Yesterday by The Beatles: The Story Behind the Most Covered Song in Music History

This article is part of our 7 Iconic Beatles Songs and Their Stories series. For the complete Beatles song catalogue, visit our Every Beatles Song Ever Recorded (1962–1970) database.

The Morning Paul McCartney Thought He’d Stolen a Song

In the spring of 1965, Paul McCartney woke up in his bedroom at the Asher family home in Wimpole Street, London, with a melody fully formed in his head. It was complete – the tune, the shape, the emotional arc of it. He reached for the piano beside his bed and played it through. It was perfect.

And he was convinced he must have heard it somewhere before.

For weeks, McCartney played the melody to everyone he knew – fellow musicians, friends, producers, anyone who might recognise it. He was certain it was someone else’s song, something he’d absorbed unconsciously and was now mistaking for his own. Nobody recognised it. George Martin didn’t recognise it. John Lennon didn’t recognise it. Nobody did.

The melody was entirely, originally his. And it would become ‘Yesterday’ – the most covered song in the history of recorded music.

Scrambled Eggs: The Placeholder Lyric That Almost Stayed

In the months between McCartney first dreaming the melody and the song being recorded, it existed under a working title that has since become one of the most famous placeholder lyrics in pop history: Scrambled Eggs.

The full working lyric ran: “Scrambled eggs / Oh my baby how I love your legs / Not as much as I love scrambled eggs.” McCartney has told this story many times, always with evident amusement. The melody was so strong, so fully realised, that even with nonsense words it was clearly something extraordinary. The challenge was finding words worthy of it.

The real lyrics came to him during a holiday in Portugal in May 1965. The word ‘yesterday’ arrived first – and with it, the emotional register of the song: loss, regret, the ache of something that cannot be recovered. The rest followed quickly. By the time The Beatles entered Abbey Road to record it on 14 June 1965, the song was complete.

The Recording: A Beatles First

‘Yesterday’ was recorded in a single session at Abbey Road Studio Two on 14 June 1965. What made it remarkable – and what made it unlike anything The Beatles had released before – was its instrumentation. There were no drums. No electric guitar. No bass. No other Beatles.

McCartney recorded the song alone, accompanying himself on his Epiphone Texan acoustic guitar. Producer George Martin then arranged a string quartet – two violins, a viola, and a cello – to accompany him. It was the first time a string arrangement had been used on a Beatles recording, and Martin’s instinct for restraint was impeccable. The strings support the vocal without overwhelming it. They add weight without adding sentimentality.

John Lennon and George Harrison were not present at the session. Ringo Starr was not present. This was, in every meaningful sense, a Paul McCartney solo record – released under The Beatles’ name because that was simply how things worked in 1965. It would be another five years before any of them released music under their own names.

The session lasted three hours. McCartney recorded fourteen takes of the vocal and guitar. Take thirteen was selected as the master. The string overdub was added the same day. The whole thing was done in an afternoon.

Release and Reception: A Song That Divided the Band

‘Yesterday’ was released in the United States on 13 September 1965 as a single – it was not released as a UK single at the time, appearing instead on the Help! album. In America, it went to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and stayed there for four weeks. It was the first Beatles song to top the US charts as a solo McCartney performance.

John Lennon’s reaction to the song was characteristically complex. He admired it – he could hardly not – but he was also, by his own admission, somewhat ambivalent about its direction. ‘Yesterday’ represented a move away from the rock and roll energy that had defined The Beatles’ early career, toward something more introspective, more classical, more ‘McCartney’. Lennon would later say it was “beautiful” but not the kind of song he would have written.

George Harrison was more direct. He reportedly said, only half-jokingly, that he wished he’d written it.

The Most Covered Song in History: By the Numbers

Guinness World Records lists ‘Yesterday’ as the most covered song in the history of recorded music, with over 2,200 documented versions. The list of artists who have recorded it reads like a survey of the entire twentieth century of popular music: Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Ray Charles, Marvin Gaye, Boyz II Men, En Vogue, Placido Domingo, Liberace, and thousands of others.

It has been performed in virtually every musical genre imaginable – jazz, classical, country, reggae, bossa nova, heavy metal, gospel. It has been translated into dozens of languages. It has been played at funerals, weddings, graduations, and state occasions. It is, in the most literal sense, a universal song.

What makes it so coverable? Partly the melody – which is so strong that it survives almost any arrangement. Partly the lyric – which is specific enough to feel personal but universal enough to apply to almost any experience of loss. And partly something harder to define: a quality of emotional truth that transcends its era, its genre, and its original context.

The Meaning of Yesterday: What Is the Song Actually About?

On the surface, ‘Yesterday’ is a song about a romantic relationship that has ended – a love that was present ‘yesterday’ and is now gone, leaving only regret and the unanswerable question of what went wrong. The lyric is simple, almost plain: “Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away / Now it looks as though they’re here to stay / Oh, I believe in yesterday.”

But McCartney has suggested, in various interviews over the decades, that the song may have deeper roots – that the sense of loss it expresses connects, at some level, to the death of his mother Mary when he was fourteen. The dream that produced the melody, the feeling of something irretrievably gone, the longing for a past that cannot be recovered – these are not merely the emotions of a broken romance. They are the emotions of grief.

Whether or not that reading is correct, it helps explain why the song resonates so far beyond its apparent subject matter. ‘Yesterday’ is not just a breakup song. It is a song about the irreversibility of time.

Yesterday in McCartney’s Live Performances

‘Yesterday’ has been a fixture of Paul McCartney’s live setlist for decades – performed at virtually every concert he has given since The Beatles stopped touring in 1966. It is typically performed solo, with McCartney accompanying himself on acoustic guitar, recreating the intimacy of the original recording in arenas and stadiums holding tens of thousands of people.

The effect is always the same: the crowd goes quiet. In a McCartney concert that might include ‘Live and Let Die’ with pyrotechnics and ‘Hey Jude’ with 60,000 people singing along, ‘Yesterday’ is the moment of stillness. The moment that reminds everyone in the room why they came.

Read more about McCartney’s extraordinary live career in our Paul McCartney: Beatles Artist Hub.

Shop the Help! Era: 1965 Beatles Merch

‘Yesterday’ was released as part of the Help! album – one of the most important transitional records in The Beatles’ catalogue, marking the shift from their early Merseybeat sound toward the more sophisticated songwriting of Rubber Soul and beyond. Our Help! era merch celebrates this pivotal moment:

• Beatles ‘Yesterday / The Night Before’ Fridge Magnet – A licensed piece of 1965 Beatles history for your home.
• Beatles HELP! Album Cover T-Shirt (Red) – The iconic semaphore cover art on a premium red tee.
• Beatles HELP! Album Cover Steel Wall Sign – A striking piece of wall art for any Beatles fan’s home.

Frequently Asked Questions: Yesterday by The Beatles

Further Reading

• 7 Iconic Beatles Songs and Their Stories – The pillar hub for this series.
• Paul McCartney: Beatles Artist Hub – The complete guide to McCartney’s life and legacy.
• All You Need Is Love: The Song That Played to 400 Million People
• Where Was Hey Jude Recorded? The Trident Studios Session Explained
• Every Beatles Song Ever Recorded (1962–1970) – Complete Database

Explore more Beatles history at Beatles Deep Dives and shop officially licensed Beatles merch at Beatles Fabdom.