Yesterday

The timing of the next EP to be issued, on March 4th, 1966, was somewhat peculiar, as it contained material not from the latest album, but from the one previous to that.  The four tracks featured, all of them from the non-soundtrack side of the Help! LP, were seven months old at the time of this release.

SIDE ONE

Yesterday
Act Naturally

SIDE TWO

You Like Me Too Much
It's Only Love

Once again, the back cover simply listed the tracks included and, in addition, advertised the ten previous EPs and their contents.

By making McCartney's Yesterday the title track of this disc, the Beatles and their team dispelled all of their past doubts and fears about that solo effort misrepresenting the group in the public eye.  By now, the song had been a runaway number one single in the US credited to the Beatles, not to Paul McCartney.  It was a worldwide hit and already well on its way to being one of the most-covered compositions in history.  The band had even added it to their live set list late in 1965.  The second track on side one, Ringo's cover of the country and western tune Act Naturally, had served as the flip side of the American single.  The group even added this number to their stage act in the latter half of the year as the drummer's vocal spotlight on some occasions. 

Side two begins with Harrison's You Like Me Too Much, a song he had originally written for consideration for the Help! soundtrack.  It lost out to his other composition I Need You.  The final track is Lennon's It's Only Love, a song he was never particularly proud of, chiefly because of what he deemed to be poor lyrics.

Apart from Yesterday, the material here is weak overall, though it should be pointed out that this is the most democratic of all of the group's EPs, with all four Beatles getting a lead vocal.  On the strength of the title track alone, the disc had no trouble hitting the number one spot on the Record Retailer EP chart.