{"id":289833,"date":"2025-11-29T14:39:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-29T14:39:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/289833\/"},"modified":"2025-11-29T14:39:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-29T14:39:11","slug":"the-song-paul-mccartney-named-the-smash-of-the-century","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/289833\/","title":{"rendered":"The song Paul McCartney named \u201cthe smash of the century\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Paul<\/p>\n

(Credits: Far Out \/ Alamy)<\/p>\n

Sat 29 November 2025 12:41, UK <\/p>\n

Thanks to the use of artificial intelligence, 2023 offered the chance for The Beatles<\/a> to close their discography with one final song.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In fitting fashion, \u2018Now and Then\u2019 went on to claim yet another number one spot, earning the band an unprecedented 21 chart-toppers. As the chief writer of around 90 tracks for the band, this means that Paul McCartney certainly knows his way around more smash hits than Mike Tyson.<\/p>\n

When appraising the 20th century, an era where he was perhaps the most pivotal engine of influence in the arts, the Liverpudlian heaped praise upon his peers. \u201cI figure no one is educated musically \u2019til they\u2019ve heard Pet Sounds. I love the orchestra, the arrangements \u2013 it may be going overboard to say it\u2019s the classic of the century \u2013 but to me, it certainly is a total, classic record that is unbeatable in many ways,\u201d he once said of The Beach Boys masterpiece.<\/p>\n

He also called Bob Dylan his \u201cidol\u201d, Stevie Wonder a \u201cgenius\u201d, and he thought that Paul Simon knew his way around writing a glorious song, too. However, in the charts, The Beatles eclipsed them all, and of all the lads in the Fab Four, Macca was the biggest cheerleader of his own band, and with pride, he opines that \u2018Yesterday\u2019 was the \u201csmash of the century\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was my most successful song. It\u2019s amazing that it just came to me in a dream,\u201d he states in The Beatles Anthology. \u201cThat\u2019s why I don\u2019t profess to know anything; I think music is all very mystical. You hear people saying, \u2018I\u2019m a vehicle; it just passes through me.\u2019 Well, you\u2019re dead lucky if something like that passes through you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Paul<\/a>Paul McCartney with Jane Asher. (Credits: Far Out \/ Alamy)<\/p>\n

This is a recurring theme among many great songwriters, with Dylan quoting Hoagy Carmichael on the matter when he said, \u201cAnd then it happened, that queer sensation that this melody was bigger than me. Maybe I hadn\u2019t written it all. The recollection of how, when and where it all happened became vague as the lingering strains hung in the rafters in the studio\u201d.<\/p>\n

Dylan continued: \u201cI wanted to shout back at it, \u2018maybe I didn\u2019t write you, but I found you\u2019,\u201d he said before the original vaganbond added: \u201cI know just what he meant\u201d. Paul Simon further clarified the matter, explaining that this sensation neuroscientific quirk of the creative flow state, and it\u2019s a state that has produced some crackers. McCartney knew he had coaxed out a seemingly subconscious classic from the off.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, the band popped it in their pocket and honed it for a while as youngsters rather than rushing the release of this rarified gem. Keeping up appearances prevented them from releasing it in the UK, as they thought the ballad wasn\u2019t quite rock \u2018n\u2019 roll enough. While it certainly wasn\u2019t rock \u2018n\u2019 roll, it was the Beatles\u2019 electicism that made them unique.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am proud of it. I get made fun of because of it a bit,\u201d McCartney says, having warmed to its tenderness over the years. \u201cI remember George saying, \u2018Blimey, he\u2019s always talking about \u2018Yesterday\u2019, you\u2019d think he was Beethoven or somebody.\u2019 But it is, I reckon, the most complete thing I\u2019ve ever written.\u201d<\/p>\n

Considering that he has also penned the likes of \u2018Hey Jude\u2019 and \u2018Maybe I\u2019m Amazed\u2019, among hundreds of other perfectly polished pieces of music, that\u2019s high praise indeed. It is a track that typifies the transcendence of the band. Now, perhaps the song\u2019s potency has been somewhat eroded by virtue of its ubiquitous exposure, but that just proves its pervasiveness: can you imagine a world without \u2018Yesterday\u2019? Can you imagine hearing it for <\/a>the<\/a> first time<\/a>? Hell, they made a whole film about that ponderance!<\/p>\n

But McCartney still has one notable regret about the \u201csmash of the century\u201d. \u201cFor \u2018Yesterday\u2019, which I wrote totally on my own, without John\u2019s or anyone\u2019s help, I am on 15%,\u201d he continued. \u201cTo this day I am only on 15% because of the deals Brian [Epstein] made, and that is really unjust, particularly as it has been such a smash. It is possibly the smash of this century.\u201d<\/p>\n

In actual fact, the track\u2019s official sales are far eclipsed by the likes of \u2018She Loves You\u2019, which remains The Beatles\u2019 best-selling single, but \u2018Yesterday\u2019 is certified as the most covered song in history, showcasing its durable simplicity and staple status in society at large.<\/a> In terms of TV and radio plays, it was even the third most played song of the entire 20th century.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Far Out \/ Alamy) Sat 29 November 2025 12:41, UK Thanks to the use of artificial intelligence,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":230641,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[96,128,6470,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-289833","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music","10":"tag-paul-mccartney","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom","13":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=289833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}