Paul McCartney Reveals the Hit Beatles Song ‘That Kind of Wrote Itself’
Paul McCartney is an expert singer and songwriter. Many of his songs, either solo or with The Beatles, have become iconic hits that are fondly remembered decades later. However, Paul McCartney admits one of his biggest hits with The Beatles “kind of wrote itself.”
Paul McCartney wrote one Beatles song to be a ballad about a breakup
“Yesterday” first debuted in 1965 as a part of the album Help!. While the song is credited to The Beatles, Paul McCartney is the only artist featured on the track. McCartney sings alone and plays a melancholy tune on his guitar.
“Yesterday” is about the end of a relationship, but many fans believe the song is about McCartney losing his mother, who died eight years prior. In an interview with BBC, the former Beatle says the song wasn’t meant to be about his mother, but it’s possible his grief could have spilled into the song.
“It’s been suggested to me that it’s a losing my mother song, to which I’ve always said, ‘No, I don’t believe so.’” McCartney said. “But, you know, the more I think about it, I can see that might’ve been part of the background. The unconsciousness behind the song after all. It was so strange, the loss of our mother to cancer was simply not discussed. We barely knew what cancer was, but I’m not so surprised that the whole experienced surfaced in this son. Where sweetness competes with a pain you can’t quite describe.”
Paul McCartney says ‘Yesterday’ wrote itself
In an interview with Wired, McCartney talked about when he wrote “Yesterday.” The British artist said he wrote sometime during the 1960s and was fortunate to find the melody while sleeping. He woke up and knew he needed to start writing immediately.
“The great thing about ‘Yesterday’ was it kind of wrote itself,” McCartney admitted. “People say to me, ‘Do you believe in mysticism or magic?’ With that story, I kind of have to because I just woke up one morning and I went, ‘What’s that? I like that tune.’ After a couple of weeks of asking various people like John, the guys in the band, George Martin. Everyone said ‘Well, we don’t know. Must be yours.’ And it was very special because you know, I just dreamed it. What a gift.”
While he did dream the melody, McCartney still needed to come up with the lyrics. So, he put in some nonsense filler words to keep the tune registered in his melody. He must have had a craving for breakfast at the time.
“I fell out of bed and the piano was right there just to the side,” McCartney told BBC. “I just had this tune. And now I had some chords. And to solidify it in my memory, I blocked it out with some dummy words. ‘Scrambled eggs. Oh my baby, how I love your legs. Scrambled eggs.’ Using dummy lyrics wasn’t something I did a lot.”
‘Yesterday’ is one of The Beatles’ biggest hits
While McCartney is the only Beatle heard on “Yesterday,” the song became one of the band’s biggest hits. In the US, the song peaked at number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 and remained on the chart for 11 weeks. In the UK, the song peaked at number eight on the Official Charts and remained on the charts for nine weeks.
