I once heard that Paul had written “Yesterday” using the words “Scrambled Eggs” as a working title. Any truth to this?
Yes. McCartney woke up with the tune in his head and used the words “Scrambled Eggs” to help him remember it.
Heard him sing it once for a prerecorded radio show:
Not to be confused with Erik Satie’s “Embryons desseches.”
– Beruang
Yep, it’s an old songwriter’s trick used when you have the melody in your head, but no lyrics. This is how the song “Tea for Two” came around as well; the songwriter (and I’m blanking on his name right now) came up with melody, then used the “tea for two/and two for tea…” lyrics to remember it. It turned out he liked the “fake” lyrics so much he kept them.
McCartney recently retold the “Yesterday” origin story on NPR’s “Fresh Air” about a month ago.
I recall a story about this but have no idea if it’s true or not. “Tea for Two” was written by a team, one person doing the melody and the other the lyrics. The melody was complete but no lyrics had been written yet, and the lyricist was napping. Impatient to get some words down the other half ot the team shook him awake and demanded some lyrics. The lyricist was still sleepy and basically said here are some nonsense lyrics for now, I’ll give you the real ones later, and rattled off the lyrics we all know now and promptly went back to sleep. The kicker is on waking from his nap he couldn’t recall any of the “nonsense” lyrics!
Anyone know if this is true?
I don’t know about the nap, but the rest of the “tea for two” is true. The composer demanded the lyricist come up with lyrics, so he just rattled them off to keep him quiet. I’ve also heard a similar story about Bernie Taupin’s lyrics for “Your Song.”