Hey Jude
Encyclopedia
"Hey Jude" is a song by the English rock
band The Beatles
, written by Paul McCartney
and credited to Lennon–McCartney. The ballad
evolved from "Hey Jules", a song widely accepted as being written to comfort John Lennon
's son, Julian
, during his parents' divorce—although this explanation is not universally accepted and even McCartney has given conflicting accounts over the years (see below). "Hey Jude" begins with a verse-bridge structure based around McCartney's vocal performance and piano accompaniment; further instrumentation is added as the song progresses to distinguish sections. After the fourth verse, the song shifts to a fade-out coda
that lasts for more than four minutes.
"Hey Jude" was released in August 1968 as the first single from The Beatles' record label Apple Records. More than seven minutes in length, "Hey Jude" was, at the time, the longest single ever to top the British charts. It also spent nine weeks as number one in the United States—the longest run at the top of the American charts for a Beatles' single, and tied the record for longest stay at number one (until the record was broken by "You Light Up My Life
"). The single has sold approximately eight million copies and is frequently included on professional lists of the all-time best songs.
separated due to John's affair with Yoko Ono
. Soon afterwards, Paul McCartney drove out to visit Cynthia and her—and Lennon's—son Julian. "We'd been very good friends for millions of years and I thought it was a bit much for them suddenly to be personae non gratae and out of my life," McCartney said. Cynthia Lennon recalled, "I was truly surprised when, one afternoon, Paul arrived on his own. I was touched by his obvious concern for our welfare.... On the journey down he composed 'Hey Jude' in the car. I will never forget Paul's gesture of care and concern in coming to see us."
The song's original title was "Hey Jules," and it was intended to comfort Julian Lennon
from the stress of his parents' divorce. McCartney said, "I started with the idea 'Hey Jules,' which was Julian, don't make it bad, take a sad song and make it better. Hey, try and deal with this terrible thing. I knew it was not going to be easy for him. I always feel sorry for kids in divorces ... I had the idea [for the song] by the time I got there. I changed it to 'Jude' because I thought that sounded a bit better." Julian Lennon discovered the song had been written for him almost twenty years later. He remembered being closer to McCartney than to his father: "Paul and I used to hang about quite a bit—more than Dad and I did. We had a great friendship going and there seems to be far more pictures of me and Paul playing together at that age than there are pictures of me and my dad."
Although McCartney originally wrote the song for Julian Lennon, John Lennon thought it had actually been written for him:
Other people believed McCartney wrote the song about them, including Judith Simons, a journalist with the Daily Express
. Still others, including John Lennon, have speculated that McCartney's failing long-term relationship with Jane Asher
when he wrote "Hey Jude" was an unconscious "message to himself." In fact, when Lennon mentioned that he thought the song was about him, McCartney denied it, and told Lennon he had written the song about himself.
Writer Mark Hertsgaard noted "many of the song's lyrics do seem directed more at a grown man on the verge of a powerful new love, especially the lines 'you have found her now go and get her' and 'you're waiting for someone to perform with.'" Tim Riley wrote, "If the song is about self-worth and self-consolation in the face of hardship, the vocal performance itself conveys much of the journey. He 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."
McCartney changed the title to "Hey Jude" because the name Jude was easier to sing. Much as he did with "Yesterday
", McCartney played the song for other musicians and friends. Ron Griffith of Badfinger
(known at this time as The Iveys, and the first band to join The Beatles-owned record label Apple Records), recalled that on their first day in the studio, "Paul walked over to the grand piano and said, 'Hey lads, have a listen', and he sat down and gave us a full concert rendition of 'Hey Jude'. We were gobsmacked."
When McCartney introduced Lennon to his new composition, he came to "the movement you need is on your shoulder" and told Lennon "I'll fix that bit." Lennon asked why, and McCartney answered "...it's a stupid expression; it sounds like a parrot." Lennon parried with "You won't, you know. That's the best line in the song." McCartney thus left the line in, and later said "...when I play that song, that's the line when I think of John, and sometimes I get a little emotional during that moment."
s of "Hey Jude" at Abbey Road Studios
in two nights, 29 and 30 July 1968. These were mostly rehearsals, however, as they planned to record the master track at Trident Studios
to utilise their eight-track recording machine
(Abbey Road was still limited to four-tracks). One take from 29 July is available on the Anthology 3
CD. The master rhythm track was recorded on 31 July at Trident. Four takes were recorded; take one was selected. The song was completed on 1 August with additional overdubs including a 36-piece orchestra for the song's long coda
, scored by George Martin
. The orchestra consisted of ten violins, three violas, three cellos, two flutes, one contra bassoon, one bassoon, two clarinets, one contra bass clarinet, four trumpets, four trombones, two horns, percussion, and two string basses. While adding backing vocals, The Beatles asked the orchestra members if they would clap their hands and sing along to the refrain in the song's coda. Most complied (for a double fee), but one declined, reportedly saying, "I'm not going to clap my hands and sing Paul McCartney's bloody song!"
