A love letter—no matter how lame, strained, or unworthy—to the song and the band that helped shape my life.
I was ten years old when I first heard it. Now, fifty years later, when I do the math, am I struck by that young age. Ten? That can’t be. I guess I thought I was older, because when I first heard it I sensed something was different. Something nudging me, pushing me ahead, allowing me a glimpse into a new world.
It was a song. A song that warned of sadness, but sadness that I could overcome. It proclaimed that someone was out there, but it was up to me to find her. It was joyous, romantic, and optimistic—but also cautioned me that pain was a part of this world, and it was my responsibility to rise above it. And then three minutes in … just when I thought the song was over … just as I was implored one last time to make my world a better place … I was shocked that the song was only beginning. How was I to know? How could I have guessed there would then be a wordless anthem of love, unity, and sheer, raw, unmatched joy? How could a shy, naïve, ten-year old comprehend any of that?
He couldn’t. All he knew was that “Hey Jude” had become his favorite song.
Four years earlier, when I first heard “I Want To Hold Your Hand,” the Beatles made an permanent mark in my consciousness. I can still see the swirling yellow and orange Capitol Records label revolving at 45 RPM on my parent’s record player—a spot usually reserved for movie or musical soundtracks, or classical records. By the time 1968 had arrived, the Beatles had not only changed my world, they had changed THE world. They were undeniable. Unstoppable. Every new song and every new album was an astronomical, artistic leap. And I was with them from the beginning. I locked onto the Beatles and would never let them go.
I often think about why, fifty years later, “Hey Jude” is still the perfect song to me … why it packs such a primeval, emotional wallop. Then I tell myself I don’t want to know—that dissecting it might somehow steal the song’s magic. But that’s dumb. Greatness, art, craftsmanship—it stands on its own. If it is truly great, analysis cannot tear it down.
I’ve read the interviews and stories: “Hey Jude” was Paul’s song. (He and John seldom wrote together anymore, but still every song of theirs was credited Lennon-McCartney.) The song started as Paul’s attempt to comfort John’s son, who was witnessing the breakup of his parents’ marriage. John thought the song was a message to follow his heart and commit to his new relationship with Yoko. Paul said, no, in the end the song was a message to himself. He was falling in love with Linda Eastman and the song was a set of directions: “Let her into your heart.” “Let her under your skin.” “Don’t be afraid.” “Don’t let me down.” “Make it better.”
The thing is, none of that matters, because once a song is written and recorded it becomes ours to perceive and interpret. It’s the songwriter’s gift to us. Even us ten-year-olds. What did I know about Yoko or Linda? Nothing, that’s what. It was the end of the summer of 1968. There was a war going on on the other side of the world, and every night on the news they were listing the names of the soldiers who died there. Heroes of the young were being assassinated on motel balconies and in hotel hallways. Riots were taking place in Chicago the very week “Hey Jude” was released.
How does a boy of ten answer the questions raised within the dark details of the world, when his biggest worry should be, “I wonder who my teacher will be when I start sixth grade next week?” He doesn’t. He can’t. He hopes somebody else can answer those questions for him. He hopes someone else recognizes that even though ten-year-olds are mostly thinking about comic books and baseball and goofing off … every once and a while, late at night … they think about their brother … who just turned nineteen … and nineteen-year-olds show up on that list of soldiers’ names on the news every night.
Paul McCartney’s masterpiece came to me at the perfect time in my life. I was malleable, pliable, spongy, and already hooked. Even if I didn’t know I was asking questions, the Beatles had answers.
The best songs are a glorious co-mingling of words, music, and performance that touch the soul. And this song has it all … from the very first moment:
“Hey …”
Even today, there’s a vibration that runs up my back when I hear it on the radio, unaware that it’s coming. That voice … all on its own:
“Hey …”
It’s a pronouncement. There’s an openness and an honesty in the timbre of that voice that implores me to pay attention. And by having his solo vocal kick off the song, McCartney ensures that no disk jockey will have a chance to ruin everything by talking over the intro, shouting out the station’s call letters, or yammering on with a weather forecast. It’s not going to happen. Not in 1968, and not in 2018. Maybe that’s why I like it when, out of the blue, I hear “Hey Jude” on the radio. Radio is noisy. Silence is death on the radio. Yet it seems like everything must come to a screeching halt in order for “Hey Jude” to begin. There’s all that noise, all those loudmouth disk jockeys, all those station breaks … and then it all must come to a stop. There must always be a moment of silence just before:
“Hey …”
The genius of the song is established with its very first note.
I was taken in by the overt message of “Hey Jude”: The importance that it’s up to us to make our world better; that we must allow love into our hearts no matter how hard, or frightening, or scary that might be. That message didn’t get any easier to follow as I grew from a shy ten-year-old into a just-as-shy teenager. “Go out and get her” is hard advice to accept when the pretty girl you think about every moment of the day doesn’t even know you exist. (Easy for you, Paul. You’re a Beatle. Not me. I’m a Beedle. Big difference.) Still, there is an understanding and reassurance in the lyrics. He knows it’s not easy, and he’s sympathetic as he sings about feeling pain, fools that make the world colder, and the folly of carrying the weight of the world on our shoulders.
I also love the musical terms he sprinkles throughout the song: Song. Refrain. Perform. Movement. Music is the ultimate emotional driver. A chord change, a harmony, a swell of strings, an irresistible hook—they can send shivers down our spines, fill our hearts to the point of bursting, and send tears streaming down our faces. This is a seemingly effortless skill of Paul McCartney’s, and it’s no mistake that he reminds us of these musical tidbits throughout the song.
