The tune George Martin never considered a real Beatles track: “You know, this is Paul’s song”
The Beatles are synonymous with a time period where psychedelia ruled supreme, but this is not to ignore their more vulnerable moments. Of course, the way in which drugs dictated much of their lives and musical ventures throughout the rise of the 1960s counterculture is clear for all to see, but at their heart, the Fab Four were really just looking for love.
Cheesy it may sound, yes, but the band’s back catalogue of real romantic ballads would stand to this point, enough to turn Beatlemania from a crazed mob into swooning star worshippers. But it was, in fact, perhaps the most famous of these love declarations that secured the Beatles their status of being the world’s best-ever band from a very early point, even if the efforts of the three of them on the song were pretty much non-existent.
The Paul McCartney-penned ‘Yesterday’ is without question among the pinnacle of the Beatles’ greatest hits. It is also easily considered one of the best tunes of all time – and the most covered – highlighting Macca at his lyrical peak in a stripped-back ballad lamenting the loss of his love. But this simplicity is arguably the most striking thing about the song because when you think about it, the other Beatles weren’t involved at all.
To this end, the band’s record-producing right-hand man never thought they should have all taken the credit. On the Anthology project, George Martin claimed: “It wasn’t really a Beatles record, and I discussed this with Brian Epstein.”
A controversial take maybe, but he recalled saying: “You know, this is Paul’s song… Shall we call it Paul McCartney?’ [Epstein] said, ‘No, whatever we do, we are not splitting up The Beatles.’”
It was probably a wise move, to be fair. Even though ‘Yesterday’ undeniably belonged to Macca, in many ways, it was a show of strength to attribute the tune to the whole band as it proved they moved in unison despite the potential for creative differences. In that vein, Martin concluded: “So even though none of the others appeared on the record, it was still The Beatles – that was the creed of the day.”
It does demonstrate, however, a rare occasion when Martin wasn’t able to exert his influence over the band to get his way. They didn’t call him the fifth Beatle for nothing. He had been turning the cogs of the Fab Four’s career behind the scenes, all the way from ‘Please Please Me’ to Abbey Road, and in this sense was as responsible for their slew of number one hits and the subsequent cultural carnage that ensued as any of the rest of them.
But ‘Yesterday’ still remains as an albeit unfathomably successful sticking point. Should McCartney have been rewarded for his solo effort by having only his name on the track? Or would it have ruptured the cracks in the band much earlier than they eventually came about, and would we have lost a critical component of music history as a result? It’s a mind-bending debate – one that doesn’t bear thinking about in many ways because it really could have been a moment of sliding doors.
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