When Paul McCartney wrote “Yesterday,” it was a new day for the Beatles, and especially for his relationship with John Lennon.
The Topper of the 1965 table pointed out the beginning of a new creative chapter for him and Lennon, changing forever the dynamics in the duo.
“Paul writes this incredible song. He can’t really believe that” Ian Leslie, author of the new book “John & Paul: Love Story in Songs,” said The Post. “And he is the son of this fundamental point, because Paul realizes,” Wow, I have super powers. “
“Obviet, I had already written some incredible songs, but John had still been a child or creative dominant until around that point, and this is really the point where Paul’s talent really takes … Finally it is unde that Paul or song composition and verformal writing and review by formations and interpretation.
Suddenly, this sentimental ballad, a deviation from the previous work of the Beatles, had turned McCartney into Alpha Beatle.
In fact, “yesterday” even seemed to mark McCartney for solo stardom.
“It was a song that he played and recorded without the other Beatles,” Leslie said. “When they are on stage and do it, the others literally leave the stage, and he is there at the Center for Attention alone. So he was a son of a thing for the rest of the group, and for John in particular.”
And that was played directly in the insecurities and abandonment problems of Lennon.
“He was always worried that the people he was close was going to leave, he had it when he was a child,” Leslie said.
John’s mother, Julia, left him to live with her sister Mimi for much of her childhood before she died at age 44 when she was hit by a car in 1958. Meanwhile, her father Alfred was also absent for most of her youth.
“I think ‘yesterday’ really triggered his insecurity that Paul can and leave and beer a solo star,” Leslie said. “I don’t think Paul ever was that, but I think John worried about that.”
He made Lennon become more and more jealous and is bitter by McCartney’s “yesterday”.
“It became slightly obsessed with ‘Yesterday,” Leslie said. “Hey, it would be bad about it, say things like” Well, I’m slippery, I didn’t write that. “But then he would always be thinking:” Can I write something that is as powerful as “yesterday”? “
In fact, Lennon’s obsession with “Yesterday” continued equally after the breakdown of the Beatles in 1970.
“Then he writes” Imagine “, he plays it in a piano for his friend and goes,” So what do you think? “” Leslie said. “And his friend says:” Wow, that’s incredible, obviously. “And John says: ‘Yes, but is it as good as’ yesterday’?
The book of Leslie-Cuyo “John & Paul” draws his relationship through his songs of songs he dates back when a 15-year-old McCartney, with a 16-year-old Lennon on July 6, 1957, when Liderpool was the Atarkmen Woolton of Ligerment.
“Paul had joined John The Quarreymen’s group, but it was John’s group, and John was older,” Leslie explained. “And John was still dominant in the early [Beatles]. “
“And when the two made an early pact to share the song of song composition, no matter who wrote the melody, it was Lennon-McCartney, with the name of Lennon first.”
“They were teenagers when they made this decision, and then they had to make the son of making the decision again, more formally, when they were on the verge of fame,” said Leslie.
“They were so close, and they could effectively children or put aside their individual egos and say:” whether or not to start with Paul or start with John, a song by John, a song by Paul, is not so important. In the end, what we do is that we make the bet. “” And that was something remarkable. “
