Time Gone By by John and Paul (9)
I believe the answer is:
yesterday
'paul' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are singular nouns, I cannot understand how they can define each other.
'itime gone byi by john' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'john' could be 'st' (synonyms) and 'st' is found within the answer.
This may be the basis of clue (or it may be nonsense).
'and' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for yesterday that I've seen before include "Beatles hit - Thursday" , "24-hours ago" , "A standard" , "Stray-eyed (anag.)" , "Lennon and McCartney classic" .)