Learn English with Music 🎵 Yesterday By The Beatles

In this lesson, we're going to review the lyrics to the hit song Yesterday by the Beatles.

Let's get started.

It's an oldie but goodie. We're reviewing the song yesterday by the Beatles. So let's

go through the lyrics together. Yesterday all my troubles seemed so far away.

Of course you'll need to notice that our keyword is yesterday. So notice all the verbs that

are going to be in the past. Simple because we're talking about yesterday.

Yesterday. All my troubles, all my troubles. This is another way of saying problems or

difficulties. All my problems, all my difficulties seemed

so far away. Of course our verb in the past, simple seemed, they seemed so far away.

Now it looks as though they're here to stay. Let's take a look at this. It looks as though

this is used to show probability. You can think of it as 75% probable. So 75%

chance that something will happen. So here the something is that his problems, his troubles

are here to stay. Now it looks as though is not the most commonly

used. It sounds a little outdated, a little formal perhaps. And remember, <laugh>, the

Beatles are from quite a long time ago. Today. More commonly we say it looks as, do

you know what? It looks as if they're here to stay? So it looks as though is grammatically

correct. But in my opinion, it's more common to say

it looks as if they're here to stay. They have the exact same meaning.

Now, to show you an example sentence, you could say it looks as though or as if it'll

rain. It'll rain here. Notice I used a contraction. It'll, it'll

rain. The full form is it will rain. So again, I might look out my window, see some dark

clouds and then say, oh, it looks as if it'll rain.

I'm saying it's about 75% probable. You can also use it looks like, and in this case you

could say it looks like rain. A little difference When we use it looks like

generally what comes next is a noun. So in this case, rain is a noun it looks like plus

noun is more common when you use it looks like.

And then when you use it looks as though as if we have a clause, it looks as though they're

here to stay. Oh, I believe in yesterday. Now just quickly

notice the preposition is always important to remember which prepositions are used with

which words believe in you, believe in something. And a very nice thing to say to someone is,

I believe in you. So if your friend tells you they want to be the next Beatles, they

want to be an amazing singer songwriter, you can say, I believe in you.

I believe in your vision, your goals, your dreams. I believe in you. It's a very nice

thing to say. So say that to someone today. It will make them very happy. And I believe

in you, all of you and your ability to become a fluent confident English speaker.

Hopefully with my help <laugh>, let's continue on. Now, I will also let you know that you

can download the free lesson pdf. So you don't need to worry about writing everything

down because you can download the free lesson pdf that will have all the notes from the

lesson. So you can look in the description of this

video or you can look in the chat in the first comment pinned to find the lesson pdf.

Let's continue on. Suddenly I'm not half the man I used to be. Suddenly we use this of

course for time. Suddenly there is not a lot of time when an

action happens. So you can say, suddenly the phone rang. Suddenly my boss gave me a promotion.

So this expresses that. It happened very quickly and often unexpectedly as well. So quickly.

And I'll put in brackets and unexpectedly, Suddenly I'm not half the man I used to be.

Let's take a look at this. A very common past simple expression. I used to be a writer for

example, I used to be a writer. This means I am not a writer now. But it was

a routine action in the past. I used to, I used to notice my pronunciation.

You don't hear this D at all. I used to. I used to. I used to be a writer. I used to

work at a bank. I used to live in Hawaii. That's not true.

<laugh>, none of these are true actually <laugh>. So you try one leave in example sentence with

I used to. Now you could say she used to. There'd be

no difference in the conjugation of course, because this is a pass simple verb.

And it's the same for all subjects. So here I could put, they used to work at a bank.

She used to live in a ho in Hawaii. So try some example sentences. Remember the

spelling here we have an ed, but you don't hear it in pronunciation. Let's continue on.

There's a shadow hanging over me. This is a very poetic line. Of course, a shadow is

an area of darkness caused by the absence of light.

Actually you can see a little bit of a shadow right here in the corner. It's a little bit

of a dark spot. Just the way the light is reflecting against

an object on my wall that you can't see. There's a little bit of a shadow.

So the shadow hanging over him could be the the image of this woman that he's talking

about in this song. And it's just her image is just there with

him. I'm not sure if that's what it means. It's very poetic, but that's what a shadow

is at least. So when you're taking a picture, you want

to be mindful of shadows because you want to remove as many shadows as you can.