Ringo Starr
almost missed his drum cue. He left for a toilet break—unnoticed by the other Beatles—and the band started recording. In 1994, McCartney said, "Ringo walked out to go to the toilet and I hadn't noticed. The toilet was only a few yards from his drum booth, but he'd gone past my back and I still thought he was in his drum booth. I started what was the actual take, and 'Hey Jude' goes on for hours before the drums come in and while I was doing it I suddenly felt Ringo tiptoeing past my back rather quickly, trying to get to his drums. And just as he got to his drums, boom boom boom, his timing was absolutely impeccable."
At 2:58 of the song, someone can allegedly be heard to say, "Fucking hell!" There is some dispute as to who said this, and whether it was really exclaimed at all. Sound engineers Ken Scott
and Geoff Emerick
claim the exclamation came from McCartney, and that it was Lennon's idea to leave the mistake in the final mix. "'Paul hit a clunker on the piano and said a naughty word,' Lennon gleefully crowed, 'but I insisted we leave it in, buried just low enough so that it can barely be heard. Most people won't ever spot it...but we'll know it's there.'" However, in the book Recording The Beatles, engineer Malcolm Toft recalls, "Barry Sheffield engineered 'Hey Jude', but I mixed it... John Lennon says a very rude word about halfway through the song. At 2:59 you will hear a 'Whoa!' from him in the background. About two seconds later you will hear, 'F***ing hell!' This was because when he was doing a vocal backing, Barry sent him the foldback level [headphone volume] too loud and he threw the cans on the ground and uttered the expletive. But, because it had been bounced down [mixed] with the main vocal, it could not be removed. I just managed to bring the fader down for a split second on the mix to try to lessen the effect." Others argue that the voice is Ringo Starr's. In fairness, it should be stated that there is no 100% concrete proof that profanity can be heard on the record (as demonstrated by the conflicting reports from supposed insiders), and it has been theorised that the phrase in question is actually, "Help me out..." - a direction from McCartney to the other Beatles to assist him in the big choral refrain that they were about to hit at that point in the take.
George Harrison
and McCartney had a disagreement over this song. According to McCartney, during a rehearsal Harrison played an answer to every line of the vocal. This did not fit with McCartney's idea of the song's arrangement, and he vetoed it. In a 1994 interview, McCartney said, "We were joking when we made the Anthology: I was saying: 'I realise I was a bossy git.' And George said, 'Oh no, Paul, you never did anything like that!' ... But it was essential for me and looking back on it, I think, Okay. Well, it was bossy, but it was ballsy of me, because I could have bowed to the pressure." Ron Richards, who worked for George Martin at both Parlophone
at AIR Studios
, and who discovered The Hollies
, was present for many Beatles' recording sessions. He said McCartney was "oblivious to anyone else's feelings in the studio," and that he was driven to make the best possible record, at almost any cost.
"Hey Jude" begins with McCartney singing lead vocals and playing the piano. The patterns McCartney plays are based on three chords: F, C and B-flat (I, V and IV); the second verse adds accompaniment by guitar and a single tambourine. The main chord progression is "flipped on its head" for the coda, as the C chord is replaced by E-flat. Writer Tim Riley notes, "As Ringo offers a restrained tom-tom and cymbal fill, the piano shifts downward to add a flat seventh to the tonic chord, making the downbeat of the bridge the point of arrival ('And any time you feel the pain)." At the end of each bridge, McCartney sings a brief phrase ("Na-na-na na . . .") and plays a piano fill which leads to the next verse; the phrase McCartney sings serves to "reorient the harmony for the verse as the piano figure turns upside down into a vocal aside." Additional details, such as tambourine on the third verse and subtle harmonies that accompany the lead vocal, are added to sustain the interest of the listener throughout the four-verse, two-bridge song.
