Posted: Fri Sep 02, 2005 2:49 pm
McCartney has said that since he was roughly 23 at the time he wrote "Yesterday," it was pretty presumptive -- a young man lamenting his "lost youth" in a way. Still a great tune.
He was just scrambling some (green) eggs at the time.
To me, part of his unique flavor as a personality was his imbalance. Very mature in his focus on business management, but little business acumen, leading to his notorious skinflintiness; childish in his constant need for adulation; a late-teenager of the '70s in his musical fixations, and probably pretty darned jaded in his romances by 23. This is why "Yesterday" seems disingenuous to me, lyrically.
Underneath that doubled string quartet a tempest rages, but he will not admit it to himself and is terrified that the rest of us will find out.
IMO, of course.