Pushkin. Hi, everyone, it's Paul Moldoin. Before we get to this episode, I wanted to let you know that you can binge all twelve episodes of McCartney A Life and Lyrics right now, add free by becoming a Pushkin Plus subscriber. Find Pushkin Plus on the McCartney A Life and Lyrics show page in Apple Podcasts, or at pushkin dot Fm slash Plus.
I remember one time when I was a kid and me and my friend Ian James, we were at a fair ground in our flecked jackets and I had a little flap on my breast pocket. I've really fancied myself. And we came back from this fairground ex tradition, and I had a major headache. So I sat down and we put on Elvis record All Shook Up, Love Amar Shook Up Yay, And by the end of that record, my headache had gods. So you know, the healing power of music is undeniable.
Love Amara Shook Up.
And Paul will do for a number of years. I've been fortunate to spend time with one of the greatest songwriters of the era.
And will you look at me, I'm going on to I'm actually a performer, that.
Is Sir Paul McCartney. We worked together on a book looking at the lyrics of more than one hundred and fifty of his songs, and we recorded many hours of our conversations.
It was like going back to an old snapshot album looking back on work I hadn't ever analyzed.
This is McCartney, a life in lyrics, a masterclass, a memoir, and an improvised journey with one of the most iconic figures in popular music in this episode, hey hey hey, Jude, Hey, Hey hey Hey. In the spring of nineteen sixty eight, John and Cynthia Lennon's marriage fell apart. He had been having a secret affair with the artist Yoko Ono and decided to leave his wife and five year old son, Julian.
Paul McCartney had known Cynthia Lennon since the early days in Liverpool and he was like an uncle to Julian.
I was traveling Monday to see Julian Lenon, yes his mother Cynthia, and I used to call him Jewels. So the song started off when I was in the car driving out, which was a forty five minute drive out of central London, and people had sort of suggested, Oh, you know, I fancy Cynthia was going to Well, people can suggest anything like but I didn't. I was just going out just as a friend, just sort of see them. And so in my mind, Hey, Jules, what's so don't make it bad? You know, I know this is tough
for you. But take a sad song and make it better.
Remember do letter and deal.
Then you can start do make it better.
Your dad's just left you, so it was like trying to be encouraging, so it was an encouraging song. Remember to let anything to your heart, remember to let love into your heart. If make it better.
This is often the case with McCartney's songwriting. He started with a specific inspiration, then followed the story of the song where it led him.
What often happened for my songs is it starts off with someone being worried about something in life, a specific thing like a divorce. But then I start to just morph it because I still get it fed up with the theme and I like to just move away from because nobody knows what this is about. So I'm just saying make it better. And to somebody called Jude, I don't have a clutch and called jud.
Yes, because people would not have known at the time. M that in after years discuss.
Yes, So then I start moving. You were made to go out and get her. Now there's a woman arrival on the scene. So now he's said about a breakup something. So remember now to let her under your skin, and then you begin to make it better. And anytime you feel the pain, now it's mixed. It could be about Julian or it could be about this new woman relationship.
Hey, dude, don't be afraid.
You were made to God and get her.
The minute you let her under your skin, then you begin to make it better.
And it's anyone. I like my songs to be every man or every woman because I know people are going to listen to them, and I like the fact that they put their own interpretations on them. And I'm glad when the lyrics get up bit screwed up they mishear them because it's yours. Now you know, I've let it go and so now you should make of it what you will.
McCartney himself had been struggling. It was a stressful time. The Beatles were beginning to drift apart, even as they were finding their own record label, Apple Core. McCartney had just separated from his fiance, the actress Jane Asher, and was falling in love with the photographer Linda Eastman. As much as he was writing words of consolation for little Julian, he himself may have been in need of encouragement.
So anytime you feel the pain, did you refrain? Don't carry the world on your shoulder.
And any time you feel the pain of fame, don't care the world your shoulder.
Well, you know that is a.
Food ming is world on its golder.
That's something that I'm quite keen on. That idea that to be cool you've got to betray yourself. Oh yeah, what the fucky man? I'm sorry, Tod jeezuz if nothing gets to me baby, hey wow, how col is? And to me it's always well, no, it's not because we can see through it.
Cool.
It's actually great if you can be it for real. But that's sort of faking. If you just try and play it cool, then it's not happening. You'll be making you well a little colder, and that's not a good idea. So it's a good of advice.
When I was a robber in Boston place, you gathered round me.
With your fun, embrace Hey Dude.
In the studio, the Beatles always preferred being playful to playing. At Cole they did a few takes of Hey Jude, but Paul McCartney remembers knowing in the moment which one they would use.
Hey Dude, don't make it bad, Take a sad song and make it beatter.