The verse-bridge structure of the song persists for approximately three minutes, after which the band leads into a four-minute-long coda. During the coda, the rest of band, backed by an orchestra that also provides backing vocals, repeat the phrase "Na-na-na na" followed by the words "Hey Jude" until the song gradually fades out. Time
magazine described the coda as "a fadeout that engagingly spoofs the fadeout as a gimmick for ending pop records." Riley notes the repeated chord progression of the coda (I-flat VII-IV-I) "answers all the musical questions raised at the beginnings and ends of bridges," for "The flat seventh that pose dominant turns into bridges now has an entire chord built on it." This three-chord refrain allows McCartney "a bedding [. . .] to leap about on vocally", as he ad-libs his vocal performance for the rest of the song. Riley concludes that the song "becomes a tour of Paul's vocal range: from the graceful inviting tones of the opening verse, through the mounting excitement of the song itself, to the surging raves of the coda."
" on the B-side
of a 7" single. The single was the debut release of The Beatles' record label Apple Records; in the US, it was also the first Beatles' single to be issued in a company sleeve rather than a picture sleeve. Even though "Hey Jude" was recorded during the sessions for the album The Beatles
, also known as the White Album, it was always intended as a single and not an album track. Lennon wanted "Revolution" to be the A-side of the single, but the other Beatles did not agree. In his 1970 interview with Rolling Stone
, he said "Hey Jude" was worthy of an A-side, "but we could have had both." Ten years later in 1980, he told Playboy
he still disagreed with the decision.
"Hey Jude" began its sixteen-week run on the British charts on 7 September 1968, claiming the top spot a week later. It only lasted two weeks on top before being knocked off by another single from Apple, Mary Hopkin
's "Those Were the Days
" (a song which, incidentally, if not penned was actually produced by McCartney). The single was certified gold
by the Recording Industry Association of America
on 13 September; that same week NME
reported that two million copies of the single had been sold. The song entered the US charts on 14 September 1968, where it stayed for nineteen weeks. Two weeks later, "Hey Jude" was number one in the charts, and held that position for nine weeks, the longest time spent by a Beatles' single at number one, as well as being the longest-playing single to reach number one.
"Hey Jude" clocked in at 7:11. The only other chart-topping song worldwide in the 1960s that ran over seven minutes was Richard Harris' "MacArthur Park
". In the UK, where "MacArthur Park" did not top the chart, "Hey Jude" remained the longest number-one hit for nearly a quarter of a century, until it was surpassed in 1993 by Meat Loaf
's "I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)
", which ran 7:58 as a single.
On 30 November 1968 NME reported that sales had reached nearly six million copies worldwide. "Hey Jude" became the biggest-selling debut release for a record label ever, selling an estimated eight million copies worldwide and topping the charts in eleven countries. "Hey Jude" was the top Billboard Hot 100
single for 1968, according to year-end charts. Less than three weeks after its release, the record was certified gold for sales of one million copies. In 1999, it was certified 4x platinum
, representing four million units shipped.
. On 7 August 1968, McCartney took his new girlfriend Francie Schwartz
and Taylor to the Apple Boutique
closed only a week before, in order to paint the upcoming single's title Hey Jude/Revolution on its large street-side shop window. Within a day, the hand-made piece of promotion was mistaken for an anti-Semitic
graffito (as Jude, beside being an English first name, happens to mean "Jew" in German), and the window was smashed by passers-by.
McCartney himself related the incident like this in 1996:
, millions of buses going around…" So, before anyone knew what it meant, I scraped Hey Jude out of the whitewash.
A guy who had a delicatessen
in Marylebone
rang me up, and he was furious: "I'm going to send one of my sons round to beat you up." I said, "Hang on, hang on — what's this about?" and he said: "You’ve written Jude in the shop window." I had no idea it meant "Jew", but if you look at footage of Nazi Germany
, "Juden Raus" was written in whitewashed windows with a Star of David
. I swear it never occurred to me.
I said: "I'm really sorry," and on and on… "some of my best friends are Jewish, really. It's just a song we've got coming out. If you listen to the song you'll see it’s nothing to do with any of that – it's a complete coincidence." He was just about pacified in the end.
— Paul McCartney, The Beatles Anthology
"Hey Jude" was nominated for the Grammy Awards of 1969
in the Record of the Year
, Song of the Year
and Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal
categories, but failed to win any of them. It did win the 1968 Ivor Novello Award
for "A-Side With the Highest Sales". In the 1968 NME
Readers' Poll, "Hey Jude" was named the best single of the year. In 2001, "Hey Jude" was inducted into the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences
Grammy Hall of Fame. In 2010, Rolling Stone ranked it #7 on The Beatles' 100 Greatest Songs. It came in third on Channel 4
's list of 100 Greatest Singles. The Amusement & Music Operators Association ranked "Hey Jude" the 11th-best jukebox
single of all time.
