Yesterday was Christmas. But Christmas is not on my mind today.

I just finished watching The Beatles: Get Back on Disney Plus. It was meant to be a 150-minute film for release last year. But with theaters closed, Disney suggested that Peter Jackson, the director and producer, keep at it. Over the next year, he culled 50 hours of the 1969 film footage and produced a three-part series 468 minutes long.

That’s too damn long! And yet not long enough.

I could have kept watching those lads—John, Paul, George, and Ringo, all under 30—having a jolly good time making music. The world has known many musical geniuses. When do we ever get a chance to watch them work at their craft?

The Beatles was an astounding partnership.

Once upon a time Paul had a dream. And in the dream he heard a tune. He awoke and played it on the piano in his attic bedroom.

The tune was so captivating that Paul assumed he’d heard it elsewhere. He played it for John. John assured him it was original.

Paul had a tune but no lyrics. So until he did, he called it “Scrambled Eggs.” And that would remain its title until lyrics came to him while vacationing in Portugal. “Suddenly” and “funnily” fit the melody as did “all my troubles seemed so far away.” And then “Yesterday” replaced “Scrambled Eggs.”

The song needs no drums, Ringo said. One guitar is enough, said George and John. So Paul played and sang it alone: the first time a Beatle performed a song alone on an album. When their producer, George Martin, first heard it he suggested a backing of a few violins. (John grimaced.) Martin included them, another first for a Beatles song.

“Yesterday” became the most famous Beatles song. It also came to bug John.

In a 1980 interview John said: I go to restaurants and the groups always play “Yesterday.” Yoko and I even signed a guy’s violin in Spain after he played us “Yesterday.” He couldn’t understand that I didn’t write the song. But I guess he couldn’t have gone from table to table playing “I Am the Walrus.”

I miss John.

I remember the day he died. It wasn’t the end of the world, but something magical was lost.

Seems only yesterday we were riding “The Magical Mystery Tour.”

How I long for yesterday.