☝️ Key Points
- The song 'Yesterday' is about the regret and loss of the singer.
- The singer reflects on a past, simpler time and longs to return to it.
- A sudden change has mentally broken the singer and left him in the shadows.
- The singer is full of regret for a mistake he made and misses the past because of it.
- Love used to be easier and in the complicated present, the singer seeks a place to hide.
Interpretation
The song 'Yesterday' by
Frank Sinatra is about regret and loss. The singer reflects on a time that was easier and where his problems seemed far away. This is expressed in the lines 'Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away' and 'Now they look as though they're here to stay'. The singer still believes in 'yesterday', indicating his longing for better times.
A sudden change in his life has broken him and leaves him in the shadow, as depicted in the lines 'Suddenly I'm not half the man I used to be. There's a shadow hanging over me, oh yesterday came suddenly'. The singer regrets something he did wrong, which leads him to miss the past, as shown in the lines 'Why she had to go I don't know, she wouldn't say. I said something wrong, now I long for yesterday'.
In the lines 'Yesterday, love was such an easy game to play, Now I need a place to hide away', the singer remembers a time when love was easy. Now, in the present, where things are complicated, he seeks a place to hide. The repeated expression 'oh I believe in yesterday' indicates his deep longing for those better times.
Throughout the song, we see a picture of the singer as someone trapped in the past, with regret for his mistakes and a strong longing for simpler times.