Wimpole Street’s song traditions

You think of Wimpole Street more of a medical quarter than Tin Pan Alley but it can lay claim to two famous songs.

The first is Yesterday composed by Paul McCartney when he lived in a flat there with Jane Asher whose father was a famous consultant.

The tune came to him in a dream which posed a problem as he wondered for a month where he invented it or had copied subconsciously another. This latter process is called crypto amnesia and is quote common.

He gave the song the initial title of Scrambled Eggs and tested the tune out on friends and musicians.

Satisfied it was original John Lennon suggested a title of Yesterday and at Bruce Welch’s villa in the Algarve Paul Macartney composed the lyrics.

The second song is The Street Where I Live from My Fair Lady.  

Professor Pickering and Henry Higgins had their rooms at 27a Wimpole Street. I watched the Alan Jay Lerner/Frederick Louw musical last night.

It might be dated and the sisterhood no doubt take exception to one song Why Can’t A Woman Be Like A Man? but it has a superb score, Audrey Hepburn has never looked more glamourous, Rex Harrison more suave and the ever-delightful Wilfred Hyde White gives a terrific performance as Pickering.

I too lived in Wimpole Street. On a Tuesday evening I would go to the Golden Eagle in Marylebone Lane where Tony ‘Fingers’ Parsons at the piano would lead the singing and, as often as not, the now web designer of the National Rust was lead vocalist.

Happy Days!