Yesterday: How Paul McCartney turned scrambled Eggs into a classic

Rockapedia

The Beatles originally recorded Yesterday for their 1965 album Help!, and somehow the quiet little ballad went on to become one of the most covered songs in music history - with more than 2,200 recorded versions worldwide. Not bad for a song that started life with the words Scrambled eggs....

Like a lot of legendary songwriting stories, this one begins with a dream.

A Tune From Nowhere

In May 1965, while filming Help!, Paul McCartney woke up in the attic room he was staying in at Wimpole Street with a melody already playing in his head. Half-asleep but intrigued, he shuffled over to the upright piano beside his bed and started figuring out the chords.

I woke up with a lovely tune in my head. I thought, ‘That’s great, I wonder what it is?’ There was an upright piano next to me...I got out of bed, sat at the piano, found G, found F-sharp minor 7th — and that leads you through then to B and E minor, and finally back to E. It all leads forward logically. McCartney

McCartney immediately loved the melody. But there was just one problem: it felt too good.

So good, in fact, that he worried he might have subconsciously lifted it from somewhere else.

I liked the melody a lot but because I’d never written like this before, I wondered where it came from. And you don’t ask yourself too much or it might go away.

The Is This Already a Song? Phase

Before claiming the tune as his own, McCartney did the responsible songwriter thing — he checked with everyone he knew. He played it for friends, musicians, anyone who might recognise it. Everyone told him the same thing: they’d never heard it before. Still cautious, McCartney took his time before officially calling it his.

Like a prospector I finally staked my claim: stuck a little sign on it and said...OK, it’s mine!

But there was another issue: it had no lyrics yet.

So McCartney did what songwriters everywhere do when they need placeholder words - he made some up. And that’s how the song became known, at least temporarily, as Scrambled Eggs.

The early lyric draft went something like:

Scrambled eggs, oh my baby how I love your legs...

At that point, he admitted, people usually just laughed - which meant he didn’t have to keep going.

Even the Beatles Could Accidentally Copy Songs

McCartney was always careful about not accidentally recreating someone else’s melody - something that happens more often than you’d think. He even recalled a story involving Ringo Starr.

Ringo’s got a funny story of the most brilliant song he ever wrote. He spent three hours writing a very famous Bob Dylan song. We all fell about laughing.

You say - This is so great! - and someone says...Yeah — it’s number one at the moment.

The Song That Wouldn’t Go Away

Throughout the filming of Help!, McCartney kept returning to the melody. There was usually a piano nearby on set, and he’d sit down whenever he had a spare moment, tweaking the structure and slowly shaping the song.

He worked out the middle eight, refined the chord progressions, and kept polishing the melody. Over and over. And over. Eventually Richard Lester, the film’s director, had heard enough. Legend has it he finally snapped:

If I hear that once more, I’ll have the bloody piano taken away.

Then he asked the obvious question. What’s it called, anyway? McCartney’s answer?...Scrambled Eggs.

Not quite the title that would end up echoing through music history - but it was a pretty good start.