01the morning
mccartney did not trust the melody at first. it felt too complete to be new. he thought he might have heard it before and forgotten the source. for a working songwriter, unconscious plagiarism was a real concern.
i woke up with a lovely tune in my head. i thought, “that’s great, i wonder what that is?”
02handing it in
he tested the melody for weeks. he played it for george martin, friends, and other people in music. he asked whether they knew it. nobody did. only then did he accept that the tune could be his.
it was like handing something in to the police. i thought if no one claimed it after a few weeks then i could have it.
03scrambled eggs
the dream supplied the melody, not the words. for months, mccartney used “scrambled eggs, oh my baby how i love your legs” as a placeholder. he completed the final words on a drive across portugal in 1965, more than a year after the dream. he recorded the song that june with one beatle, one acoustic guitar, and a string quartet suggested by george martin.
04the record
mccartney has told this story in his own words for sixty years. he told it on camera for anthology, in the authorized many years from now, and in the lyrics in 2021. the main details stay the same: the attic, the piano, the doubt, and the weeks of checking. the useful lesson is not only that he remembered the tune. he captured it, then checked it with care.
