This past Saturday, August 26th, marked the 55th anniversary of the release of The Beatles biggest hit “Hey Jude.”
The song was backed with "Revolution, and it was the first single released on their Apple label and one of the "First Four" singles by Apple's roster of artists which marked the label's public launch.
Paul McCartney came up with the idea for the song while visiting John Lennon's wife Cynthia and their son Julian after John left Cynthia for Yoko Ono.
McCartney said he came up with the idea for “Hey Jude” while driving to Cynthia’s home:
"I started coming up with these words. In my own mind, I was kind of talking to Julian. 'Hey Jules, don't take it bad. Take a sad song and make it better.' You know, it'll be all right. So I kind of got the first set of idea on the way out there with this, 'Hey Jules,' as I thought it was going to be called. It seemed a little bit of a mouthful, so I changed it to 'Jude.'"
Ironically, before The Beatles recorded the song, McCartney played if for John and Yoko. Paul recalled that: "I thought there was a little more to go. There was one bit of the words, which was, 'The movement you need is on your shoulder.' And I'm playing, I just looked at John and said, 'I'll fix that, I'll fix that.' He said, 'Wha?' I said, 'The movement you'll need is on your shoulder.' I've used the word shoulder once. And anyway, it's a stupid expression. It sounds like a parrot. I'll change that. He said, 'You won't, you know.' He said, 'That's the best line in the song, y'know.'"
“Hey Jude” would go on to spend nine weeks at #1, making it the biggest hit The Beatles ever had.
[Source: Classic Hits Today]