Posted on 03/23/2022 10:08:02 AM PDT by nickcarraway
Did The Beatles rip off Nat King Cole for ‘Yesterday’?
The origin story of ‘Yesterday’ is one of the most well-known in music. McCartney woke up with the melody after a dream and ad-libbed the words “scrambled eggs” so that he that it wouldn’t slip his mind. It would seem he was simply fortunate that his breakfast fit the rhyming meter.
Owing to the fact it arrived as effortlessly as the posted next day delivery of a drunken order, he was convinced that it came so naturally it must have been lifted from one of his dad’s old jazz records. When he poured over the melody further and no similarities could be found the group ploughed on with the track.
Since that story emerged many musicologists have trawled the archives to see if a jazz origin actually exists. British music buff Spencer Leigh believes that the melody may have seeded itself in McCartney’s musical cranium via Nat King Cole’s 1953 version of ‘Answer Me, My Love’. When the orchestral flourishes of Nat King Cole are cast to one side, the contours of the track prove very similar, but Leigh’s argument gains particular traction with the lyric, “Yesterday, I believed that love was here to stay, won’t you tell me where I’ve gone astray.”
However, despite this McCartney’s spokesman once told the BBC: “To me, the two songs are about as similar as ‘Get Back’ and ‘God Save the Queen’.” Indeed, while on the one hand, certain similarities are striking, rhyming emphasis on ‘ay’ is one of the most common in music and the hanging notes that Nat King Cole utilises are also frequently occurring in many other Beatles ballads.
Ultimately, if it wasn’t for McCartney revealing the origin it would probably have gone unnoticed as the tracks are very different in truth, and the main conclusion is that the unconscious mind is one hell of a strange place. In truth, there are similarities, but it is nowhere near close enough to be considered plagiarism.
As Nick Cave once declared: “The great beauty of contemporary music, and what gives it its edge and vitality, is its devil-may-care attitude toward appropriation — everybody is grabbing stuff from everybody else, all the time. It’s a feeding frenzy of borrowed ideas that goes toward the advancement of rock music — the great artistic experiment of our era.” The Beatles were masters and pioneers of this.
Furthermore, the fact that their ‘Yesterday’ has now been covered by well over 2000 artists and had already amassed over six million radio plays almost two decades ago is testimony to this feeding frenzy. In short, it’s a song that proves almost impossible to imagine a world without.
In fact, it’s so impossible to imagine the world without that McCartney dreaming it into existence brings to mind the following Hoagy Carmichael quote: “And then it happened, that queer sensation that this melody was bigger than me. Maybe I hadn’t written it all. The recollection of how, when and where it all happened became vague as the lingering strains hung in the rafters in the studio. I wanted to shout back at it, ‘maybe I didn’t write you, but I found you’.”
No. Not that similar.
John Lennon was a fan of Elvis, and of Buddy Holley.
At one point, Yesterday was the most covered song (by other artists) in history.
Another interesting point, McCartney didn’t use the band to record it. Just himself and an orchestra. Though he did release it under the Beatles name. After Lennon died, he went ahead and had the records changed to show he was the sole writer of the song.
John Lennon didn’t write this song.
It would have worked just as well if he he Frosted Flakes for breakfast.
How could he do that? By legal agreement, all songs either one of them wrote were credited to both until they dissolved the agreement after the Beatles broke up. I looked it up, and it's still credited to both, even though everyone knows one wrote it.
Not even close.
I love Nat King Cole. I mean, He’s So Fine. As to the McCartney thing, My Sweet Lord, people shouldn’t be so quick to see similarities that aren’t really there. Also: George Harrison was unavailable for comment.
There are not that close as far as melodies go.
However the claim is due to one section where McCartney’s lyrics are very similar to the Nat King Cole song.
The claim is pretty weak.
McCartney
“Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away
Now it looks as though they’re here to stay
Oh, I believe in yesterday.”
Nat King Cole
“… You were mine yesterday
I believed that love was here to stay
Won’t you tell me where I’ve gone astray
Please answer me, my love”
Modern rap was a rip off of bits of other recorded songs sampled and mixed into a rhythmic composition.
There have been so many songs written and recorded in the past, it would be extremely difficult to find a new song that doesn’t have an element of some other song found somewhere else, no matter how obscure.
“It would have worked just as well if he he Frosted Flakes for breakfast.”
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Good thing Paul didn’t prefer Carnation Instant Breakfast or Bangers & Mash in the morning.
I remember the words to Yesterday, Nat’s is a blank. Did Paul die and get replaced ? Some things are best left alone as we have enough problems.
All I know is I read an article on the subject of his changing the authorship many moons ago. He probably had documented proof and it wasn’t contested by Lennon’s lawyers.
George Harrison was successfully sued for allegedly plagiarizing the music of the Chiffons’ “He’s so fine”, in his song, “My Sweet Lord”.
If you listen to both melodies, they’re similar.
The judge who made the ruling called it “”subconscious” theft.
I think I have a pretty good ear for these things, and, no, McCartney’s ‘Yesterday’ is not a ripoff of the Nat King Cole song. These are not close.
This is not a “My Sweet Lord” / “He’s so Fine” situation.
This not a “Surfin USA “ / “Sweet Little Sixteen” thing.
It’s not even a Nino Rota “Godfather” ripping off “Fortunella” by.... Nino Rota.
...and of Chuck Berry. Such a fan, that Yoko was jealous and ruined a song they we’re singing together with her caterwauling.
Or a “Hotel California”/ Jethro Tull “We Used to Know” thing.
Did The Beatles rip off Nat King Cole for ‘Yesterday’?
No
Also interesting that both melodies start with a triplet: “An-swer-me” and “Yes-ter-day”. Similar but not enough to be a ripoff IMO.
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