Yesterday was once Scrambled Eggs

From Scrambled Eggs to Yesterday

Did you know The Beatles originally called their hit song ‘Scrambled Eggs’?

The song, Yesterday, was originally composed by Paul McCartney. He was living with the parents of his then girlfriend, Jane Asher. He’s stated that he lived in a small attic room in the family’s house. He’d saved enough money to buy a piano that was beside his bed. The melody came to him in a dream and immediately upon waking he went to the piano and began to play the tune, so he would not forget.

From Scrambled Eggs to Yesterday
From Scrambled Eggs to Yesterday

McCartney thought he must have heard the tune elsewhere and played it for a number of people. When no one claimed the tune, he realized the melody must be his own creation. McCartney and John Lennon began working on the lyrics about a month after McCartney wrote the melody. They were slow in coming at first. The duo began to refer to the song as ‘Scrambled Eggs’. Paul McCartney said of the song: “It had no words. I used to call it ‘Scrambled Eggs.’ The lyrics used to go, ‘Scrambled eggs, oh, my baby, how I love your legs…’”

McCartney and his girlfriend, Jane Asher, holidayed in Albufeira, Algarve at the end of May 1965. He borrowed an acoustic guitar and completed the lyrics while on vacation. Apparently the group members of the Beatles had a lot of fun playing around with possible lyrics during their writing sessions. Lennon later recalled “We called it ‘Scrambled Eggs’ and it became a joke between us.”

The group went into the studio and recorded the song on June 14, 1965. The first official recording had Paul McCartney accompanied by a string quartet. McCartney often performs the song with an acoustic guitar to a recording of the strings.

The song was released on the Beatles album “Help!” on August 6, 1965. This version was so different than their other works that the band decided not to release the single in the United Kingdom. The song immediately hit the charts when released in the United States. Three months later the song was released and hit the charts in the UK.

Yesterday won the group many adult fans and they became more than just a group for young people.

The song caused a rift between McCartney and Yoko Ono when he asked to change the credits to McCartney/Lennon and she refused to reverse the credits.

Yesterday became a huge hit, with over sixteen hundred cover versions. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, there are over three thousand recorded versions, making it one of the most recorded songs of all time. In 1997 the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

BBC Radio 2 voted Yesterday the best song in 20th Century. MTV and Rolling Stone voted the song the #1 Pop Song of all time.