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The Beatles – Yesterday -Jazz Piano solo (with sheet music)
Yesterday (the song)
“Yesterday” is a song by the English rock band the Beatles, written by Paul McCartney and credited to Lennon–McCartney. It was first released on the album Help! in August 1965, except in the United States, where it was issued as a single in September. The song reached number one on the US charts. It subsequently appeared on the UK EP Yesterday in March 1966 and made its US album debut on Yesterday and Today, in June 1966.
McCartney’s vocal and acoustic guitar, together with a string quartet, essentially made for the first solo performance of the band. It remains popular today and, with more than 2,200 cover versions, is one of the most covered songs in the history of recorded music. “Yesterday” was voted the best song of the 20th century in a 1999 BBC Radio 2 poll of music experts and listeners and was also voted the No. 1 pop song of all time by MTV and Rolling Stone magazine the following year. In 1997, the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Broadcast Music Incorporated (BMI) asserts that it was performed over seven million times in the 20th century.
“Yesterday” is a melancholy ballad about the break-up of a relationship. The singer nostalgically laments for yesterday when he and his love were together, before she left because of something he said. McCartney is the only member of the Beatles to appear on the track. The final recording was so different from other works by the Beatles that the band members vetoed the release of the song as a single in the United Kingdom, although other artists were quick to record versions of it for single release. The Beatles recording was issued as a single there in 1976 and peaked at number 8.
“Yesterday” is like no other Beatles’ song. Unlike most of their songs that are credited to Lennon/McCartney, this marked the first time when there was no extensive collaboration between John Lennon and Paul McCartney. “Yesterday” was written only by Paul when he was playing around on the piano; he was also the only Beatle present on stage when the song was played live. John Lennon, however, initially didn’t like the song. In fact, he and other band members made fun of the song. This almost broke The Beatles into two bands: John’s band and Paul’s band.
With respect to the musical aspects of the song, it contains a complete harmonic structure, along with other things like complex lyrics structure, tempos, and a smooth upbeat sound. Production of the music for “Yesterday” indicated McCartney’s intentions of wanting to be a composer.
A composer, in contrast to a typical musical, is a person who’s responsible all aspects of sonic elements of a song. The Beatles’ manager, George Martin, was in favor of McCartney’s efforts, and also the new idea of having no collaborations from John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr (who looked cute but didn’t do any intellectual contributions to the band whatsoever – just a fact. Ringo fans, don’t hate me).
This significance of the song transcend beyond The Beatles into the large rock n’ roll movement of the 1960s. “Yesterday” was a catalyst in writing, not just pop songs, but rock songs which were solely intended for the purpose of listening, not dancing. You could still dance if you wanted to, but the larger idea of such songs were to convey a message to the audience (although this particular Beatles song possesses no deep message ). Accordingly, the song was covered countless number of artists. In fact, as of this writing, “Yesterday” has been covered by more artists than any other song.
As for the meaning of the song, it’s a simple one: everything was easy on yesterday so everybody wants to go back to yesterday to erase all the mistakes and make peace with the ones they hurt.
Lyrics
Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away
Now it looks as though they’re here to stay
Oh, I believe in yesterday
Suddenly, I’m not half the man I used to be
There’s a shadow hanging over me.
Oh, yesterday came suddenly
Why she had to go I don’t know she wouldn’t say
I said something wrong, now I long for yesterday
Yesterday, love was such an easy game to play
Now I need a place to hide away
Oh, I believe in yesterday
Why she had to go I don’t know she wouldn’t say
I said something wrong, now I long for yesterday
Yesterday, love was such an easy game to play
Now I need a place to hide away
Oh, I believe in yesterday
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