The untold story behind the creation of The Beatles’ classic “Hey Jude”

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• a die-hard Beatles fanWada Shinji
  From Osaka Prefecture. I’ve been a Beatles fan for decades. I’ve tried many hobbies, but this is the only one that has stayed with me. As a storyteller of the Beatles, I want to pass on their greatness to future generations. A blog that explains the Beatles in a way anyone can understand.

How did the name Jude come about?

Even for those who aren’t into Western music, I don’t think there’s anyone who hasn’t at least heard the Beatles’ classic “Hey Jude.”

Many of you probably remember Paul performing this song at the opening ceremony of the London Olympics.

Paul always includes this song in his setlist when performing live.

This song features repeated calls of “Na Na Na Na Na Na~” at the end, and it’s a great fit for live shows because that part lets the band and the audience become one.

By the way, the lyrics of this song are about the protagonist encouraging a person named Jude.

This time, I’ll talk about how this masterpiece came to be.

Triggered by John Lennon's divorce

John married a woman named Cynthia Powell before the Beatles made their major debut.

Just as their manager Brian Epstein was trying to market the Beatles as an idol group aimed at young women, an incident occurred that left him holding his head in his hands.

However, since what's done cannot be undone, it was reluctantly decided not to make the fact of their marriage public.

In other words, this meant that, officially, Cynthia was not John’s wife.

I feel sorry for her, but since she was not the type who liked to stand out, it seems that this way she was able to avoid fan frenzy and lead a quieter life, which was better for her.

It was originally called 'Hey Jools.'

John was married to Cynthia, but eventually he got to know Yoko Ono.

Their relationship quickly grew close, and before long they entered into a romantic relationship.

He finally decided to divorce Cynthia.

Paul wasn’t criticizing John’s actions, but he felt very sorry for John’s son Julian, who was only five at the time and was about to lose his father.

Because he had always doted on Julian as if he were his own son.

So Paul thought he would write a song to cheer Julian up.

One day, he was driving to John's house to see Julian.

He made it a rule not to turn on the radio when he was driving, because he might come up with a good tune.

Then the lyrics and melody “Hey Jools, don’t make it bad” came to mind.

It seems that “Jools” was apparently a nickname for Julian.

However, I thought it would be a bad idea to use Julian’s nickname as it is, so it would be better to change it to something else.

It is said that Paul chose the name Jude in reference to Jud (Judd), a character he liked from the American musical film Oklahoma!.

John took it differently.

However, John understood that, while the song was ostensibly directed at Julian, it was in fact aimed at himself.

In particular, the lyric “go and get her (make her yours)” came across to me as if it were urging him to “go and make Yoko yours.”

Alternatively, I took it as a message reading between the lines: “Don’t leave me and go to Yoko.”

However, I honestly think this is just John’s misconception.

Paul probably just wanted to encourage Julian, purely out of goodwill.

There is another theory as well.

The existence of a female journalist

The above is the officially communicated view, but there are also viewpoints that differ from these.

A female journalist named Judith Simons claims that the title of this song was named after her.

She is known as a pioneering female pop journalist in the United Kingdom.

By the time the Beatles broke through, she was already in her late thirties, but she says that being older than them actually worked to her advantage.

He says that if he had been around the same age as them, he might have been swept up in that incredible Beatlemania phenomenon and could have lost his mind.

She met the Beatles through her reporting around the time the Beatlemania phenomenon began in the UK.

I also became close with John’s aunt Mimi and built an intimate, sibling-like relationship with them.

I don't know whether it's true.

Simmons says that just before Hey Jude was released, Tony Barrow, who was the Beatles’ press officer, told him that the song’s title was named after him.

And when she turned 90, Paul sent her a congratulatory email, and at the beginning he wrote, “Dear Judith (or Hey Jude).”

But, I wonder how it really is.

Based on these facts alone, it seems a bit far-fetched to justify that the title of this song is named after her.

As for Barlow’s story, there’s no way to verify whether he really said such a thing, and even if he did, whether it was true.

Even in an email, it might just be that Paul was showing a bit of playful wit.

It gives me the impression that it’s nothing more than her wishful speculation.

It’s possible that when Paul was thinking of a name, he consciously or unconsciously had her name in mind, but he himself probably doesn’t remember it that clearly.

I didn't write a memoir.

Given that she was close to the Beatles, it seems she naturally received numerous offers from publishers to write a memoir about them.

However, she refused them all.

She said, “Publishers are trying to profit by hurting the Beatles, but I would never do anything to expose their secrets. After all, they trusted me.”

She passed away in 2018 at the age of 93, literally taking the secret to her grave.

A Huge Uproar over the Title

A big title at Apple's headquarters

At the time, the Beatles had started a company called Apple Records.

And when we were going to release this song, I came up with the idea of using it as PR by writing the song title in large letters on the wall of Apple.

Apple was on a major thoroughfare called Baker Street, so it was easily seen by pedestrians and cars.

So Paul wrote in big white paint on the window: 'Hey Jude' and 'Revolution (the B-side track)'.

However, one day when he went to Apple, he found that a window had been broken.

Persecute Jews?

And then a man who runs a shop in Marylebone called and hurled abuse at me, saying, “I’ll send my son over to your place right away and have him smash you to pieces.”

Paul, who had answered the phone, had no idea what it was about and asked for the reason.

Then the man on the phone, who was Jewish, stated the fact that the Nazis persecuted Jews, painting the word “Jude” (Jew) and the Star of David, a Jewish symbol, on Jewish-owned shops in Germany as part of their persecution.

In other words, he mistakenly thought that the Beatles were discriminating against Jewish people.

Paul apologized and explained that it was merely a coincidence that the names matched, and that he had absolutely no intention of discriminating against Jewish people.

The man accepted that and did not press Paul any further.

However, Paul experienced World War II and also knew that the Nazis were persecuting the Jews.

Because it is a very sensitive issue for Jewish people, we should probably have acted with a bit more caution.

As an aside, when this song was released in Japan, it seems there were people who were delighted, thinking, “This is a song praising Japanese judo” (lol).