Paul McCartney Came Up With the Melody to “Yesterday” in His Sleep
Some of the greatest songs in history come from moments of deep inspiration — and in the case of Paul McCartney’s timeless ballad “Yesterday”, that inspiration came quite literally in a dream. The story behind the song is as legendary as the tune itself: McCartney awoke one morning in 1964 with a hauntingly beautiful melody fully formed in his mind. Unsure whether he had written it or subconsciously borrowed it, he spent weeks trying to determine its origin. What followed became one of the most fascinating stories in popular music and the birth of a song that would touch generations.
At the time, McCartney was living in the attic bedroom of his then-girlfriend Jane Asher’s family home in London. One morning, he awoke with a melody playing clearly in his head. He immediately rushed to the piano to capture the tune before it vanished. To help remember it, he added placeholder lyrics — the now-famous “Scrambled eggs, oh my baby how I love your legs” — a nonsensical phrase that matched the tune but carried none of the eventual song’s melancholy weight.
What struck McCartney was how complete and polished the melody sounded. It was simple yet deeply emotive — the kind of tune that felt like it had always existed. “I thought for sure I must have heard it somewhere,” he later said. “It came too easily. I thought it was a jazz tune or something someone else had written.” For weeks, McCartney played the melody for friends and fellow musicians, asking if they recognized it. No one did. Finally, convinced it was original, he set out to write proper lyrics to match the music’s wistful tone.
Eventually, “Yesterday” emerged as a bittersweet ballad about love lost and the pain of memory. With lines like “Why she had to go, I don’t know, she wouldn’t say,” McCartney captured universal emotions with a simplicity and vulnerability that stood in contrast to much of the Beatles’ early rock-oriented catalog. In fact, the song was so different from their usual sound that it became the first Beatles track to feature a solo performance: McCartney on vocals and acoustic guitar, backed only by a string quartet. No other band member played on the track.
Released in 1965 as part of the Help! album in the UK (and later as a single in the US), “Yesterday” became an instant classic. It has since been covered by more than 2,000 artists, from Ray Charles to Frank Sinatra, making it one of the most recorded songs in music history. Rolling Stone magazine has consistently ranked it among the greatest songs of all time, and it has earned a permanent place in the cultural canon.
McCartney has often reflected on the dreamlike nature of the song’s creation. In interviews, he’s said that the experience felt almost mystical, as if the song had been “given” to him rather than consciously composed. For many songwriters, “Yesterday” is the ultimate example of how inspiration can strike from the subconscious — a reminder that creativity often defies explanation.
Today, over half a century since its debut, “Yesterday” continues to resonate with listeners around the world. Its melody, born in a dream, and its lyrics, shaped by reflection and heartache, remain as poignant as ever. For Paul McCartney, the song was a gift — one that arrived while he slept — and for the world, it became a masterpiece born of mystery, memor
y, and music.
