" Yesterdays" and " Yesterday"--Jerome Kern meets Paul McCartney" In 1933, Jerome Kern and lyricist Otto Harbach wrote "Yesterdays" for the musical Roberta. It is an very evocative, sombre song with a straightforward, overall structure but unforgettable for its ingenious harmonic progressions. The lyrics are a little old -fashioned rhyming " forsooth " with " truth" and " chaffed" with " laughed." I'm sure " forsooth" has not been part of regular English language use for at least 300 years. ( Cole Porter could have legitimately used in as part of his Shakespeare segments in Kiss Me Kate. ) Nonetheless, instrumentally the song has a somewhat brooding quality that is very compelling.
Frank Sinatra provides a performance of " Yesterdays" that is quite in keeping with the formal nature of the melody and the lyrics that lament of " Days that I knew as happy, sweet sequestered days" His performance transcends the archaic language which he does his best to downplay. After all, Frank was from Hoboken, New Jersey -not Stratford-On-Avon.
In 1965, Paul McCartney wrote both music and lyrics for " Yesterday." It deals with the break=up of a relationship, perhaps autobiographical and adorned only by a guitar and a string quartet. His lyrics are the everyday speech of the common man who sadly confesses that " I'm not half the man I used to be, There's a shadow hanging over me -------- and now I long for yesterday." This is a much more personal story being told by McCartney , especially when compared with the high flown sentiments provided by Otto Harbach.
Both songs are famous for their different reasons and I believe that the Kern composition is superior to McCartney's rather straightforward tune. However, McCartney's words are more heartfelt and compelling and reflect the emotional language of an ordinary man while avoiding the archaic and stilted vocabulary of Mr. Harbach.
Kern Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXjreu_32YE
McCartney Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ho2e0zvGEWE
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