The Beatles
– Yesterday and Today
Yesterday and Today isn’t an album the Beatles planned in the dark recesses of Abbey Road. It’s a Frankenstein stitched together by Capitol Records, swiping tracks from Help!, Rubber Soul, and the soon-to-land Revolver. But instead of feeling like a lazy cash-in, it accidentally caught a band mid-molt—still toe-tapping in suits but already itching to set the whole thing on fire.
Best of…
What’s striking here is the tug-of-war inside the grooves. “Yesterday” floats on McCartney’s wounded croon, a tidy little heartbreaker built for mass consumption. Then “Day Tripper” kicks the doors down with that dirty riff and a wink that says, we’re not your mop tops anymore. Lennon, always a little less patient with fame’s leash, snarls through “I’m Only Sleeping” with a lazy beauty that sounds like rebellion in slow motion. Even their most radio-friendly moments carry a weirdness that hints at the psychedelic fever dream just over the horizon.
This is the sound of four guys grinning at their past while sharpening the knives for what comes next. Yesterday and Today might not have been crafted with any big artistic statement in mind, but it catches a real moment: a band too restless to stay put, too smart to be boxed in, and too damn good to make it sound anything less than essential.
Choice Tracks
Day Tripper
That riff could walk into any room and pick a fight. Lennon and McCartney’s back-and-forth vocals twist the blues into a pop shape, only to rough it up again with a wink and a snarl.
We Can Work It Out
Tension wrapped in a velvet glove. McCartney’s optimism tugs against Lennon’s fatalism, the tempo shifts are little earthquakes, and somehow they turn it all into something you can hum in the checkout line.
I’m Only Sleeping
Lennon turns lethargy into high art. The backwards guitar weaves like a drunken dream, the whole thing dripping with sleepy defiance. It’s a quiet revolution disguised as a yawn.
Yesterday
McCartney’s lonely ballad floats out of the speakers like a sigh you didn’t know you were holding. Simple, soft, and devastating, it’s the kind of song other bands spend entire careers chasing.
Nowhere Man
Lennon aiming straight for the existential gut. No girls, no hand-holding, just a man staring into the void and whistling a perfect melody to keep himself company. Gorgeous and unsettling all at once.
Yesterday and Today wasn’t supposed to be a landmark. That’s exactly why it is one. It’s the sound of the Beatles getting too big for the box they were sold in—and gleefully, messily busting out.