{"id":86799,"date":"2018-08-27T15:53:54","date_gmt":"2018-08-27T12:53:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ngradio.gr\/?p=86799\/"},"modified":"2018-08-27T15:55:31","modified_gmt":"2018-08-27T12:55:31","slug":"hey-jude-50-celebrating-beatles-open-hearted-masterpiece","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ngradio.gr\/en\/news-el\/music-en\/hey-jude-50-celebrating-beatles-open-hearted-masterpiece\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Hey Jude\u2019 at 50: Celebrating the Beatles\u2019 Most Open-Hearted Masterpiece"},"content":{"rendered":"

The band\u2019s biggest hit was a tribute to everything the members loved and respected about each other.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cHey Jude\u201d sums up the Beatles\u2019 turbulent summer of 1968 \u2014 a tribute to their friendship, right at the moment it was starting to fracture. The single was a smash as soon as they released it on August 26th, 50 years ago \u2014 their biggest hit, topping the U.S. charts for nine weeks. It\u2019s the Beatles at their warmest, friendliest, most open-hearted. John, Paul, George and Ringo sound utterly in sync, building to that power-drone \u201cna na na na\u201d chant. Yet it\u2019s a song born from conflict. Nobody knew they were falling apart \u2014 in fact, \u201cHey Jude\u201d was released four days after Ringo officially quit the band, walking out on the White Album sessions. Paul wrote it during John\u2019s divorce, to cheer up his mate\u2019s five-year-old son. As Julian Lennon recalled, \u201cHe was just trying to console me and Mum.\u201d The world has been taking consolation from \u201cHey Jude\u201d ever since.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s one of very few Beatle songs about a conversation between men \u2014 and like \u201cShe Loves You,\u201d it\u2019s a conversation where one friend is urging the other to do right by a woman. (Neither Paul nor John really cared what men had to say about anything \u2014 that was one of their deepest spiritual connections.) George Martin fretted the radio wouldn\u2019t play a seven-minute single. John\u2019s reply: \u201cThey will if it\u2019s us.\u201d A classic statement of fabulously bitchy Beatle arrogance \u2014 yet the word \u201cus\u201d really jumps out of that line. \u201cHey Jude\u201d is the sound of the lads working hard to capture that feeling of \u201cus,\u201d after it stopped coming easy.<\/p>\n

Back in May, John and Paul made a surprise appearance on The Tonight Show, during a brief NYC jaunt. The interview was a fiasco \u2014 guest host Joe Garagiola had barely any idea who they were. But there\u2019s a revealing moment, about four minutes into a truly painful chat. Garagiola asks, \u201cThe four of you, socially, are you that close?\u201d Paul and John say \u201cyeah\u201d simultaneously \u2014 Paul says it twice, while John adds, \u201cWe\u2019re good friends, you know.\u201d They\u2019re totally blas\u00e9 about it \u2014 just giving basic background info to this clueless American rube, as if they\u2019re telling him where Liverpool is or how many films they\u2019ve made. To them, it\u2019s obvious. Nothing to get hung about.<\/p>\n

But just a couple of weeks later, John had blown up his marriage, his family, every detail of his life. They would never have a simple answer to that question again.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s where \u201cHey Jude\u201d comes from. It\u2019s a moment of fellowship the Beatles had to earn, after a decade when that bond had been the most reliable constant in their lives. Right up to the spring of 1968, John, Paul, George and Ringo were four mates who wanted to spend as much time together as possible, even when they weren\u2019t working. (They\u2019d just gone to India on retreat with the Maharishi.) John was the one who depended most on the other three emotionally. He rarely spoke to anyone outside the band. As he said in 1967, \u201cWe understand each other. It doesn\u2019t matter about the rest.\u201d But right after that New York visit, John made a few drastic changes \u2014 like walking out on his wife and child, the morning after his first night with Yoko Ono. (Cynthia came into the kitchen and found the two of them eating breakfast. Good morning, good morning.) The others no longer saw him without Yoko around, not even in the studio. His drug intake escalated. This bird had flown.<\/p>\n

Like everyone else, Paul was blindsided by the sudden changes in John, and \u201cHey Jude\u201d was his direct response. He composed it in his head while driving his Aston Martin out to visit Cynthia and Julian, at the Weybridge house where he used to join his partner for afternoon writing sessions. He brought Cynthia a red rose. Nobody else from the Beatles camp was speaking to her. But as Paul reasoned, \u201cWe\u2019d been very good friends for millions of years and I thought it was a bit much for them suddenly to be\u00a0personae non gratae\u00a0and out of my life.\u201d He also arrived with a tune to sing for Julian, who was only five. That\u2019s just one of the countless weird things about this song \u2014 it\u2019s impossible to imagine\u00a0any\u00a0other Sixties rock star choosing to spend his day off this way, checking in on his bandmate\u2019s abandoned wife and kid. But that\u2019s just more proof there\u2019s only one\u00a0Paul McCartney.<\/p>\n

