Nowadays, most everybody takes The Beatles seriously. However, when they first hit the mainstream in 1962 with “Love Me Do”, some doubters viewed them as a teenie-bop band who were playing into the musical fads of the 50s and early 60s. However, according to Billy Joel, that notion dissolved thanks to one cover of “Yesterday”.
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Growing up in the 60s, Billy Joel was a staunch Beatles fan. Frankly, if you were a musical kid in the 60s, how could you not be? Among The Beatles’ expansive catalog of songs, Billy Joel has cited that his favorite Beatles song of all time is “Yesterday”. Concerning Joel’s affinity for The Beatles classic, he told Stereogum, “To hear, all the sudden, one solo voice and one solo guitar with a plaintive melody — almost baroque type of music, not like Bach, but like Scarlatti.”
“Very simple, very profound. It just cut through everything else,” added Billy Joel. Unlike Joel, there was seemingly a subset of people who didn’t hold The Beatles in such a respected position. However, after Frank Sinatra covered The Beatles’ 1965 classic hit, Joel believes a great deal of people started viewing the Fab Four as more than just a boy band.
According to Billy Joel, This is How Sinatra Elevated The Beatles
Frank Sinatra is Frank Sinatra. Hence, at his height, he had a brand to uphold, a legacy to craft, and a stature to bolster. That being so, he didn’t cover pop songs and kitschy singles. Rather, he covered sophisticated and nuanced pieces of music. Thus, when he covered The Beatles’ “Yesterday”, the group garnered a major stamp of approval from Sinatra, and consequently, the public.
Regarding that fact, Joel stated, “Even Sinatra covered it. He wasn’t a big fan of a lot of pop music. ” “The fact he did that was very significant to some people who didn’t take The Beatles seriously,” and “Like, ‘Wait a minute, this must be a pretty damn great song if Frank is doing it,’” added Billy Joel.
While there is no sure-fire way to prove Joel’s theory, it does make quite a bit of sense. Regardless, both parties garnered loads of success with the song. The Beatles’ original rendition topped the Billboard Hot 100 for four weeks, and even though Sinatra’s version was not a single, it helped his iconic album, My Way, peak at No. 11 on the Billboard 200.
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