When it comes to classic songs, The Beatles’ discography is arguably packed with more zingers than any other act’s. The Fab Four currently sit in second place when it comes to most number one singles (18) in their home country, just behind the very worthy first-place holder, Elvis Presley, who has 21 top hits to his name. In America, The Beatles do take top spot, with an astonishing 20 No. 1 singles on the Billboard Hot 100, just in front of Mariah Carey, with 19. Many people might not know that one of those hit Beatles singles, “Yesterday,” possesses a strange and unique history.
How Paul McCartney Came Up With “Yesterday”

Yesterday was written by Paul McCartney between 1964 and 1965, and the melody first came to him in a dream. As the story goes, McCartney had been staying at the home of his then-girlfriend, Jane Asher, in Wimpole Street, London. When he woke up one morning, the now-famous tune was running round in his head.

Initially, the singer-songwriter was convinced that it must be an already existing song. As he later recalled: “For about a month I went round to people in the music business and asked them whether they had ever heard it before. Eventually it became like handing something into the police. I thought if no one claimed it after a few weeks then I could have it."

Source: mentalfloss.com/Chris Wheatley

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Sixty-two years ago today, one of rock's most instantly recognizable songs was sitting on top of the charts, and it owed its name to an accident.

On July 23, 1964, the Beatles' "A Hard Day's Night" was No. 1 on the UK singles chart, the band's fifth chart-topper there. Within weeks it also topped the US Billboard Hot 100, making it a worldwide smash.

The title came from Ringo Starr. After a marathon day of work that stretched into the early hours, the drummer meant to say it had been a hard day, then caught himself when he noticed it was already dark and blurted, "It's been a hard day's night."John Lennon loved the phrase, and once it was picked as the title of the band's first film, he and Paul McCartney suddenly had a theme song to write on demand. Lennon wrote it overnight and brought it in the next morning, and the group recorded it days later, in April 1964.

Everything about the song announced the moment. It opens with one of the most famous chords in pop history, a bright, unresolved jangle that fans and musicians still argue over how to play. From there it races through in barely two and a half minutes, catching the Beatles at the peak of Beatlemania.

It was one of several 1964 chart-toppers for the group, alongside "Can't Buy Me Love". More than six decades on, the band's catalog still climbs the charts for new generations, but few songs capture a single moment like this one, a throwaway remark that turned into a worldwide No. 1.

Source: Yahoo.com/Melina Gray

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Paul McCartney's album-closing songs were sometimes romantic pop asides, including "Warm and Beautiful" on 1976's Wings at the Speed of Sound, or story songs like "Momma Gets By" from 2026's The Boys of Dudgeon Lane. They might rock, too, as with "Nod Your Head" on 2007's Memory Almost Full.

The following ranked list tends to echo McCartney's particular genius in this way. Few could claim such thrilling variation.

For instance, McCartney never really let go of the album-closing medley concept he first oversaw on the Beatles' penultimate album, 1969's Abbey Road. He'd wrap up things with "Hold Me Tight / Lazy Dynamite / "Hands of Love" / Power Cut" on 1973's Red Rose Speedway, "Treat Her Gently – Lonely Old People / Crossroads" from 1975's Venus and Mars and "Hunt You Down/Naked/C-Link" on 2018's Egypt Station. What's Paul McCartney's Best Album Closing Song?

At the same time, McCartney wasn't always so grandiose. He played a simple acoustic guitar on closers like "Great Day" from 1997's Flaming Pie and "Winter Bird/When Winter Comes" on 2020's McCartney III.

Sometimes, he sounded almost nothing like his former self during moments like "Kreen-Akrore" on 1970's McCartney, "Motor of Love" from 1989's Flowers in the Dirt and "Road" on 2013's New. But McCartney also regularly reunited with Beatles producer George Martin. They paired for "Through Our Love" on 1983's Pipes of Peace and "C'Mon People" from 1993's Off the Ground, among others.

We've counted them all down – including some throwaway moments that could never rise to the level of his very best work - on the following list of Paul McCartney Album Closing Songs Ranked:

Source: ultimateclassicrock.com/Nick DeRiso

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Liverpool's Magical Mystery Tour has long been one of the city's most in-demand tourist attractions, with fans of The Beatles taken on a city-wide excursion to key locations in the Fab Four's story. Now it comes with added star power: Sir Paul McCartney himself.

The band's bassist made an unexpected cameo on a daily tour yesterday (July 20) when guests on the Magical Mystery bus spotted him at a set of traffic lights. After waving to fans in the serendipitous moment, they then received an added bonus when, after waving to fans, McCartney showed them that he was currently on a Facetime call with former bandmate Ringo Starr.