to shoot the "Hey Jude" promotional film (he had previously directed a 'promo' film for "Paperback Writer
") and they settled on the idea of filming with a live, albeit controlled audience. In the film, the four Beatles are first seen by themselves, performing the initial chorus and verses, and then are joined by the audience who appear as the last chorus concludes and coda begins; the audience sings and claps along with the Beatles through the song's conclusion. Hogg shot the film at Twickenham Film Studios
on 4 September 1968, with McCartney himself designing the set. Tony Bramwell, a friend of The Beatles, later described the set as "the piano, there; drums, there; and orchestra in two tiers at the back." The event is also memorable as it marked Starr's return to the group after a two-week hiatus, during which he had announced that he had left the band. The eventual, final film was a combination of several different takes and included filmed 'introductions' to the song by David Frost
(who introduced The Beatles as "the greatest tea-room orchestra in the world") and Cliff Richard
, for their respective, eponymous TV programmes. As filming wore on, Lennon repeatedly asked Lindsay-Hogg if he had the footage he needed. After twelve takes, McCartney said, "I think that's enough" and filming concluded. It was first aired in the UK on 8 September 1968 and the film was later broadcast for the United States on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour
on 6 October 1968. Footage of the performance can be seen in the Anthology DVD series. Two versions of the film exist.
In 2002, the original handwritten lyrics for the song were nearly auctioned off at Christie's
in London. The sheet of notepaper with the scrawled lyrics had been expected to fetch up to £80,000 at the auction, which was scheduled for 30 April 2002. McCartney went to court to stop the auction, claiming the paper had disappeared from his West London home. Richard Morgan, representing Christie's, said McCartney had provided no evidence that he had ever owned the piece of paper on which the lyrics were written. The courts decided in McCartney's favour and prohibited the sale of the lyrics. They had been sent to Christie's for auction by Frenchman Florrent Tessier, who said he purchased the piece of paper at a street market stall in London for £10 in the early 1970s. In the original catalogue for the auction, Julian Lennon had written, "It's very strange to think that someone has written a song about you. It still touches me."
at the 2009 Children in Need being to last act. This was voted number one out of fifty greatest moments of Children in Need in 2011.
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
band The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
, written by Paul McCartney
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of The Beatles and Wings , McCartney is listed in Guinness World Records as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100...
and credited to Lennon–McCartney. The ballad
Ballad
A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads were particularly characteristic of British and Irish popular poetry and song from the later medieval period until the 19th century and used extensively across Europe and later the Americas, Australia and North Africa. Many...
evolved from "Hey Jules", a song widely accepted as being written to comfort John Lennon
John Lennon
John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...
's son, Julian
Julian Lennon
John Charles Julian Lennon is an English musician, songwriter, actor, and photographer. He is the son of John Lennon and Lennon's first wife, Cynthia Powell. Beatles manager Brian Epstein was his godfather. He has a younger half-brother, Sean Lennon. Lennon was named after his paternal...
, during his parents' divorce—although this explanation is not universally accepted and even McCartney has given conflicting accounts over the years (see below). "Hey Jude" begins with a verse-bridge structure based around McCartney's vocal performance and piano accompaniment; further instrumentation is added as the song progresses to distinguish sections. After the fourth verse, the song shifts to a fade-out coda
Coda (music)
Coda is a term used in music in a number of different senses, primarily to designate a passage that brings a piece to an end. Technically, it is an expanded cadence...
that lasts for more than four minutes.
"Hey Jude" was released in August 1968 as the first single from The Beatles' record label Apple Records. More than seven minutes in length, "Hey Jude" was, at the time, the longest single ever to top the British charts. It also spent nine weeks as number one in the United States—the longest run at the top of the American charts for a Beatles' single, and tied the record for longest stay at number one (until the record was broken by "You Light Up My Life
You Light Up My Life (song)
Many artists have covered "You Light Up My Life" since 1977. The following year, Johnny Mathis recorded and named his album after the song. LeAnn Rimes released her version as a single in 1997, 20 years after Boone's version was released and on the same record label . Her version fared modestly...
"). The single has sold approximately eight million copies and is frequently included on professional lists of the all-time best songs.
Inspiration and writing
In 1968, John Lennon and his wife Cynthia LennonCynthia Lennon
Cynthia Lillian Lennon is the former wife of musician John Lennon, and mother of Julian Lennon. She grew up in the middle-class section of Hoylake, on the Wirral Peninsula in North West England. At the age of twelve, she was accepted into the Junior Art School, and was later enrolled in the...
separated due to John's affair with Yoko Ono
Yoko Ono
is a Japanese artist, musician, author and peace activist, known for her work in avant-garde art, music and filmmaking as well as her marriage to John Lennon...
