The Beatles’ “Yesterday” Was a “Problem” for the Band at First, but Here’s How George Martin Fixed It

Writing a melody as timeless and moving as The Beatles’ “Yesterday” isn’t something most of us would consider a “problem.” But in the mid-1960s, that’s precisely what that song was for the Fab Four.

Although the song is credited to the Lennon-McCartney partnership and billed as The Beatles (as was “the creed of the day,” per producer George Martin in Anthology), “Yesterday” was solely a Paul McCartney composition. The melody came to him in a dream, he came up with the lyrics, and he’s the only Beatle performing on the album version.

Therein was the problem: The Beatles were a rock band. And “Yesterday” didn’t have rock ‘n’ roll or a band to speak of. Speaking to PBS, Martin recalled the song “presented a problem for me, and I think for The Beatles, too, in that it didn’t fit the pattern. It wasn’t a song you could do with two guitars, bass guitar, and drums. It was something much more delicate.”

So, Martin set out to do the most important producer job of all: getting the roadblock out of the way.

George Martin Helped Define “Yesterday,” and Paul Made Sure Some Rock Remained

Both the band and producer George Martin recounted reaching a consensus that “Yesterday” ought to be performed solely by Paul McCartney. There was nothing that George Harrison, John Lennon, and Ringo Starr could think to contribute, and they preferred to sit out instead of muddying the song’s potential. It was Martin who suggested they bring in strings, though McCartney had his hesitations.

“Paul said, ‘I don’t want Mantovani,’” Martin said (via Anthology). “I said, ‘What about a very small number of string players, a quartet?’ He thought that was interesting, and I went and worked on it with him and made suggestions for the score. He had ideas, too, and we booked a string quartet and overdubbed the strings. And that was the record.”

As McCartney would add, some of those “ideas” Martin spoke of were direct contradictions to what the producer said. He would demonstrate “proper” harmony to McCartney, who would immediately do the opposite. “I remember suggesting the 7th that appears on the cello,” McCartey said. “George said, ‘You definitely wouldn’t have that in there. That would be very un-string-quartet.’ I said, ‘Well? Whack it in, George, I’ve got ot have it.’”

When the rest of the band heard the final playback of “Yesterday”, John Lennon applauded that same 7th in the cello that McCartney fought to keep in. And in that way, the spirit of The Beatles remained present in “Yesterday”, even though they weren’t physically there.

Photo by Don Paulsen/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images