Originally titled “Hey Jules”, Paul McCartney wrote “Hey Jude” in an attempt to comfort Julian Lennon, John and Cynthia’s son, during their divorce. In 1968, John and Cynthia Lennon separated due to his affair with Yoko Ono. Sometime after this, McCartney drove out to visit Julian and Cynthia. Later, Cynthia recalled, “I was truly surprised when, one afternoon, Paul arrived on his own. I was touched by his obvious concern for our welfare…. On the journey down he composed ‘Hey Jude’ in the car. I will never forget Paul’s gesture of care and concern in coming to see us.”
About the original title of the song, Paul McCartney said, “I started with the idea ‘Hey Jules’, which was Julian, don’t make it bad, take a sad song and make it better. Hey, 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 … I had the idea [for the song] by the time I got there. I changed it to ‘Jude’ because I thought that sounded a bit better.”
It would be almost twenty years after McCartney wrote the song that Julian would discover that it had been written for him. He remembered being closer to McCartney than to his own father: “Paul and I used to hang about quite a bit—more than Dad and I did. We had a great friendship going and there seems to be far more pictures of me and Paul playing together at that age than there are pictures of me and my dad.”
July 2nd, 2009 at 7:30 am
I never knew that.. I love the song Hey Jude and never really understood the lyrics. thanks for the insight.
July 2nd, 2009 at 4:58 pm
I’m glad the post helped you learn a bit more about Hey Jude. Thanks for the comment!
September 13th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
I love this song! The Beatles are the greatest band ever – they truly are musical legends. I LOVE them!!!!! Thanks Paul for writing this song!
September 23rd, 2009 at 9:10 am
because the sound it was better
September 26th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
Like luu says, I heard the reason he changed the words to ‘Jude’ was because it was difficult to clearly enunciate ‘Jules’ into the microphone.
October 24th, 2009 at 7:58 pm
HE was driving to Jules after john devorced her and he was thinking in his head what to say to her and he came up with hey jules your next move is on your shoulder. see the resemblence thats how he came up with hay Jude
December 28th, 2009 at 5:34 pm
Paul was much closer to Julian than John ever was. It’s like Paul was a second father to Julian. How sweet of Paul though; he feels sorry for children when their parents divorce. Paul was always close with Julian. I’ve seen tons of pictures of Paul playing around with “Jude” during the Magical Mystery Tour movie when they were on break. Sometimes I see Paul’s girlfriend, Jane Asher, be with Julian sometimes with Paul. John wasn’t really that close to “Jude”, but he was really close to Sean. I’m not saying that I hate John. I love The Beatles! Thanks Paul for writing Hey Jude!
January 7th, 2010 at 4:28 pm
Aww… that is so sweet…how thoughtful of him to comfort little Julian..