Paul was used to dreaming up songs on the road to Weybridge (\u201cEight Days a Week\u201d for one, \u201cDrive My Car\u201d and \u201cPaperback Writer\u201d as well), but this occasion was different. As he recalled in his 1997 bio\u00a0Many Years From Now, \u201cI started with the idea \u2018Hey Jules,\u2019 which was Julian, don\u2019t make it bad, take a sad song and make it better. Here, try and deal with this terrible thing. I knew it was not going to be easy for him. I always feel sorry for kids in divorces.\u201d He knew the pain of losing a parent as a little boy. \u201cHe\u2019d been like an uncle to him,\u201d John recalled years later. \u201cPaul was always good with kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

Back in London, at the piano in his Cavendish Avenue bachelor pad, he played it for John and Yoko. When he got to the line \u201cThe movement you need is on your shoulder,\u201d he told them, \u201cI\u2019ll change that, it\u2019s a bit crummy.\u201d John replied, \u201cThat\u2019s the best line in it!\u201d John heard this new tune as Paul cheering him on in his romance with Yoko. \u201cI took it very personally,\u201d John\u00a0told\u00a0Rolling Stone<\/em><\/a>\u00a0in 1968. \u201c\u2018Ah, it\u2019s me,\u2019 I said. \u2018It\u2019s\u00a0me<\/em>.\u2019 He says, \u2018No, it\u2019s\u00a0me<\/em>.\u2019 I said, \u2018Check. We\u2019re going through the same bit.\u2019 So we all are.\u201d<\/p>\n

Through the years, in all his sniping about Paul, John never hid his admiration for \u201cHey Jude.\u201d \u201cI always heard it as a song to me,\u201d he told Playboy\u2019s David Sheff in 1980, shortly before his death. \u201cThe words \u2018go out and get her\u2019 \u2014 subconsciously he was saying, \u2018Go ahead, leave me.\u2019 On a conscious level, he didn\u2019t want me to go ahead. The angel in him was saying, \u2018Bless you.\u2019 The devil in him didn\u2019t like it at all because he didn\u2019t want to lose his partner.\u201d Paul was going through his own turmoil, splitting with fianc\u00e9e Jane Asher. He couldn\u2019t stop thinking about this woman he\u2019d met during that NYC visit in May \u2014 an American photographer named Linda Eastman. In September, he called and invited her to London. They remained inseparable for the next 30 years, until she died of cancer in 1998. He and John had both found their \u201csomeone to perform with\u201d \u2014 female artists they not only married but collaborated with musically.<\/p>\n

\u201cHey Jude\u201d wasn\u2019t easy to record \u2014 the first time they tried it, Paul and George had a furious argument over the guitar part. When they cut the final track on July 31st, Paul started without glancing back to notice that nobody was at the drum kit. Ringo was in the bathroom. \u201c\u2018Hey Jude\u2019 goes on for hours before the drums come in and while I was doing it I suddenly felt Ringo tiptoeing past my back rather quickly, trying to get to his drums. And just as he got to his drums, boom boom boom, his timing was absolutely impeccable.\u201d (Ringo enters at the 50-second point.) Paul took the mishap as a good omen. \u201cWhen those things happen, you have a little laugh and a light bulb goes off in your head and you think, \u2018This is the take!\u2019 And you put a little more into it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paul was right \u2014 that\u00a0was<\/em>\u00a0the take, the version you hear on the finished record. The Beatles\u2019 biggest hit is the one they started playing while Ringo was in the can.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s something else you hear in \u201cHey Jude,\u201d if you listen close \u2014 as the final verse kicks off, at the line \u201cThe minute you let her under your skin,\u201d Paul misses a cue and mutters, \u201cWhoa, fucking hell!\u201d They did their best to hide it, mixing it as low as they could, but you can hear it at the 2:58 point \u2014 yet it just comes across as excited Beatle banter, the boys calling to each other in the heat of making music. Paul is playing the most hallowed piano in rock & roll history \u2014 the Bechstein at London\u2019s Trident Studios. You\u2019ve heard this same piano on countless songs \u2014 it\u2019s the one Freddy Mercury plays in \u201cBohemian Rhapsody,\u201d the one Elton John plays in \u201cLevon,\u201d the one Rick Wakeman plays in David Bowie\u2019s \u201cLife on Mars?\u201d But Paul gets his own sound out of it here.<\/p>\n