27 September 2025
"Yesterday all my troubles seemed so far away.
Now it looks as though they're here to stay.
Oh, I believe in yesterday.
Suddenly, I'm not half the man I used to be.
There's a shadow hanging over me.
Oh, yesterday came suddenly. ..." - Paul McCartney
The Beatles song “Yesterday” was, for a time, my favorite—back when I was a brooding teenager. Or maybe it shared that honor with “Help,” another track from the same album. “Yesterday” conjured feelings of loss and hinted at emotions that felt ancient, even though I was only thirteen and my life had barely begun. Why it resonated so deeply, I’m not sure. I didn’t have a long-ago past to mourn. But at that age, thirteen years is a literal lifetime.
Thinking of it that way, it’s been more than five lifetimes since.
The lyric about not being half the man I used to be always made me pause. What was I thinking then? Because, quite literally, I wasn’t yet half the man I would become. We see and feel everything from our own shifting vantage point—fluid, evolving—as we add new experiences to our repertoire.
"The "past beats inside me like a second heart.” — John Banville
“Songs are the pulse of memory, the breath of time.” — Ceremonial riff, sovereign dispatch
“Youth is a dream, a form of chemical madness.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald
#photo #photography #photographer #photographylovers #morning #flowers #roses #Beatles #music ##lyrics #youth #perspective
