All language subtitles for McCartney.3.2.1.S01E06.720p.HULU.WEBRip.x264-GalaxyTV

We'd like to carry on now
with a song featuring just Paul,

and it's called Yesterday.

I dreamed this.

I was in a little top floor flat
at my girlfriend's house.

I, I woke up with this tune.

I thought, "I love this tune.

"This must be from my dad's era

or just like some old tune."

So I just started‐‐

So I had that, but I couldn't carry
the piano with me.

So, you know, I, I transposed it
onto a guitar.

Said to people‐‐ first of all, John.

‐ Yeah.
‐ Said, "What's this?"

You know?
He said, "I don't know."

I said, "No, this tune,
it must be something.

We‐we've heard it."
He said, "I don't know."

So I took it to George Martin,
our producer,

and George has got
a wider knowledge

of particularly older songs.

So I said, "What's this?"
He said, "I don't know."

I said, "Well, I've called it Yesterday."

He said, "Well, there is
a song called Yesterdays."

I said, "I'm not worried about the title.

It's this melody, you know,
because I, I can't have written it..."

‐ Yeah.

‐ 'Cause I didn't‐‐ there was
no conscious effort involved.

‐ Yeah.
‐ I just woke up and it was there.

So, you know, people later would say
to me, you know,

"Do you believe in magic?"

I said, "Well, I have to."

You know? I mean,
how did that happen?

‐ Yeah.
‐ I'm sleeping.

Going "..."

I love this song. I love it.

Wake up. Now the difference is,
I remembered it.

‐ Yes.

‐ I think a lot of people hear
beautiful music in their dreams.

‐ Yes.
‐ But don't necessarily remember it.

‐ I wonder if you didn't have
a piano there,

if you would have been able
to remember it.

‐ Yeah.

‐ You know, waking up,
and luckily, there was a piano.

‐ Yeah, it's true.
It was very lucky, yeah.

‐ But in those days, you had
to remember a lot of things...
‐ You have to! Yeah.

‐ ...because you didn't‐‐ we weren't able
to record things so easily.

‐ You weren't able to record things.
‐ At all.

‐ There was, like, no phones
to do it, obviously.
‐ Yeah.

‐ The only things were these big
Grundig tape recorders

with a green eye on them.

‐ Which you wouldn't always have
in your pocket.

‐ You wouldn't even have in your home.
‐ Really?

‐ Because, yeah, you've got to have
a bit of money to have them.

I'd recorded it just
with the guitar and vocal.

And I'd said to the guys
in the band, I said,

"What are you going
to do," you know?

And they all said,
"No, I don't think we need to do anything.

You should just do it on your own."

So it's like the first time, I think,

I'd ever done like a solo thing.

So I just played on guitar.

And George Martin said,
"For safety, let's just do one more,"

and this was the second take
that they used.

And then we're sitting around
listening to it.

‐ And I'm thinking...

‐ "Yeah." You know, "sounds nice."

Yeah.

‐ And George said, he's got
this idea to put strings on it.

He said, "I think it'd be great
with a string quartet."

I'm going, "No." I mean...

‐ And you guys had never used
strings before this.

‐ No. And plus
we're a rock‐and‐roll band.

You don't use strings.

So George being very smart,
he said, "Well, let's try it."

‐ Yeah.

‐ "And if you hate it,
we can take it off."

So he did try it.

Yeah, so I loved it.
I loved the session.

Right away, like right away.

When you first heard it,
was it jarring or good experience?

‐ No, it was great, you know,
'cause it's just me

with George up in the control room.
‐ Yeah.

‐ And we go down and we sit
and meet the string players,

just a little quartet.

‐ And I was really excited.
Yeah.

Because we'd never done
anything like this,

and it suddenly made it feel whole.

- George Martin was a huge help in that...
- Yeah.

‐ ...in as much as he could write it,

you know, normally you,
you've got a song

and you have to get
an outside arranger in.

‐ Yeah.

‐ And then he sort of goes off
into a cupboard somewhere,

and you don't quite know
what it's going to be.

But with George, you knew that
we read each other well enough.

The funny thing was
when we were shown notation,

it didn't mean anything to us,

still doesn't really mean anything to me.

