paul may up and leave and become a solo star,” Leslie once said. “I don’t think Paul was ever going to do that, but I think John worried about that.”
While fans would stand in Lennon’s corner and prop up his songwriting abilities as well, no one can deny that “Yesterday” is a competitive track. Revisit this Beatles staple below.
(Photo by Images/Getty Images)
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