Ask any ten people what their favorite Beatles song is, and at least five are bound to answer “Hey Jude,” today’s classic song of the day. Released as a single in August of 1968, “Hey Jude” was a worldwide hit, reaching the top of the charts in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Ireland, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Rhodesia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK, West Germany, and Yugoslavia. Here in the U.S., “Hey Jude” was #1 on both the Billboard Hot 100 (for a record-setting nine weeks!) and the Cash Box Top 100.
Although credited, as usual, to the Lennon-McCartney combine, “Hey Jude” was written exclusively by Paul McCartney. Sir Paul wrote the song (originally titled “Hey Jules”) for John Lennon’s young son Julian, who was more or less abandoned by his father after John left his wife Cynthia for Yoko Ono. The lyrics encourage the young boy to get past the pain of the moment, because things will always get better:
Hey, Jude, don’t make it bad
Take a sad song and make it better
Remember to let her into your heart
Then you can start to make it better
Interestingly, John Lennon thought the song was written about and for him, not his son. He thought it was his pal Paul giving his blessing to his relationship with Yoko:
“He said it was written about Julian… but I always heard it as a song to me. If you think about it, Yoko’s just come into the picture. He’s saying: ‘Hey, Jude—hey, John.’ I know I’m sounding like one of those fans who reads things into it, but you can hear it as a song to me. The words ‘go out and get her’—subconsciously he was saying, ‘Go ahead, leave me.’ But on a conscious level, he didn’t want me to go ahead. The angel inside him was saying, ‘Bless you.’ The devil in him didn’t like it at all, because he didn’t want to lose his partner.”
McCartney denied this, of course. Here’s his version of how “Hey Jude” came to be:
“I thought, as a friend of the family, I would motor out to Weybridge [John’s former home with Cynthia] and tell them that everything was all right: to try and cheer them up, basically, and see how they were. I had about an hour’s drive. I would always turn the radio off and try and make up songs, just in case… I started singing: ‘Hey Jules—don’t make it bad, take a sad song, and make it better…’ It was optimistic, a hopeful message for Julian: ‘Come on, man, your parents got divorced. I know you’re not happy, but you’ll be OK.’ I eventually changed ‘Jules’ to ‘Jude.’ One of the characters in ‘Oklahoma’ is called Jude, and I like the name.”
The Beatles recorded “Hey Jude” at Trident Studios in London over a two-day period during the summer of 1968. It was the first Beatles tune to be recorded on an eight-track machine, with George Martin doing the producing and Barry Sheffield doing the engineering. The lads recorded their basic tracks on July 31st, running through four takes but choosing the first as the master. That pass had McCartney on piano, Lennon on acoustic guitar, George Harrison on electric guitar, and Ringo Starr on drums. The next day, August 1st, McCartney added his lead vocal and bass guitar; Ringo added a tambourine track; and Paul, John, and George added background vocals. A 36-piece orchestra, playing a George Martin arrangement and with Paul McCartney himself conducting, was recorded later that day.
Coming in at seven minutes and eleven seconds, “Hey Jude” was the longest mainstream song released to that point in time. It was one second longer than Richard Harris’ recording of Jimmy Webb’s epic “MacArthur Park,” and that was supposedly deliberate; John and Paul wanted to have the longest record out there, which they achieved with the extended chorus of “na na na’s” at the end of the song. George Martin was afraid that radio stations wouldn’t play a single that long, but McCartney reportedly replied “They will if it’s us.” He was right.
“Hey Jude” has proved, at the time and over time, to be a true classic. The 1968 NME Reader’s Poll named it the top single of the year and it was nominated for three Grammy Awards (Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group), although it failed to win any of them. Both Billboard and Cash Box named “Hey Jude” the #1 song for all of 1968, and it was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2001. “Hey Jude” consistently ranks near the top of almost every list of all-time greatest songs, and deservedly so.
So here’s your daily bonus video of the day, the short film the Beatles made to promote “Hey Jude” back in 1968 on David Frost’s Frost on Sunday television program. The instrumental tracks were prerecorded but Paul’s vocals were performed live. Everybody sing along, now.
