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Author Insight
The Way of Yesterday's Fool
As I noted in one of the book bubbles for The Way of the Imperfect Fool, I have lots of fun researching the real-life stories that illustrate the 12½ steps that are integral to each of my Way of the Fool books. Still, I have to confess that this story about Paul McCartney remains one of my favorites. After all, how could a Beatles story not be a favorite? Yet even were this not an astounding tale about the genesis of one of the most famous – and profitable – songs in musical history, it reminds me of the many dreams and intuitive insights that, over the years, have radically changed my life. None, unfortunately, has earned me tens of millions of dollars…at least not yet! This story, by the way, illustrates The Way of the Abundant Fool’s Step #5: “Listen to Your Inner Wisdom, and Trust It…Unconditionally.” (I tell another favorite Beatles story – this one, about rejection – in several of my books for writers.)
Book Excerpt
The Way of the Abundant Fool
Intuition and inner wisdom can show up in many ways. For Paul McCartney, it showed up in an unusual 1964 dream, during which he composed the entire melody of a new song. When McCartney woke the next morning, he rushed to the piano so he wouldn’t forget it. Still, he was skeptical. Could he truly have come up with an original tune in a dream? Or had he subconsciously plagiarized an existing one?
As Craig Cross tells it in his 2005 book, The Beatles: Day-by-Day, Song-by-Song, Record-by-Record, McCartney spent the next month asking everyone he knew in the music business whether they had heard it before. No one had.
By mid-1965, his “dream melody” had morphed into the song, “Yesterday,” which became an instant hit when it was released later that year, topping the charts and selling a million copies within five weeks.
Named the number one pop song of all time by Rolling Stone and MTV in 2000, “Yesterday” is now one of the most covered songs in the history of recorded music. Estimates put its earnings at $30 million, making it among the “richest” songs ever released.
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