Even though I work
with a classical orchestra

and do a huge orchestral piece,

I will have to talk it through
with them rather than say,

"Um, the B flat in bar 14,

that should be a B, not a B flat."

You know? After going,
"No, that note there should be‐‐"

‐ You know, I know‐‐
‐ Lower or higher.

Yeah. Lower or higher.

But, um, that's how we did it.

And my excuse, there is an excuse,

because coming from Liverpool,

there's a lot of sort of
Irish Celtic influence.

And the Celts never
wrote anything down.

It's the bardic tradition.
‐ Yeah.

‐ So that's our excuse.
‐ Yeah.

‐ Me and John used to say,
"Yeah, it was the bardic tradition."

‐ When you were kids
starting to write songs,

what would you hear
on the radio typically?

‐ In the early days,
there wasn't much on radio.

There was just one
or two cool DJs,

but we were listening to records

and it'd be a lot of R&B,

things like Ray Charles,

and Little Richard,

Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis,
Isley Brothers,

we'd cover all those.

I thought I was
Ray Charles, in my head.

Were records easy to come by?

Was it a popular thing at the time?

‐ Yeah. I mean, you could go
to a record shop

and you'd go in the booths
and you'd listen.

The main thing was finance.

You didn't have that much money.

So you'd have to save up
to buy an LP

or concert tickets.

We all started, all the bands,
started off doing covers

when we were in Hamburg
and in The Cavern in Liverpool,

it was pretty much all covers.

So I would do Long Tall Sally
by Little Richard.

But so did one of the other groups.

There was a group called
Derry and the Seniors.

And, and Derry, he could do‐‐

He could do that,
you know, and so it was like,

"Well, I want to do it better."
‐ Yeah.

‐ Because if you were backstage

and you were going to be on after them...
‐ Yeah.

You'd go, "" you know,

"Well, I was going to do that."
‐ Yeah.

‐ And you actually
didn't have time to change,

so you would do that.

You'd go on and just hope
your version was better.

I remember we used to do
a three‐four thing,

The original version was by James Ray.

‐ It was a real cool little thing,

and I said, we'd never heard
this beat.

Like a waltz,
a rock‐and‐roll waltz,

so we did this.

And I remember a couple
of the London bands coming up,

"Play If You Gotta Make
a Fool of Somebody."

Because it was‐‐
they'd not heard anything like this.

‐ Yeah. Where would you
have heard it?

‐ On record. George had the album,
James Ray album.

And he took‐‐ he later,
much later, he got,

‐ That was a James Ray, off that album.
‐ Wow! Wow!

‐ So George remembered that.

But we'd have these little
oddball songs that we'd put in

because we were playing so many hours.
‐ Yeah.

‐ We didn't want to get bored.
‐ Yeah.

Just keep it interesting.
‐ We just‐‐ we could not have handled it

if we'd‐‐ every set we played
the same lot of songs.

So we started to think,
"Well, you know what?

If we wrote stuff, they wouldn't know it."

Nobody would be able to access it.
It'd be private to us.

So that's actually what started‐‐
‐ Yeah.

‐ It wasn't a great light bulb went off.

It was sheer necessity

to have something
the other bands couldn't play.

- Quite, quite brisk.
- Moderate Alto Fox Trot.

The red light's on.

Is it? Of course,
I couldn't see.

One, two, three, four!

‐ Wow.

Wow.

‐ The two of them are cooking!

Like‐‐ ‐ Yeah.

‐ Cooking.

‐ And we're listening
with the drums out,

and it's still full‐on cooking.
‐ Yeah.

It's good, innit? Yeah.

‐ Wow.
‐ Well, that's the thing.

You can hear the excitement
of us just making stuff up.

‐ For sure. For sure.
‐ Can't you?

It's just like, "Yeah.
Let's do that." "Okay."

‐ You know?
‐ It, it sounds thrilling.

Like, and I think what it is,

is you guys were excited making it.

‐ And we get to feel your excitement.
‐ Yeah.

‐ You can‐‐ It's a human feeling
that's in that performance.

‐ Yeah.

‐ Clearly, these guys are going for it.
‐ Yeah.

Really. Yeah.
‐ And you feel it.

‐ Because it all had
to be done so quickly.

‐ Yeah, it's contagious, you know.
Like, the energy is contagious.

