A Sad Song and Make It Better

“Hey Jude, don’t make it bad, take a sad song and make it better, remember to let her into your heart, then you can start to make it better…”

Fifty years ago, in 1968, Paul McCartney wrote Hey Jude for John Lennon’s son Julian because his father and mother Cynthia Lennon were going through a divorce. Paul felt bad for Julian and did everything he could to comfort him as he went through the emotional ordeal. The original name of the song was “Hey Jules,” but it was decided that “Hey Jude” sounded better. The changed name did not affect the heart and feeling of the song which debuted as a single with Revolution on the B side and never appeared on an actual album. However, the song did appear on one of the Beatles’ compilation albums entitled, “Hey Jude,” which sold as many records as their regular albums.

Before Hey Jude arrived, radio stations would not play any songs longer than three minutes, and Hey Jude was over seven minutes long. Normally, the song would be cut or would not be played on the radio at all, yet, Hey Jude was the first seven-minute song played in its entirety on the popular radio stations. To this day, people all over the world know the song, and who doesn’t sing along at the “Na, nan a na na na na na na, hey Jude!” part?

I first heard Hey Jude on the radio in the late summer of 1968, a month after my 11th birthday. Dad and Mom had been split up for over a year and my sister Jennifer was still recovering from pneumonia.