I was intrigued by the premise of the movie Yesterday; an English singer-songwriter who finds he’s the only one in the world who remembers the Beatles music after a freak accident. This is a unique idea and relatively refreshing after a barrage of mediocre musical hero bio-pics in recent memory.

Watching the movie, I often felt amused at the jokes about what else never existed if the Beatles didn’t? The one band that comes to mind seems obvious, but it still makes for a good joke. The running joke of how our hero couldn’t recall the lyrics to Eleanor Rigby was good too. On the other hand, the main character Jack was barely likable, and the entire movie had an undercurrent of heartless capitalist opportunism. Questions kept creeping up in my mind as I watched, being the cynical rabble-rouser that I am.

1. Does this movie only exist to build up interest in the 50-year anniversary of Abbey Road?
2. How come they’re only using the heartfelt Beatles songs? Where are the studio experiments, the progressive rock songs, the psychedelic stuff?
3. Aren’t these songs just too melodious to be popular today?
4. Are they trying to say that these songs are so objectively good, that an unknown Indo-British singer-songwriter can get famous and well-respected just by singing them?

Before I tackle these questions, let me state my disclaimer. I realize that Yesterday is a fantasy film, and the filmmakers are allowed their license to treat their made-up universe in any way they see fit. However, the world they create is so grounded in our reality that the story literally depends on our familiarity with the very real Beatles. I love a good fantasy yarn as much as anyone, but when it’s this close to the real world, the suspension of belief becomes a tall order.

So, let’s tackle these questions one at a time….

Does this movie only exist to build up interest in the 50-year anniversary of Abbey Road?

I’m sure the filmmakers were aware of the 50-year anniversary of Abbey Road. Certainly it’s a milestone worth celebrating. I myself attended a live concert of the entire album at Hugh’s Room in Toronto by the Greg Wyard band, and my band Beige Shelter took part in a Beatles Tribute night at the Cavern (in Toronto). Some of the performers were millennials, and had never heard Beatles songs before, but they took on the challenge to learn them and even dug them. There’s even a Beatles pop-up shop in New York City.

This also points to a seemingly growing trend in popular culture infatuated with nostalgia. Throwbacks to a previous generation are all the rage, particularly in movies and to a lesser extent in music. The majority of Hollywood blockbusters are sequels, reboots, adaptations, or expanded universes of existing intellectual property. Finding a truly original work is becoming more and more rare. Many pop artists are also taking their cues from 80s synth-pop or 70s rock.

While Yesterday has an interesting and unique twist, it depends on popular culture’s familiarity with the Beatles to make it work (especially some of the jokes). And it makes sense Yesterday was released in 2019; the movie has a built in audience including anyone who grew up directly with the Beatles music, who could also take their kids (or grand-kids – it has been over 50 years!).

For myself, the nostalgia factor hit hard, even though I didn’t really discover the Beatles until around 1990. But the Beatles music is special to me. The songs are worth studying and playing. The Beatles is the only band I listen to where most of the music was made before I was born. I sub-consciously incorporate Beatles-esque motifs into my own songwriting.

How come they’re only using the heartfelt Beatles songs?

Yesterday plays it safe with their song choices. Literally, there are over 200 original Beatles songs to choose from. The filmmakers chose a selection of heartfelt ballads (Yesterday, Something, Long and Winding Road, Let It Be), and straight-forward rockers (Help, A Hard Day’s Night, She Loves You). Back in the USSR was a really odd choice. In 2019, really?

Where are the experimental, progressive, or silly Beatles songs that I love? Maxwell’s Silver Hammer, Happiness is a Warm Gun, or the entire Side B of Abbey Road. Over the span of 10 years, the Beatles went through so many phases, styles, and approaches to songwriting and production. It’s a little disappointing that only the heartfelt songs, as beautiful as they are, were the only songs deemed to be suitable. I understand why, in the context of the story, the character, and the timeframe, but this just took me out of the movie, and I don’t like that when it happens.

Aren’t these songs just too melodious to be popular today?

Strong melody is going out of style. From pop music to movie soundtracks, melodies have become more rhythmic, less varied in their note choices, and less interesting.

The Beatles, at their core, are all about melody. Listen to Paul’s basslines, George’s lead guitar lines, and of course, the vocals. Melodies are varied, lifted, with interesting and original shapes. And it’s not as easy as it sounds to write melodies that are quite as captivating.

You wouldn’t be faulted to call Beatles melodies “old-fashioned.” In many ways, these sort of melodies hark back to classical music, when Mozart was particularly melodious.  Beatles producer Sir George Martin, with his background in classical music, surely had a part to play in this.

At the risk of over-generalizing, a lot of popular music today doesn’t have the same range of melody as in previous decades.  This just makes me wonder how uber-popular Beatles songs would be in today’s culture, as presented in the movie.

Are the Beatles actually that good?

Yesterday leads us to believe that these songs would create a big splash today, in 2019, regardless of who sings them. The songs are actually, objectively, intrinsically that good. Or are they?

This was the most searing  question for me, as it’s not just about the movie, it’s about my relationship to the Beatles and their music. All music, for that matter. It’s about whether or not my entire life has been one great lie. ¹

Growing up, it wasn’t really until high school that I started to really listen to the Beatles. All my music department friends did, I assume because their parents were the right age to be in the midst of Beatlemania.² I was also a big fan of Phil Collins, Billy Joel, Michael Jackson, and Tchaikovsky at the time. My developing music brain was no stranger to rich, expansive melodies, interesting harmonic changes, and a romantic approach to composition.

So the Beatles fit my listening wheelhouse perfectly, and then some. To this day, my definition of a “good” song is largely affected by these listening experiences.

It’s often been said that the Beatles are a great study for songwriters. The deceptively simple melodies and harmonies (chord choices) are full of interesting twists and turns. The songs play ingeniously with fundamental songwriting concepts like tension and release, and expectation and surprise. More recently, Beatles songs provided me with a spring board for a better understanding of music theory and the Circle of Fifths.

So for me, yes, the songs are that good. They continue to inspire, to inform, and are great fun to play. It’s cool to see that they’re reaching a new generation of musicians and music lovers as well. And while I continue to discover new music, the Beatles will forever hold a special place in my ongoing musical journey.

¹ OK, maybe that’s taking it a bit too far. This is not about my entire life, just the part that’s about music. But how does one measure that? I’m not concerned with a quantification as much as the nature of the measurement. Do I count just how many hours a week I spend actively writing, playing, and/or producing music? This is easily quantifiable. Or do I consider how many minutes a day I’m thinking about music? That’s a little harder to nail down. What about how much music means to me, intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually? That’s much harder to quantify, but you get what I mean.

² My parents may have been the right age, but they were not in the right country for that kind of thing.