‐ Yeah, yeah, yeah.

‐ It has‐‐ To me,
it has a Celtic flavor.

I don't know why that is.

‐ Well, you know, I mean,
we're Liverpool boys,

and they say Liverpool is
the capital of Ireland.

So it's likely that
there's all those influences, you know.

But we would just make up
the solo, in this case,

and just learn the harmony and the solo
and then play the two live.

‐ So‐‐ But technically, this isn't
what you think of as the song.

This was a musical choice
you made in the studio.

‐ Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
‐ The song would have been more‐‐

‐ Yeah. Really straightforward.

‐ Yeah. This is more traditional
until we get to‐‐

‐ Yeah! The solo, yeah.
‐ Yeah.

‐ Yeah.
‐ It's amazing.

Good group.

‐ Was there ever a time
where you guys would sing unison

as opposed to harmony?

‐ Yeah. Always on the early records.

That was the thing because
we'd written the song together.

‐ Yeah.

‐ And we'd sing it together.

Just, just kind of remember it
and just sing it.

And George Martin would say,
"Who's the lead singer?"

We'd say, "Well, me and John."
‐ Yeah.

‐ So it was like
early double tracking.

‐ Yeah, yeah.

‐ And also, it might just have been

that both of us wanted to do the vocal.

‐ Yeah.

‐ So there's only one answer
to that, both do it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Would you sit down
to write a song

or... does it just happen?

‐ With John and I, we'd sit down.
‐ Yeah.

And you would know,
"I'm coming over tomorrow at noon.

We're going to meet
at this time and let's write."

‐ Yeah, yeah.
And we'll just write something.

‐ I wrote this song while waiting
for John to get up.

I used to go out
to his house to write.

He wasn't always ready,
shall we say.

So I'm just sitting out
with my guitar

and started working on this one.

And then when John had come,

I said, "Look, I've got this."
"Great, let's finish it up."

And so we'd finish it up together.

This was a tune I was always
very pleased with, you know.

People say, "Which is
your favorite tune of yours?"

‐ Yeah.

‐ And I'm kind of tempted to say Yesterday
because it arrived so magically.

But I like this one.
I like Here, There, and Everywhere.

And in fact,
John liked this one.

And John was not one to praise.

‐ Yeah.

‐ Because, you know, we've talked
about him being a little bit shielded.

‐ Yeah.

‐ You know, he just wouldn't praise
anything unless he really liked it.

After we'd made this record,

we were going to film
in Austria for the film Help.

Yes.

And me and John shared a ski chalet,

so we were taking our boots off and stuff
as we were playing the album.

I remember him saying,
"I like this one."

And you know what?
That was, like, enough.

‐ Yeah.

‐ That was a great praise
coming from John.

‐ It's pushing the bass notes too.

‐ Yeah.
‐ And the guitar.

Cool.

‐ Incredible harmony.

‐ Incredible.

Did you take turns,
like John would do a song

and then you would do a song
and back and forth,

- that's how it would work?
- Yeah. Often. Yeah.

It would be his song,
my song, his song, my song.

Yeah.

‐ I mean, I say this a lot,
but as a Beatles' fan now,

it is astounding to me

that, I think, all in all,

I think John and I wrote
just short of 300 songs,

and every session, we finished the song.

You'd think that there'd be at least ten

where we just couldn't get it.

But there was something
about the work ethic

or just the‐‐ knowing each other so well,

that we would spur each other on

and we just didn't like to leave it.

"We haven't done it.
We haven't finished it."

So we would, we would go
till we, till we finished stuff,

um... and we did.

We pretty much did.

‐ It's amazing.

‐ It was, it was great.
You know, I say, I look back,

at the time I was just working
with this bloke called John.

‐ Yeah.

‐ Now I look back, and I was working
with John Lennon.

I knew this was like a, a big song

from the minute John brought it in

and we started working on it.

Yeah.

So I mean, that was like,
I'd been, by that time,

this is, this is quite late
in The Beatles.

And I'd been listening to, like,
a lot of avant garde music.

‐ Yeah.
‐ I was in London.

I was hanging out,

and, you know,
we're getting quite artsy

and going to a lot of arts exhibitions.

And I was, you know,
reading about crazy composers,

like John Cage.
‐ Yeah.

