Yesterday
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The Beatles
Want to Learn How to Play Guitar? Learn to Play Easy Guitar Songs –Acoustic Lessons Here!
Runtime: 35:02 Teacher: Jennifer
- A
- Am6
- A7
- B7
- C
- D7
- Em
- Em7
- F#m7
- G
Lesson Description
This guitar lesson has 10 chapters. The Performance shows you what Jennifer wants to have you learn in the lesson. The Overview gives you some useful historical tidbits about this fairly easy guitar song. Next comes the Intro where Jennifer shows you how to play the Strum Pattern that you’ll need for the rest of the song. In the next chapter, the Verse, we unlock the mystery of the scary-sounding (but easy) F#m7 chord, and make it accessible to barre-phobic players. In the next chapter, Putting It All Together, you get to take your time getting comfortable with what you’ve learned so far by playing it slowly over and over. Next comes a Bridge chapter with lots of fast chord changes, but they are easy chords to learn. Next we go to the Ending, where you wrap the song up with a tag. But there’s more. Next we take you into an exciting chapter called Bass Lines, where you add another dimension to your guitar playing with subtle moving bass notes that connect the chords. Finally we end the lesson with a very mellow Slow Practice where you get to play it as many times with Jennifer as you want.
Song Information
Yesterday
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| "Yesterday" | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
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| Single by The Beatles | |||||
| from the album Help! | |||||
| B-side | "Act Naturally" (U.S.-1965) "I Should Have Known Better" (UK-1976) |
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| Released | 13 September 1965 (U.S.) 4 March 1966 (UK - as part of an EP) 8 March 1976 (UK) |
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| Format | Vinyl record (7" & 12") | ||||
| Recorded | Abbey Road Studios 14 June 1965 |
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| Genre | Baroque pop | ||||
| Length | 2:03 | ||||
| Label | Capitol (USA) Parlophone/EMI (UK) |
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| Writer(s) | Lennon/McCartney | ||||
| Producer | George Martin | ||||
| The Beatles singles chronology | |||||
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"Yesterday" was written and performed by Paul McCartney. He composed the entire melody in a dream one night at the home of his then girlfriend, Jane Asher, and her family. When he awakened, he hurried to a piano and played the tune to keep from forgetting it. Concerned that he may have simply remembered another person's work, McCartney spent about a month asked others in the music business if they had heard it before. Once he was convinced it was his own, he began working on the lyrics. However, they didn't come easily, and his continual work on them became a joke as well as an irritation to the group and others. Two albums were released before the song was finished. The title became the last stumbling block, but one morning McCartney woke up and had the title and the song completed. At the urging of George Martin, The Beatles' producer, McCartney accompanied himself with his acoustic guitar, and a string quartet was added in later for backup.
The song was released as a single in the U.S. in 1965. It topped the charts for a full month and spent a total of 11 weeks on the American charts, selling a million copies within five weeks. It was the most-played song on American radio for eight consecutive years. In Britain, however, the other members of the band did not think the song fit with their image and refused to allow its release as a single in the U.K. They also did not see it as suitable for one of their albums. It was released there only as part of an EP until 11 years later. In the meantime Matt Monro, also of Britain, recorded it, and his version made it to the top ten in the UK charts soon after its release.
"Yesterday" has been recognized by the Guinness Book of Records as the most recorded song in the history of popular music, with over 1600 different cover versions by May of 2009 by an eclectic mix of artists. The song won the Ivor Novello Award for 'Outstanding Song of 1965' and came in second for 'Most Performed Work of the Year." In 1999, Broadcast Music Incorporated (BMI) placed "Yesterday" third on their list of songs of the 20th century most performed on American radio and television, with approximately seven million performances. It was also voted Best Song of the 20th Century in a 1999 BBC Radio poll, and ranked as #13 on Rolling Stone's 2004 list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
Other artists who covered "Yesterday" include:
- The Seekers
- Joan Baez
- Michael Bolton
- Bob Dylan
- Liberace
- Frank Sinatra
- Elvis Presley
- Ray Charles
- Marvin Gaye
- Daffy Duck
- Jan & Dean
- Wet Wet Wet
- Plácido Domingo
- The Head Shop
- Billy Dean
- En Vogue
- Boyz II Men
- David Essex.
| Preceded by "Hang On Sloopy" by The McCoys |
Billboard Hot 100 number one single 9 October 1965 (four weeks) |
Succeeded by "Get Off of My Cloud" by The Rolling Stones |
