Yesterday | Fab forum

Always loved this song.  Always had a bit of a hard time playing it, though, because it's in F, so playing it "straight" on the guitar means using lots of ham-fisted bar chords throughout.  And it never seemed to have that nice, bassy resonance that I heard on the album.

And then the Anthology discs came out, and there was "Yesterday", but with all the pre-recording banter.  Paul says, presumably to George, "It'll be in F … for you."  That's when I realized that he was playing it in G, but with his guitar tuned down an entire step: DGCFAD

The chords usually run like this:

Verse: F – Em7 – A7 – Dm – Bb – C – F – Dm – G7 – Bb – F

Bridge: Em7 – A7 – Dm (descending) – Gm – C – F

In the new, dropped tuning, the chords all go up a full step, the voicings naturally change, and everything fits into place:

Verse: G – F#m7 – B7 – Em – C – D – G – Em – A7 – C – G

Bridge: F#m7 – B7 – Em (descending) – Am – D – G

mjb said:
Ah-hah, that's what he meant.  Always wondered why it was "F for YOU"

Yeah, come to think of it, Paul says it flat-out: "It'll be in F, for you … I'm in G."

Ding!  Light-bulb goes on for me, and suddenly the entire song is easier to play (and sounds better, too).

Joe said:

Do you think he played an open or barred G chord? Barred seems more likely if he then dropped a semitone for the F#m7.

Open, actually, in more ways than one.  "Open" voicing, but it's also an "open 5th" chord, so you don't get to hear the 3rd (the B natural).  It's formed like so:

DGCFAD

———--

3x0033

And the following F#m7 sounds like it's voiced this way (with the thumb fretting the bass note):

DGCFAD

———--

2x222x

Everything else sounds pretty standard from there on, except for the closing chords (where he's singing the "mmm" bit), which he only plays on the upper two strings:

xxxx33 —> xxxx23 —> xxxx13 —> xxxx33

mjb said:

On line guitar lessons from Peter – I love it!

Be carefull though as you'll end up transcribing every song for us all

I can only do the bits I already know.