Paul McCartney regrets haunting Beatles ‘Yesterday’ lyric about his mom

nypost.com:

Paul McCartney still longs for “Yesterday.”Indeed, Macca remains haunted by a regretful remark he made to his late mother Mary — a lament that lives on in a legendary line from The Beatles’ 1965 No.

1 single.While “Yesterday” — which was ostensibly a McCartney solo song, with the singer strumming acoustic guitar over a sorrowful string arrangement — has always been considered a breakup ballad, the classic lyric “I said something wrong, now I long for yesterday” is actually a mea culpa to his mother.It was inspired by “feeling very embarrassed because I’d embarrassed my mom,” the 81-year-old Beatle reveals in the latest episode of his songwriter podcast “McCartney: A Life in Lyrics.”That embarrassment goes back to Macca’s mother having what he describes as a very “posh” accent.“She was of Irish origin and she was a nurse, so she was above street level,” he explains about his mom, who died from breast-cancer complications in 1956 — when the Beatle was just 14. “So she had something sort of going for her, and she would talk what we thought was a little bit posh.”One day while they were in the backyard, “I know that she said something like ‘Paul, will you ask him if he’s going … ’,” he recalls. “I went ‘Arsk!

Arsk! It’s ask, mum.’ And she got a little bit embarrassed. I remember later thinking, ‘God, I wish I’d never said that.’ And it stuck with me.

After she died I thought, ‘Oh f–k, I really wish … ’” And when McCartney was writing “Yesterday” — which has spawned some 2,200 cover versions — that longing was immortalized in song.“Sometimes it’s only in retrospect you can appreciate it,” he reflects about the line that would breathe a bittersweetness into the bridge of “Yesterday,” which went on to inspire the 2019 film of.