'Yesterday' Music Video Heads To Abbey Road Studios
What if you woke up one day, and you were the only person on the planet who remembered the Beatles? And then you stole all their songs, and became famous? That's the weird, interesting premise of Yesterday, the latest from director Danny Boyle. In a new Yesterday music video, Himesh Patel, the film's star, heads to the legendary Abbey Road Studios to perform the title song.
Yesterday Music Video
I can't quite decide if the premise of Yesterday is ridiculous or clever, but it certainly looks like an overall nice film. Early buzz on Danny Boyle's latest has been a bit muted – it premiered to tepid reviews at Tribeca, although it's currently Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. One thing is certain: Himesh Patel's covers of classic Beatles songs sound wonderful. Like this cover of "Yesterday", for instance. In the video above, Patel is seen recording the tune at Abbey Road Studios, where the Beatles recorded almost all of their albums between 1962 and 1970.
In Yesterday, "Jack Malik (Patel) is a struggling singer-songwriter in a tiny English seaside town whose dreams of fame are rapidly fading, despite the fierce devotion and support of his childhood best friend, Ellie (Lily James). Then, after a freak bus accident during a mysterious global blackout, Jack wakes up to discover that The Beatles have never existed ... and he finds himself with a very complicated problem, indeed. Performing songs by the greatest band in history to a world that has never heard them, and with a little help from his steel-hearted American agent, Debra (Kate McKinnon), Jack's fame explodes. But as his star rises, he risks losing Ellie — the one person who always believed in him. With the door between his old life and his new closing, Jack will need to get back to where he once belonged and prove that all you need is love."
There are a total of 17 Beatles songs used in the film, which is no small feat – and definitely not cheap. As Boyle said in an interview, securing the rights to the songs "made for a top-heavy budget – the costs for the songs were very expensive, a substantial part of the film's budget. But they made a clever deal, allowing us the freedom to change songs up to the last minute." Just how much did it cost to get all those songs? An estimate puts the cost at about $10 million.
Yesterday opens in theaters June 28.