Yesterday

John Waters, being a scholar of 20th century popular music the likes of which I will never equal, has produced the thoughtful reflection on the movie Yesterday which I wish I could have written. He's kinder to John Lennon than I am, and he might well have a point. Still, as Waters notes, "Lennon’s post-Beatles music reveals itself in retrospect as weak and prone to sloganeering." I agree, and I believe the reason is that Paul McCartney grounded and strengthened him. McCartney made him a far better songwriter than Lennon could be on his own.

I disagree with Waters's example at the same time I affirm his broader point when he writes, "For example, I don’t think “Yesterday” (the song) has won the battle with time, but the movie assumes that everyone will start to scream and faint upon hearing it." When I read Elvis Costello say that "Yesterday" would cement Paul McCartney's legacy for the ages, I suddenly heard it again with fresh ears and realized that Mr. Costello is correct. At the same time, I do think the great weakness of Yesterday (the movie) is its assumption that all the Beatles's songs are equally great and each must necessarily produce the same rapturous response as the others. Some are great, some are pretty good, some are middling, and some are throw-aways (for example, "One after 909"). Were the entire Beatles catalogue to suddenly emerge for the very first time (as occurs in the movie), I seriously doubt whether "She Was Just Seventeen" would hit with the same weight as "The Long and Winding Road."

But that's not a fair standard by which to judge Yesterday. It's a feel-good summer movie, and it certainly made Mrs. Curmudgeon and me feel good. In that most important of regards, it's a great success.