Billy Joel has identified “Yesterday” as the Paul McCartney song he wishes he had written. Speaking on a special SiriusXM programme, the American musician recalled first hearing the Beatles composition in 1965 and explained why it affected him so deeply. He also discussed a personal email exchange with McCartney about “Just the Way You Are”, revealing admiration that travelled in both directions.
When a listener asked Billy Joel to name a Paul McCartney song he wished he had composed, his first reaction was laughter. He initially suggested all of them, saying he struggled to think of a McCartney composition he would not want as his own. The question arose during a special SiriusXM broadcast in which Joel answered listeners about music and his career, leading into a recollection of one particularly important early listening experience.
He described McCartney as an exceptional writer and compared him with George Gershwin and Richard Rodgers, highlighting a command of melody that stays in the listener’s memory. The comparison came from a songwriter whose own career has been closely associated with piano and melodic composition. Rather than ranking the two musicians against each other, Joel was explaining the kind of craft he recognised and admired in McCartney’s work.
Although reluctant at first to select just one song, Billy Joel settled on “Yesterday”. Released in 1965 on the Beatles’ “Help!”, the recording differed from the material through which the band had first become widely known. He recalled its first impact as a discovery of another side of the group, one that expanded his sense of the emotional territory their songs could explore beyond their early rhythmic singles.
He had been used to hearing “I Want to Hold Your Hand”, “Please Please Me” and “She Loves You”, songs associated with youthful energy, rhythm and romantic excitement. “Yesterday” offered a more melancholy approach in both words and delivery. For Joel, the contrast brought heartbreak, sadness and disappointment into focus, revealing something he had not previously recognised in quite that way while listening to the Beatles.
He remembered being struck by the performance as well as the composition. Billy Joel described that hearing as a moment when he understood how deeply the group’s music could reach. The memory remained personal rather than a claim that one song objectively outweighed everything else in the catalogue. His choice came from recalling the effect on him in 1965, not from constructing a definitive hierarchy of Beatles recordings.
The recording itself was unusual. Although released under the Beatles name, McCartney was the only group member performing on it, singing and playing acoustic guitar with a string quartet. Producer George Martin contributed to the arrangement. That spare setting gave the composition a sound different from many earlier Beatles recordings, creating room for the vocal and melody without the full-band approach listeners commonly associated with the group.
McCartney wrote the song alone, although it carried the official Lennon–McCartney credit. Its melody had developed well before release, with temporary humorous words used during early work. The final version paired musical simplicity with a story of a lost relationship and a wish to return to an unrecoverable past. These elements provide context for the sadness Joel identified when explaining why the recording stayed with him.
His connection with the Beatles extends beyond this radio discussion. Billy Joel has repeatedly described their influence on his decision to become a professional musician. In earlier comments, he said the group changed his life and supplied a central reason for choosing music. The “Yesterday” recollection offers a particular example within that broader influence, identifying a song that altered his understanding of what their writing could express.
In 2022, he also connected the Beatles’ arrival in the American music scene with the period following John F. Kennedy’s assassination, describing their music as a source of optimism amid collective sadness. Remembering “Yesterday” brings another aspect of the same influence: the discovery that the musicians who had offered that energy could also express intimate and difficult emotions through a much quieter recording.
The SiriusXM conversation included a less familiar detail about the two writers’ own contact. McCartney had previously said that Joel’s 1977 hit “Just the Way You Are” was a song he wished he had written. Joel recalled being pleased by that recognition and deciding to thank him personally. The admiration therefore did not flow only towards the former Beatle, but also reached back towards a composition from Joel’s catalogue.
According to Joel’s account, he sent an email expressing gratitude, and McCartney replied by repeating his praise of the song. Joel answered that McCartney could have written it and probably would have if he had not done so himself. The correspondence is known through his description rather than published messages. “Just the Way You Are”, from “The Stranger”, won two Grammys in 1979, including song of the year.
The exchange brings together writers from different generations through admiration for particular songs and their melodic craft. For Billy Joel, choosing “Yesterday” meant returning to the moment he first heard it rather than declaring it McCartney’s finest work. More than six decades later, he still remembers the recording as an encounter that showed him another depth in the music of a group that had already helped shape his life.