But “Hey Jude” is far from a McCartney solo piece. This is the Beatles, through and through. And that’s evident from Ringo’s first drum fill, fifty seconds into the song, leading from the second verse into the bridge. It’s full of Ringo’s trademark quirkiness—the drumming somehow off, but somehow perfect—creating a moment of transcendent hesitation, mingling with Paul’s voice until John and George punctuate the melody with their harmonies. It’s the Beatles. It is a magical, unifying moment of bliss.
McCartney has probably performed “Hey Jude” thousands of times in concert (I’ve seen him perform it four times myself, and it is a glorious, inclusive moment that sweeps you up with twenty-thousand strangers in the most wonderful way) but still it can never match the perfection captured on that Apple Records single. (You might remember it … a polished Granny Smith apple on the A side, and on the B side that same apple sliced wide open, right down the center. Oh, and the B side? John Lennon’s unapologetic “Revolution.” The Beatles didn’t mess around—there was no fluff on the B sides of their singles: Day Tripper/We Can Work It Out … Paperback Writer/Rain … Strawberry Fields/Penny Lane.)
The Beatles themselves never performed it live, except for a filmed version when the song was released. The film is amazing. Paul sings it live, but to the recorded track. To watch it is to see four of the world’s most famous people, completely at ease, completely at the top of their powers, and supremely confident. They are at the summit—a point in their lives where their art, their experience, and their influence has made them as close as they ever would be. Acrimony, pettiness, and lawyers were all waiting in the wings, only months away. But in August of 1968 they were brothers. I love watching John Lennon’s little interplay with Paul at the 2:45 minute mark of the video. In a few years he would savage Paul and his music. But not here. You can see it in his eyes. This is a good one, brother.
The production is clean and in your face. Paul’s voice is right there—I can feel it two feet in front of me. The strings of the piano rumble in my chest with every chord he plays. A tambourine chunks to one side, and the strumming of John’s acoustic guitar is crystal clear on the other. After having had their fun with psychedelia and studio hocus-pocus with Revolver and Sergeant Pepper, the Beatles are beginning to strip things down, and return to the heart of the matter. The release of the White Album is only three months away.
Throughout “Hey Jude,” every twenty seconds or so, there’s special moment, deeply engrained into the fabric of the song, yet totally unique: The piano breaks punctuated by Paul’s “yeah….” John and Paul harmonizing on “then you can sta-a-art” (an unexplainable goose-bump moment for me). The transition to the bridge is a sublime deep breath echoed in the lyrics: “so let it out and let it in …”
And then comes the final verse, when Paul reminds us that it is our responsibility, each and every one of us, to make this world a better place. That we must let love into our hearts, and when we do life will get better. And better. And better. And better. And if you understand that, then you are one of us.
So let’s celebrate.
The joyful four-minute na-na-na-na coda at the end of “Hey Jude” is, without doubt, a celebration. All four Beatles, in unison. “Na-na-na-na, Hey Jude,” again and again. Like a mantra. Like a boisterous meditation. Just keep singing. Don’t stop. The words don’t matter now. They’ve all been said. The Beatles had been sending us this message for years: “All My Loving,” “She Loves You,” “In My Life,” “Here, There and Everywhere,” “All You Need Is Love.”
But if all you hear in that last four minutes is na-na-na-na, you are missing one of the most incredible vocal performances ever captured on record. It is a furious, glorious, unbound four minutes of ad-libbing—screaming one moment, crooning the next—joking, prodding, imploring, pleading, demanding. It is a performance of throat-shredding, uninhibited joy. When I hear Paul sing, “Jude? Hey Jude! Whaaaaa-ha-haaaaa!” Forget it. And then he seals the deal near at end with a torrent of screaming “yeah, yeah, yeahs”.…
Maybe he just wanted to be sure that I was listening.
Everyone has their own “Hey Jude.” Maybe it’s a song, a book, a poem, a painting, or a movie. And maybe if they are really lucky, they discovered it early … and it never aged … never showed any cracks … never revealed any flaws.
“Hey Jude” turned fifty years old a few days ago. That’s how long it has been living inside me. The song I will never click away from. The song that keeps me listening in my car as it idles in the driveway long after my drive is over. The song I never tire of. The song forever at the top of my list. The song that somehow spoke to ten-year old me, and still speaks to the sixty-year old me with the same power and urgency as it did during the waning days of the summer of 1968.
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David, this an awesome analysis of an area that I am weak on – the underpinnings of music that define great work. I am not a musician, Mrs. Stern saw to that in 3rd grade after my abysmal flute-o-phone experience (trust me it’s on me and not Mrs. Stern). The subtleties of the Beatles’s music, while I very much appreciate it, arte lost many times to me especially at the level you listen to it and understand it as a musician yourself. This is why I enjoy your commentary.
Here are two related points that I gathered:
1. Mastery in any field means that you know the rules, you define the rules and in most pivotal situations you break the rules to get the what you want to achieve as the Beatles / Paul McCartney have done many times over.
2. Songs that are personally transcendent move from just songs (a collection of music and words) to anthems (a personal defining life mission statement (sorry for the corporate speak!)). Few artists can ever claim this rare air for their work. For me it would be the Clash, Pink Floyd and Bruce Springsteen. The songs that we most closely identify with and hold as our touchstones are our anthems.
In watching the attached David Frost video I saw that typically British audience of very diverse young people that were gathered and wondered how many, like you, have chosen this as one of their anthems?