Speaking to the BBC, driver and tour guide Neal Morton said "it was surreal" to spot the musician while on the tour of the city.

"I had pulled up at the traffic lights on Hope Street when who should I see – Sir Paul with Ringo on Facetime", he said. "He waved to us, and everybody took photos. The passengers could not believe it."

McCartney was in town ahead of a presentation to actor Stephen Graham (Adolescence, The Irishman) with a companionship of the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA); McCartney is a co-founder of the school and often attends graduation ceremonies for students.

The unofficial tour, named after their 1967 LP, is a two-hour visit to the city's locations that played a part in the band's stories, visiting their childhood homes, Strawberry Fields, Penny Lane, and finishing at the Cavern Club, where the group played early shows.

It's the latest team-up between McCartney and Starr after the pair duetted for the first time on the former's latest album The Boys of Dungeon Lane, released in May.

Source: yahoo.com/Thomas Smith

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Creativity can be a capricious thing, but it can also be a euphoric experience when you're firing on all cylinders. For legendary rock band the Beatles, recording their debut album Please Please Me was like a fever dream and a swirling storm of creativity all in one. Why? Because the entire process took only 12 hours.

The band's producer, George Martin, also known as the "fifth Beatle," booked EMI Studios (later known as Abbey Road Studios) for the day on Feb. 11, 1963. Originally, the plan was to record Please Please Me at the Cavern Club in Liverpool, but Martin deemed it unsuitable.

The four-piece rock outfit started the day at 10 a.m. with "There's a Place," written primarily by John Lennon but credited under the McCartney-Lennon partnership. They barreled through the 14-track album, a mix of original and cover songs.

When 10 p.m. rolled around (at which point the studio was supposed to close), the Beatles recorded their last tune, their cover of "Twist and Shout." Lennon was suffering from a cold that day and was treating his sore throat with lozenges. Naturally, "Twist and Shout" was a behemoth to get through for him. You can hear it in his performance—his voice sounds raw, almost primal. It's like the vocalization of sandpaper.

At 10:30 p.m., Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr listened to the playback of the record, and, according to Lennon, were pleased with the end product. Starr later observed that they "had to just run, run them down," and that he struggled to recall the Please Please Me recording session: "For me, it was all a bit of a blur. The sessions and those times until we did the album — and that too — is a bit of a blur."

Please Please Me was released on March 22, 1963. It skyrocketed to No. 1 on four UK charts: Melody Maker, New Musical Express (NME), Record Mirror, and Record Retailer. It reigned at the top spot on Record Retailer for a whopping 30 consecutive weeks until it was replaced by the band's second studio album, With the Beatles. What a flex. This breaking of the musical glass ceiling came at a time when movie soundtracks and "easy listening vocalists" dominated the UK album charts, not pop music.

Source: yahoo.com/Melody McCune

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Were we to take bets on the sin­gle most wide­ly heard alarm clock, the one includ­ed on the Bea­t­les’ “A Day in the Life” would sure­ly be a pop­u­lar choice. It comes, you’ll recall, at the begin­ning of the song’s mid­dle sec­tion, when Paul takes over from John and sings about wak­ing up, comb­ing his hair, catch­ing a bus, and hav­ing a smoke. Giv­en the lyrics’ sub­ject mat­ter, its inclu­sion seems nat­ur­al, and even like one of the most straight­for­ward­ly explic­a­ble choic­es in the entire record­ing. In fact, the alarm clock was nev­er meant to stay in the mix: the band’s assis­tant Mal Evans set it off as a gag after doing a place­hold­er count of 24 mea­sures in the mid­dle of the ses­sions, but it just hap­pened to work per­fect­ly with the form the song even­tu­al­ly took.

That’s just one of the for­tu­itous acci­dents music YouTu­ber David Hart­ley recounts in the video above, on the com­plete mak­ing of “A Day in the Life.” As most Bea­t­les fans know, John real­ly did take his ini­tial inspi­ra­tion from the news­pa­per, and in par­tic­u­lar a cou­ple of arti­cles about a Guin­ness heir’s fatal car crash and 4,000 holes in Black­burn, Lan­cashire.

But after he wrote his vers­es, he found him­self at a loss as to how to devel­op the song from there. Paul offered the bit he’d already writ­ten about falling out of bed and drag­ging a comb across his head. It was­n’t long before the Bea­t­les began record­ing — and doing so for the first time, Hart­ley notes, before hav­ing fin­ished writ­ing the song. They had dis­parate pieces of music to join togeth­er, but no idea, yet, of how they’d do it.

Source: openculture.com/Colin Marshall

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