After 55 years, Julian Lennon has made peace with “Hey Jude.”
Julian, 60, recently spoke about the song that Paul McCartney wrote to console him while his parents, John Lennon and Cynthia Lennon (née Powell), went through a divorce. “It was ‘Hey Jules’ at first, but that didn’t quite sit well rhythmically,” Julian told Esquire in an interview published on Monday, December 18. “‘Hey Jude’ was a better interpretation. Paul wrote it to console Mum, and also to console me.”
Julian went on to admit that he doesn’t exactly love hearing the tune anymore despite its connection to his family. “It’s a beautiful sentiment, no question about that, and I’m very thankful — but I’ve also been driven up the wall by it,” he explained. “I love the fact that [Paul] wrote a song about me and for Mum, but depending on what side of the bed one woke up on and where you’re hearing it, it can be a good or a slightly frustrating thing. But in my heart of hearts, there’s not a bad word I could say about it.”
“Hey Jude” was released as a non-album single in 1968. It reached No. 1 on the U.K. Singles chart and the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. The track, with its repetitive outro (“Na-na-na-na-na-na-na, na-na-na-na, hey, Jude”), is one of the 81-year-old McCartney’s signature songs.
“The weird thing with the audience is they think it’s cute sometimes, quoting ‘Hey Jude’ to me, but I don’t think they realize there’s a lot of pain behind what happened,” Julian added. He said that the song has “deep emotional pain” behind it because it reminds him of Cynthia separating from John, “the love that was lost” and the fact that Julian rarely saw his dad before his death. “I saw him maybe a couple of times before he died,” he said.
John was famously assassinated on December 8, 1980, after Mark David Chapman shot the “Imagine” singer outside The Dakota apartment building in New York City. Authorities rushed Lennon to Roosevelt Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival. He was 40.
Cynthia, meanwhile, died in 2015 at age 75 after a battle with cancer.
Half a century after the release of “Hey Jude,” Julian said that the song’s lyrics are still “pertinent” now. “They’re about making life better and taking the weight off my shoulders, especially on the path I followed as a musician — following Dad,” he explained.
In 1984, Julian launched his music career with his debut album, Valotte. While Julian hasn’t matched his father’s success and impact, his first single, “Too Late for Goodbyes,” was a Top 10 hit on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and U.K. Singles Chart.
Julian has since released six more albums, the most recent being 2022’s Jude. “I’ve chosen the hardest road known to mankind to follow, but that’s why, after 30 years of doing music, I felt it was time to follow some other dreams I had,” he told Esquire. “Photography and a number of other things.
The music will always be in my blood, and that’s partly due to Dad, and it’s, and it’s partly due to the Beatles.”
Julian also spoke about having a good relationship with Sean Lennon, John’s son with Yoko Ono. “It’s funny because there’s always been, especially in the U.K. press, ‘Lennon Sons Feuding,’ this, that,” said Julian. “We’ve never had a fight in our life. It’s such bull.”