Oh, yesterday came suddenly. Notice here, suddenly we had before we had it at the beginning.

Suddenly I'm not the, I'm not half the man I used to be.

And here we have it at the end. This adverb is quite flexible. You can put it at different

parts. Yesterday came suddenly I said before suddenly the phone rang.

I could also say the phone rang suddenly. Suddenly. So it's a flexible rb. Of course

our past simple came because it's yesterday. So this is a great beginner song to practice

the past. Simple why she had to go remember this is a song.

This is actually not grammatically correct though. Do you know why? What's the grammar

error here? Why she had to go, why she had to go.

Well we know this is a question because there's a question mark here and it starts with why,

which is a question mark. When we have a w h question in this form,

we need, why do you know how to correct this? Why did she have to go?

Why did she have to go? Now notice I change, had to have why? Because my past simple is

here. Why did and then you use the base verb because my past simple is already indicated

with the auxiliary verb do conjugated in the past simple.

Why did she have to go as a song? It probably sounds better to say this even though it is

grammatically correct. Incorrect. So let me just write this so you

don't say this in your speech grammatically incorrect. And then this is grammatically

correct. Why did she have to go? I don't know. <laugh>,

she wouldn't say. She wouldn't say wouldn't is our modal verb.

In this case, it's being used to suggest a unwillingness. For example, she wouldn't help

me. She wouldn't help me. She wouldn't help me.

There's an unwillingness. She could help me. She had the ability to help me, but she didn't.

She wouldn't help me. Now important grammatically, when you have

a modal verb, your nax verb needs to be the base verb, not the infinitive, modal plus

base verb. So we don't say she wouldn't to say cuz that's

the infinitive to say she wouldn't to help me. No, that's incorrect.

Now it's also possible she would help me. She would help me. And here it's not she would

to help me because that's the infinitive. We don't want that. We want our base verb.

She would help me. She wouldn't help me. She refused to help me.

I don't know. She wouldn't say I said something wrong. Now I long for yesterday. This is a

very poetic expression. Honestly, I don't think you'll use it too

much in your speech, but it is a very nice poetic expression. And you may hear it in

other songs, movies, tv, and most likely poetry as well.

I long for. When you long for something you really, really, really want it. There's a

strong desire for that. You might say I long for summer, for example,

right now it's winter, it's very cold. I long for summer. I long to see the trees in bloom,

the trees in bloom, the flowers in bloom. Notice because I have a verb here. I use the

infinitive. I long to see the trees in bloom. I long for summer.

Summer is a noun. So we use four plus noun. Let me write this. Four plus noun. And then

you use infinitive if you're going to use a verb.

So long plus infinitive. And this is long plus four plus noun. Now because long is a

verb, you do need to conjugate it. She long for summer, she longed for summer.

That would be in the past. Simple. Of course she longs for summer.

I long to see the trees in bloom. It sounds very poetic. Honestly, I probably wouldn't

say that because it does sound very poetic. I probably wouldn't say it to my friends,

but it sounds beautiful to me. So why don't you try that in the comments below.

Try sharing something that you long for or you can use a hypothetical. She he we long

for as well. Let's continue on. Yesterday, love was such an easy game to play.

Of course, our verb to be in the past, simple conjugated with our subject, which is love.

That's why it's was. Now I need a place to hide away. Oh, I believe in yesterday. Again,

I believe in you. I believe in your abilities. I believe in

your talent. You got this. Let's continue on. Okay, this is back to the chorus.

So I don't think there's anything new here why she had to go. We already talked about

this. This is the same as before and that's the end of the song.

So it's a simple song, but it's a great reminder of the past. Simple because it's about yesterday

and there's some very nice expressions in this song as well.

So now what I recommend is that you listen to the song. So the link to listen to the

song and follow along with the lyrics is in the free lesson pdf.

That you can download this exact PDF and you can listen to this song. I hope you enjoyed

this lyric review.

Amazing job! If you liked this lesson, I recommend you watch this lesson next. And make sure

you get your free speaking guide where I share 6 tips on how to speak English fluently and

confidently. You can get the free guide right here. And when you're ready, click here to

start your next lesson.