|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
When I was young I'd listen to the radio Waitin' for my favorite songs When they played I'd sing along It made me smile. Those were such happy times And not so long ago How I wondered where they'd gone But they're back again Just like a long lost friend All the songs I loved so well. Every Sha-la-la-la Every Wo-o-wo-o Still shines Every shing-a-ling-a-ling That they're startin' to sing's So fine. When they get to the part Where he's breakin' her heart It can really make me cry Just like before It's yesterday once more. Lookin' back on how it was In years gone by And the good times that I had Makes today seem rather sad So much has changed. It was songs of love that I would sing to then And I'd memorize each word Those old melodies Still sound so good to me As they melt the years away. Every Sha-la-la-la Every Wo-o-wo-o Still shines Every shing-a-ling-a-ling That they're startin' to sing's So fine. All my best memories Come back clearly to me Some can even make me cry. Just like before It's yesterday once more.
As Richard and Karen began preparing material for their Now & Then album, the United States was in the midst of a '50s and '60s musical revival. Entire radio stations were going oldie, groups not heard from in years were re-emerging. Everywhere you looked, people were digging tunes out of the dust of '50s juke boxes. But as Richard observed, no one had written a song that was really a comment on this nostalgic trend. After coming up with the title and writing music to suit the shing-a-ling-a-ling lyrics of those old '50s backgrounds, Richard turned the rest of the lyric writing over to his partner John Bettis, and Yesterday Once More was born.
Perhaps because "Sha-la-la-la" is a sort of musical language from the oldies revival that is universal, Yesterday Once More became the Carpenters' biggest international hit. During one month the song was No. 1 in Japan, Israel, Venezuela, Belgium, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, and England. Naturally, in the U.S.A., home of American Graffiti, Yesterday Once More sold over a million copies and became the eighth gold single.
In the notes to the Carpenters: The Compact Disc Collection, Richard Carpenter wrote:
Karen and I introduced an "oldies" medley into our concert show starting the summer of 1972 and it met with such an enthusiastic response we decided to feature a similat medley in our upcoming album. It was around this time that certain radio stations were changing their formats to all "oldies". I thought we should write a song that would reflect this fact and also "set-up" the medley. Yesterday Once More was the result and it became our biggest worldwide hit.
