Fab Foundations # 21: “A Well-Covered Ditty”

(Personal reflections inspired by Beatles songs)

Song: “Yesterday”

Album: Help!

Release Date: August 1965

I’m sure everyone reading this blog (thankyou by the way) has come up with new twists to their daily routines these past few Covid months, including my Dad, who has taken on jigsaw puzzles, and my brother who is upgrading his newly purchased cottage in Connecticut. A novel routine here at home during this stretch has been Sunday night as movie night. Nancy and I alternate weeks choosing a movie, I search for it on Redbox or some other online rental outlet, and away we go. 

Movie watching is not something my wife and I do a lot of. Exhibit A: We average about one movie a year at the theatre, which is relatively reflective of our low-end movie watching at home. You could chalk this up some to procrastination, seeing as, for the longest time, neither of us put any effort into updating our DVD player with HDMI cable (for flat screen), or into searching out those aforementioned online options (Redbox was a nice recent discovery because they don’t force you to commit to monthly charges…. just sign up and pay per view). 

The tipping point for putting movie watching on the faster track during this freaky pandemic has been not having our favorite pastime to turn to for the time being (hopefully); that being live music events. This void helps to explain our choice of movies these past Sunday evenings, many of which have been music documentaries. These glorified music videos include I’m Not There (a fascinating Bob Dylan biopic where 6 different actors play the part of 6 Dylan personas), Twenty Feet from Stardom (about all those great female backup singers who tour with some of the most famous bands of our times), Once Were Brothers (Robbie Robertson’s recent take on the triumphs and tragedies of his band, The Band), and most recently The Quiet One (Bill Wyman’s museum-esque archive-to-life documentary about his life with the Rolling Stones). All of these films are recommended for you music lovers out there.

Another music-centric movie we watched recently was Yesterday, a fictional account of what it would have been like if you were the only person in the world who had ever heard of the Beatles and their music. It’s a pretty clever film, but not beyond the reaches of our own imaginations in this regard (at least mine). Here is my attempt at summarizing the plot:  

Soon after a cosmic event, a struggling musician plays “Yesterday” to a group of friends on his guitar (very well I must say). He is taken aback when they tell him it’s magnificent, because in the same breath, they ask him how he came up with such a beautiful song. He replies something to the effect of ‘yeah, well Paul McCartney was quite gifted, don’t you think?’, whereby they ask who that is. This struggling musician thinks they are joking. Later that night he goes on Google and can’t find anything on “Beatles”.  Beetle bugs show up, as does the car of a similar name, but nothing on the most famous band of all time. The movie takes off from there, whereby the main character rolls out one Beatles song after another to his audience (without revealing the source). He soon becomes famous. The inevitable guilt settles in tough, which ultimately plays itself out.

One scene in the film kinda took my breath away near the end, but I’m not going to say anything more than that, other than that I recommend Yesterday, if only for all the great music you get to hear and reflect on.

It’s been uniquely pleasing to be on this recent roll with movies (albeit the primarily music-related ones I’ve discussed, which are close to the heart by default) because I’m not easily pleased when it comes to this media. Some people are overly critical of music. With others it can be food or wine or… people. With me, its movies. Typically, the film has to be one of those Siskel and Ebert ‘two thumbs way up’ reviews for me to even give it a fighting chance.

But there was a period in my life when I risked it with movies…. ‘made for TV movies’, that is.  That period was the mid to late 70s, before I made a full break from the couch and embraced night life. Case in point, I watched all of the Roots (1977) and Holocaust (1978) miniseries’ when they first came out, which, I must say, was a commitment. Being a young teenager, those 2 miniseries were very impressionable on me.

So too were the random late night movies I watched during that period of my life. One of those made-for-TV movies that I vividly recall was The Morning After, which came out in 1974 and starred Dick Van Dyke. Van Dyke plays the role of a family man whose life spins out of control because of his alcoholism. I’ve not seen the movie in the 46 years since then, which speaks to its enduring effect on me. As was the case with Roots and Holocaust, what was powerful about this film was that there was no silver lining. No happy ending. It was stark and truthful, and well-acted. The Beatles “Yesterday” is played in the background during several poignant moments in the film. The music drives home the plight of the protagonist just about as good as the acting of Dick Van Dyke himself (who later admitted that his acting was not far from the reality of his life at the time).

To this day, I think of The Morning After when I hear “Yesterday” (Side note: Is that sentence a mind-expansion oxymoron or what? I only picked up on this when I reread it). Even now, after the far more recent movie release I just reviewed (Yesterday -which used the song-name for its title for goodness sakes!). I believe the big reason for this was that I was just getting into the Beatles around that time, which was spurred by my parents purchasing the “Red Album”, on which “Yesterday” was discovered on side 2 by this rapidly-evolving Rock and Roll fan.

It all fit together. The song hit me hard off the disk first, and immediately after, the movie soundtrack gave it even more substance and context. It was a one-two punch. This was all at a time when my young developing mind was just then finding itself ready for the real world. In hindsight, the movie and song prepared me to take a deep dive into those 2 historically-tragic miniseries soon thereafter; Roots and Holocaust. In hindsight, The Morning After the movie and “Yesterday” the song were also preparing me for so much else.

“Yesterday” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrgmdOz227I) is one of the most covered songs of all time. Why?  Because it’s an amazingly succinct song-statement that hits at the core of our broken humanity. As stated earlier, it was not long after that late-nite, movie-watching stretch of mine that I would be alternatively venturing out into the night world. This was the real high school experience in the 70s, and although I would get to be a part of so many truly wonderful things in those exploits, I would also begin to witness some of what is the dark underbelly of life; the occasional broken family, and the effect that broken environment could have on a few peripheral friends of mine. As the years have rolled on, I have come to the realization of just how hard that weight could be for those old friends to surmount. Yesterday seemed always a bit out of reach for them.

Earlier today, as I zeroed in on talking points for this entry, I found myself singing aloud the lyrics to “Yesterday” as I drove alone in my car; no radio, no music at all. While I did this, I thought ‘hmmm… not bad’ (my vocals).  It all just sort of rolled out as easy as pie and sounded pretty melodic to these ears in the process (if I do say so myself). I’m thinking now though (as I write) that it is simply one of those rare tunes that comes naturally to the singer, be they professional or otherwise. In other words, I don’t think I’m alone here (as evidenced by how much this song has been covered). I believe that “Yesterday” is a song all of of us can relate to, and when you can relate to a song that strongly, you can sing it.

Try it sometime (particularly if you have never done so). You might be surprised at how good your vocals sound to your own ears, and how easy it is to nail it. You may or may not be surprised at the sentiments that well up inside as you do so.

- Pete