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Paul McCartneyAround 1964 (released 1965)

The melody of "Yesterday"

One of the most recorded songs in popular music began, by its writer's account, as a melody he woke up with.

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The dream

Retold in our own words from the sources below, not quoted.

Paul McCartney has said that he woke up one morning, in the London house where he was living at the time, with a complete melody in his head. He went to the piano by the bed and played it so as not to lose it.

The tune came so easily that he was convinced he must have heard it somewhere else. For weeks he played it to friends and people in the music business, asking whether they recognised it. Nobody did. Until the lyrics came, he sang it with placeholder words about scrambled eggs.

Where the story comes from

The finished song, "Yesterday", was recorded by the Beatles and released in 1965. McCartney told the story of its origin in his authorised biography, written with Barry Miles, and in many interviews. We summarise it rather than quote it.

The story is his own account, and it is consistent across the times he has told it. We cannot know more about the dream itself than what he chose to share.

How it has been read

Research

Dream researchers and psychologists have long been interested in cases where people wake with a new idea or melody. The NEXTUP model proposes that dreaming explores unexpected links between memories, which fits the experience of a tune that feels both new and strangely familiar. It does not mean the dream created the song on its own; McCartney was a working musician steeped in melody.

Questions for your own dreams

  1. Have you ever woken with an idea, phrase or tune that felt ready-made?
  2. What do you do with ideas that arrive half-asleep: write them down, or let them go?
  3. What have you been working on so much that it might follow you into sleep?

Symbols in this dream

Had a dream that stayed with you?

Tell us your dream

Sources

Every reading on this page comes from these works. Page references have not all been checked yet; those still waiting are marked.

  1. Barry Miles (1997). Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now. New York: Henry Holt.

    cited, not reproduced

    • Cited at: chapter on the writing of "Yesterday" (reference not yet checked)

    Authorised biography written with McCartney's cooperation; includes his own account of waking with the melody of "Yesterday". Cited and summarised, never quoted at length.

  2. Antonio Zadra, Robert Stickgold (2021). When Brains Dream: Exploring the Science and Mystery of Sleep. New York: W. W. Norton.

    cited, not reproduced

    • Cited at: the NEXTUP model (reference not yet checked)

    NEXTUP model: dreaming explores weak, unexpected associations between memories.

  3. Deirdre Barrett (2001). The Committee of Sleep. New York: Crown.

    cited, not reproduced

    • Cited at: chapters on music and creativity (reference not yet checked)

    Harvard psychologist on dreams and creative problem solving, with historical examples.