He had accidentally begun the song while Ringo was out of the room, but Ringo managed to return from the toilet at just the right moment, hitting his drum entrance perfectly.
At any time you feel a pain of hajo.
It was the most spirited take, though not without mistakes. If you listen really carefully, you may hear one of the band members swearing. When Paul flubs the piano part.
Remem to and ask him then you make.
To making bed.
Just as the subject of the song shifted for the writer, the meaning transformed for those who heard it. When Paul McCartney played a draft of Hey Jude for John Lennon and Yoko Ono, John thought the song was addressed to him instead up to his son. From Lennon's point of view, Paul McCartney was encouraging his friend to stop waiting for someone to perform with and to go out and get her.
So let it out, let it in.
Hey, you wait.
To I like singing that, don't you know?
That is just you?
Don't you know this's you? Hey, Jude, you do Junie, He is on your shoulder. The movement you need is on your shoulder. Now, I thought that was me just blocking in. And when I played it to John and Yoko in my music room on my psychedelic piano, I'm sitting facing this way, a little standing behind me, almost on my shoulder, and they're listening and answer pleasing myself.
I'm playing this new song and I turn around Toton you need is on your shoulder, and turn around to Jona said don't worry, I'll change that, and he looked at me, said you want you know it's the best line in it.
John Lennon wasn't the only one who heard something deeply personal in the song who would feel as if Paul was singing directly to him. The song became a call to anyone who had gone through difficult times and needed cheering up.
Well, you know, I just think that everyone goes through periods in their life when things are going wrong, you know, they're losing people, their children are ill or whatever, and it's just so much pain. In regard to all of that, I'm empathizing and trying to encourage someone who is going through a really bad time, because I know when I've
been going through bad times. I don't know, like Linda's illness and consequent death and the breakup of the Beatles, all these sort of things, these moments in your life. I know, you really feel that you've got a pit in your stomach all the time. So to me, the idea sometimes behind songs is to try and reach that person and say, look, you know, how about this thought. So I'm always trying to do that. I notice. I notice I'm always trying to say, look, it's going to
be okay, you know it will be all right. I'm trying to be the voice of encouragement.
Hey, you don't make it bad, make it.
Manna Hate Jude is a song that's able to shift and take on new meaning with each rendition. What started as a song for Julian Lennon took on new resonance for each listener who could apply it to whatever struggle they were facing in their own lives. It also struck a chord with other musicians who covered the song and gave it their own spin. This included the man whose song cured Paul's headache all those years ago, Elvis Presley.
Hate You No Let Me Down, make a sad song and making manner.
No many you let her into your heart?
There you can stop you.
Make each time you sing it?
Are you singing it for the first time?
It's a bit that. Yeah, I'm singing a twenty something composers lyrics and I'm evaluating them, listening to see how he does. And I'm marking myself and I must say generally good marks and generally approve because I'm going, oh, just little things like for well, you know, instead of for you know, well, it's just for well, you know,
it's just going I did that. I often have to stop myself doing that because there's ninety thousand people here and you're supposed to be relating to them when you're actually awful.
Ooh that good.
The spirit of Hey Jude is present in its lyrics, but it's equally present in Paul McCartney's vocal perform ormance of the song. What begins as a song for a child in pen becomes an act of self compassion. In the words of the music critic Tim Riley, McCartney begins by singing to comfort someone else, finds himself weighing his own feelings in the process, and finally, in the repeated refrains that nurture his own approbation, he comes to believe in himself.
Age you.
As McCartney's original sense has carried across generations, Hey Jude itself has also maintained its intergenerational appeal. The idea of taking a sad song and making it better is something pretty much everybody can get behind, just as we can all sing along with the songs rising by Crow.
I mean, you know, when I do concerts, I have people in the audience from every generation older than my generation, people of my generation, people of my children's generation, and people of their children's generation. And it always surprises me because I think in rock and roll we all expected that it wouldn't last very long. So I do find it incredible that I can see a five year old who knows the words as well, sometimes even better than I do, and then I can see their parents enjoying it,
and possibly they've come to it through their parents. As you go on to the eldest generation. You know, people who are a few years ahead of me. They all lived through this time, through the sixties, and through the excitement and the freedom, So we all are experiencing this thing together. No matter what age we are, the feeling is still the same and it never ceases to amaze me.
Hey Jude was the first single from the Beatles' own record company, Apple Core, and at over seven minutes, it was the longest single to ever hit number one. The Beatles released Hey Dude in nineteen sixty eight. In the next episode.
To Lead a Metal Life, My Need My.
McCartney's favorite McCartney song, Here, There and everywhere. That's next time on McCartney A Life in Lyrics. McCartney A Life in Lyrics is a co production between iHeartMedia, NPL and Pushkin Industries.