Paul McCartney Beatles song 'shifted the balance of power' and made John Lennon 'insecure'

It is one of the most-covered songs ever written

Though John Lennon and Paul McCartney worked closely together as songwriters, there was always competition between the two. Paul and John wrote the vast majority of The Beatles' songs, in the early days writing together at Paul's childhood home on Forthlin Road in Allerton.

As the 1960s went on and artistic differences emerged, John and Paul tended to write independently, composing songs before presenting them to each other for tweaks. Despite this, every song they wrote while members of The Beatles had the joint credit of Lennon-McCartney.

John explained the rivalry between them when discussing the track 'A Hard Day's Night' in a 1980 interview with Playboy. He said: "There was a little competition between Paul and I as to who got the A-side – who got the hits. If you notice, in the early days the majority of singles, in the movies and everything, were mine."

"He added: "In the early period I'm dominating the group … The reason Paul sang on 'A Hard Day's Night' (in the bridge) is because I couldn't reach the notes."

Paul also revealed in a 2018 interview with CBS's 60 Minutes that he felt the competition. He explained: "We were competitive, yeah. Not openly, but we later admitted". Impersonating John, Paul added: "yeah, so Paul’s written a good one there, I better get going."

He continued: "And I would similarly, 'that's a bit good, right'. Here we go, come on. If he’d written 'Strawberry Fields', I would write 'Penny Lane', you know, he’s remembering his own area in Liverpool, so I'll remember mine."

In that interview, Paul was asked if John ever complimented him for his songwriting. He answered: "Once - in the whole time.

"I think it's 'Revolver', it was 'Here, There and Everywhere', (it) was one of my songs on it but John sort of just (said) when it finishes, 'that's a really good song that, I love that song'."

Paul said his response to that was: "'Yes he likes it'. You know, I’ve remembered it to this day. It’s pathetic really."

It seems Paul was kinder to John, however. Asked if he would praise his bandmate's writing, he said: "Yeah, I would tell him his stuff was great. You’d normally have to be a little bit drunk, it helped."

Despite the completion, The Beatles' early songs were largely created in tandem between John and Paul. However, one writer thinks there was a song which changed this relationship for good.

In his new book 'John and Paul: A Love Story in Songs', Ian Leslie said there was one song which changed John and Paul's dynamic - the 1965 hit 'Yesterday', which was written by Paul.

Ian explained: "'Yesterday' feels like a shift in the balance of power. From the beginning they were equals, and 'Yesterday' wasn’t only just a hit, but the song that more artists covered than any other Beatles song. Paul even sang it onstage by himself when they performed. And it triggered John’s insecurities.”

The love song was released on the band's 1965 album 'Help!' and was issued as a single in the United States. It is a sad song about the break up of a relationship, longing and regret, which was voted the best song of the 20th century in a 1999 BBC poll.

It was written by Paul, after he said its melody came to him in a dream fully formed in around 1964. As a result, he worried he had plagiarised it.

‌Paul recalled: "I was living in a little flat at the top of a house and I had a piano by my bed. I woke up one morning with a tune in my head and I thought, ‘Hey, I don’t know this tune – or do I?’

"It was like a jazz melody. My dad used to know a lot of old jazz tunes; I thought maybe I’d just remembered it from the past.

‌"I went to the piano and found the chords to it, made sure I remembered it and then hawked it round to all my friends, asking what it was: ‘Do you know this? It’s a good little tune, but I couldn’t have written it because I dreamt it."

Paul sat on the song for the month, such were his worries. He said: "For about a month I went round to people in the music business and asked them whether they had ever heard it before.

"Eventually it became like handing something in to the police. I thought if no one claimed it after a few weeks then I could have it."

When Paul was finally convinced it was his original work, the song had a working title of 'Scrambled Eggs' while he and John searched for the right lyrics. About that, John recalled: "The song was around for months and months before we finally completed it. Every time we got together to write songs for a recording session, this one would come up.

"We almost had it finished. Paul wrote nearly all of it, but we just couldn't find the right title. We called it 'Scrambled Eggs' and it became a joke between us.

"We made up our minds that only a one-word title would suit, we just couldn't find the right one. Then one morning Paul woke up and the song and the title were both there, completed. I was sorry in a way, we'd had so many laughs about it."

Paul said he nailed the lyrics during a holiday to Portugal in May 1965. He explained: "I remember mulling over the tune 'Yesterday', and suddenly getting these little one-word openings to the verse.

"I started to develop the idea ... da-da da, yes-ter-day, sud-den-ly, fun-il-ly, mer-il-ly and Yes-ter-day, that's good. All my troubles seemed so far away.

"It's easy to rhyme those a's: say, nay, today, away, play, stay, there's a lot of rhymes and those fall in quite easily, so I gradually pieced it together from that journey. Sud-den-ly, and 'b' again, another easy rhyme: e, me, tree, flea, we, and I had the basis of it."

Paul then presented the finished composition to the band for them to record. For the first time ever, they suggested he treat it as a solo song, believing they couldn't add to it.

About that, Paul said: "I took the song to the band, and although we did sometimes play it as a four-piece in concert, for the recording Ringo said, ‘I don’t think I can really drum on that.’ George added, ‘Well, I’m not sure I can put much guitar on it either.’

"And then John said, 'I can’t think of anything. I think you should just do it by yourself. It’s really a solo song.' Now, this was kind of a big deal at the time, because we’d never recorded like that before. It had always been the band."

Paul then recorded his guitar and vocals in just two takes on June 14, 1965. The song performed well as a single in America, becoming The Beatles' fifth successive number one.

It was also very well received by critics and won the Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Song of 1965. It has become one of the most covered songs of all time, with more than 2,000 versions recorded by various artists.

Despite John's role in encouraging Paul to back himself to record it by himself, he was not very kind about it in a later interview. Speaking to Playboy in 1980, John said: "Although the lyrics don't resolve into any sense, they're good lines. They certainly work ... but if you read the whole song, it doesn't say anything".

He added that 'Yesterday' was: "beautiful – and I never wished I'd written it".