The song was written in 1962 by Chad Stuart, who comprised Chad & Jeremy with Jeremy Clyde; it is the first song Stuart ever wrote. Stuart shares the song's writing credit with Wendy Kidd, the manager of a band Stuart belonged to at the time of the song's writing; according to Stuart, Kidd was given the songwriting credit in return for allowing him to compose "Yesterday's Gone" on her piano. Kidd also facilitated Stuart's being hired as a staff writer at Rogers Music, which published "Yesterday's Gone", although the song remained unrecorded until Stuart and Clyde began performing as a duo, eventually recording "Yesterday's Gone" in July 1963 in a session at Abbey Road Studios produced and arranged by John Barry, who'd discovered Chad & Jeremy at a London club and signed them to Ember Records, a newly formed independent label in which Barry was a partner. According to Chad Stuart, John Barry was unhappy with the duo's first attempts to record their vocal for "Yesterday's Gone": "he told us...we sounded like a locker room full of football players...in the end in desperation he said: 'Whisper it', so we kind of backed off a bit and so that sort of slightly sotto voce sound came about".

Released 27 September 1963, "Yesterday's Gone" entered the UK Top 50 on the chart dated 30 November 1963 and remained on the chart for seven weeks with a #37 peak; the follow-up single "Like I Love You Today" was released in January 1964 with no evident reaction. Chad Stuart would recall: "There was just no way a little independent label could compete in those days...John Barry bought himself out of his contract and we were stuck. I think we would've broken up then and there except for the fact that Noel Rogers, who published 'Yesterday's Gone' fenced it off to this other company in America called World Artists". Stuart is referring to the Pittsburgh-based World Artists Records which released "Yesterday's Gone" in the US in March 1964 after label president Lou Guarino heard the single while visiting Great Britain in search of local tracks which World Artists might profitably release, the "British Invasion" of the US music scene then being in full swing. (Yesterday's Gone" had already had one international release: by Australia's Festival Records in February 1964, which was not a success.)

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