‐ The concepts were like,
wow, very freeing.

‐ John Cage and Water Walk.

I don't want to do that,

but I love the idea that he did it.

I said to George Martin,

"George, we need
a symphony orchestra."

And George originally said,
"I don't think‐‐ We don't need that many."

He said, "It's a full symphony, which is
like over 40 people or something."

I said, "Yeah, this song,
we, we, we want it."

So then the original thing
that I put down was,

from a certain point,

all the musicians
were allowed to break free.

And now these are session musicians.

They're not used to doing
this kind of stuff,

and it kind of frightens them a bit.

So I sort of said,
"Okay, here's the instruction.

I said, "Each instrument,

"you start on your lowest note

"and you're going
to reach your highest note,

"but you go at your own speed.

"So if you want, you can go,

‐ and you're done."
‐ Yeah.

"Or you can go...

and you can just play with it."

The strings wouldn't really move
without each other.

They all went...

‐ They're following the first guy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

‐ Whereas the brass, the trumpets,
you'll notice they're a bit more free.

They're a bit more, the lads‐‐

‐ Yeah. They tend to have
that personality in real life.

Their personality showed.

Let's listen to the‐‐
‐ It's very exciting doing that piece of‐‐

‐ Beautiful.

So this, John brought it in.

- Yeah.
- Guitar and vocals.

‐ The Kenwood basses together support it.
‐ Yeah.

‐ He's working hard.

‐ Moving again.

‐ Yeah.

‐ It's, it's just so interesting
that the‐‐

Listening to the vocal and the guitar,

it's a very laid‐back, dreamy energy.

Yeah.

‐ And then the bass comes in
and it's‐‐

‐ And the drums. Yeah.
‐ And the drums.

‐ But it's driving in
an entirely different direction

than the song might suggest.

‐ Yeah.

You know, it's great
that I felt that freedom.

‐ Absolutely. Absolutely.

‐ You know, the band was a very free band.
‐ Yeah.

‐ We would allow each other
pretty much anything.

‐ Yeah.

Unless it was, like, really stunk
and it was, like, "No, forget it."

Um, then we'd all gang up
on whoever that was and stop it.

‐ Yeah.

‐ And this is
my childhood experiences.

You know, going to school.

‐ I used to go to school
on the bus, you know.

‐ Maybe I didn't have a smoke
on the way to school.

‐ Yeah.

‐ But‐‐ ‐ Yeah.

‐ For the purposes
of the song, yeah, exactly, yeah.

‐ Poetic license.
‐ Yep.

‐ Was that‐‐ Did you write this piece
to go with what John brought in,

or did you already have this?

‐ No. I already had
the little middle thing. Yeah.

‐ Is this the first time you guys put
two songs together?

‐ Could be.

‐ It makes it new music.

If you just started with what
would ordinarily accompany

that kind of song, ‐ Yeah.

‐ it would be a ballady,
a folky ballad.

Yeah.

‐ You know?
But to hear it come

in this other direction,
unexpected...

‐ Yeah.

‐ it feels like we've never heard music
like this before by anybody,

you know, that's the thing about it.

It's like it takes
a traditionally written song

and turns it into, essentially,
avant garde music,

even using traditional instruments.

‐ Yeah. Normally, you know,
it sort of worked like that.

You could get away
with a lot of free playing.

Piano. Who's playing piano,
do you know?

That's got to be me.

‐ It does sound avant garde as well.

‐ Ha!
‐ Wow.

And then this piano end, this‐‐

I'd realized, I'd noticed
that with the piano,

how long,

if you hold down a loud pedal
on the piano,

how long the chord lasts.

And I just do it like
a party piece with friends.

‐ Yeah.
‐ I say, "Listen to this."

I brought the idea in,
"Hey, man, it goes on forever.

We should do this at the end of a song,
where it's just‐‐ have it go on."

And of course, George Martin,
being a clever producer,

magnified the idea.

And he took the raw thing
that I'd showed him.

George then added
another chord on top of it.
‐ Yeah.

‐ But it goes on forever.

‐ A really long time, and if you listen,

it almost sounds like it changes.

‐ Yeah, you start to hear
a little harmonica and things.

Yeah. You know,
there's the magic again.