Paul McCartney wrote the Beatles song “Hey Jude” in 1968 for John Lennon’s son Julian after his parents separated. Julian Lennon was five years old at the time. Back in September 2023, Cynthia and John Lennon’s son spoke about his complicated relationship with the song, ultimately dubbing it a “love-hate relationship.” Julian Lennon has now spoken out again in an interview about the hit, which, with 7.5 million copies sold, is considered the Beatles’ most successful single, but also triggers negative feelings for him.
After the separation, he hardly saw his father anymore
Julian Lennon, a musician himself, feels grateful that McCartney wrote the track for him and his mother, as he tells Esquire. Even today, the 60-year-old still finds the text relevant because the lyrics are about wishing that the person being sung about would approach life better and that the burden could be taken off his shoulders. Nevertheless, he also associates negative moments with “Hey Jude”, as he reveals in conversation: “Depending on which side of the bed you wake up on and where you hear the song, it can be a good thing or a slightly frustrating thing.”
He also reports that people who went to his concerts would quote “Hey Jude” to him more often. He says in the interview that they would probably think this was “cute.” But for him the piece would also mean pain. “I don’t think they understand that there is a lot of pain behind what happened. Every time they quote that, it reminds me of my mother’s separation from my father, of the love lost, and of the fact that I hardly ever saw my father again. “I saw him maybe a few times before he died,” said Julian Lennon about his father, who was shot dead in an assassination attempt in New York on December 8, 1980.
In fact, the Brit describes the feeling as “deep emotional pain” over the course of the conversation. For him, the song’s story isn’t about forgiveness, as he says in the interview, but rather that “it was just a time and a place in my life where things happened.”
Julian Lennon’s album is closely linked to “Hey Jude”.
Julian Lennon’s album, which was released on September 9, 2023, is called “Jude”. According to him, it should be about the emotional and musical discovery of oneself in life. As Lennon explains in the interview, the record is closely linked to the Beatles track “Hey Jude”: “Finally be who you want to be and stop being afraid,” he ultimately tells himself.