. Soon afterwards, Paul McCartney drove out to visit Cynthia and her—and Lennon's—son Julian. "We'd been very good friends for millions of years and I thought it was a bit much for them suddenly to be personae non gratae and out of my life," McCartney said. Cynthia Lennon recalled, "I was truly surprised when, one afternoon, Paul arrived on his own. I was touched by his obvious concern for our welfare.... On the journey down he composed 'Hey Jude' in the car. I will never forget Paul's gesture of care and concern in coming to see us."
The song's original title was "Hey Jules," and it was intended to comfort Julian Lennon
Julian Lennon
John Charles Julian Lennon is an English musician, songwriter, actor, and photographer. He is the son of John Lennon and Lennon's first wife, Cynthia Powell. Beatles manager Brian Epstein was his godfather. He has a younger half-brother, Sean Lennon. Lennon was named after his paternal...
from the stress of his parents' divorce. McCartney said, "I started with the idea 'Hey Jules,' which was Julian, don't make it bad, take a sad song and make it better. Hey, try and deal with this terrible thing. I knew it was not going to be easy for him. I always feel sorry for kids in divorces ... I had the idea [for the song] by the time I got there. I changed it to 'Jude' because I thought that sounded a bit better." Julian Lennon discovered the song had been written for him almost twenty years later. He remembered being closer to McCartney than to his father: "Paul and I used to hang about quite a bit—more than Dad and I did. We had a great friendship going and there seems to be far more pictures of me and Paul playing together at that age than there are pictures of me and my dad."
Although McCartney originally wrote the song for Julian Lennon, John Lennon thought it had actually been written for him:
But I always heard it as a song to me. If you think about it... Yoko's just come into the picture. He's saying. 'Hey, Jude—Hey, John.' I know I'm sounding like one of those fans who reads things into it, but you can hear it as a song to me ... Subconsciously, he was saying, Go ahead, leave me. On a conscious level, he didn't want me to go ahead.
Other people believed McCartney wrote the song about them, including Judith Simons, a journalist with the Daily Express
Daily Express
The Daily Express switched from broadsheet to tabloid in 1977 and was bought by the construction company Trafalgar House in the same year. Its publishing company, Beaverbrook Newspapers, was renamed Express Newspapers...
. Still others, including John Lennon, have speculated that McCartney's failing long-term relationship with Jane Asher
Jane Asher
Jane Asher is an English actress. She has also developed a second career as a cake decorator and cake shop proprietor.-Early life:...
when he wrote "Hey Jude" was an unconscious "message to himself." In fact, when Lennon mentioned that he thought the song was about him, McCartney denied it, and told Lennon he had written the song about himself.
Writer Mark Hertsgaard noted "many of the song's lyrics do seem directed more at a grown man on the verge of a powerful new love, especially the lines 'you have found her now go and get her' and 'you're waiting for someone to perform with.'" Tim Riley wrote, "If the song is about self-worth and self-consolation in the face of hardship, the vocal performance itself conveys much of the journey. He 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."
McCartney changed the title to "Hey Jude" because the name Jude was easier to sing. Much as he did with "Yesterday
Yesterday (song)
"Yesterday" is a song originally recorded by The Beatles for their 1965 album Help!. The song first hit the United Kingdom top 10 three months after the release of Help!. The song remains popular today with more than 1,600 cover versions, one of the most covered songs in the history of recorded...
", McCartney played the song for other musicians and friends. Ron Griffith of Badfinger
Badfinger
Badfinger were a British rock band consisting originally of Pete Ham, Ron Griffiths, Mike Gibbins and Tom Evans, active from 1968 to 1983, and evolving from The Iveys, formed by Ham, Griffiths and David "Dai" Jenkins in Swansea, Wales, in the early 1960s. Joey Molland joined the group in 1969,...
(known at this time as The Iveys, and the first band to join The Beatles-owned record label Apple Records), recalled that on their first day in the studio, "Paul walked over to the grand piano and said, 'Hey lads, have a listen', and he sat down and gave us a full concert rendition of 'Hey Jude'. We were gobsmacked."
When McCartney introduced Lennon to his new composition, he came to "the movement you need is on your shoulder" and told Lennon "I'll fix that bit." Lennon asked why, and McCartney answered "...it's a stupid expression; it sounds like a parrot." Lennon parried with "You won't, you know. That's the best line in the song." McCartney thus left the line in, and later said "...when I play that song, that's the line when I think of John, and sometimes I get a little emotional during that moment."
Recording
The Beatles recorded 25 takeTake
A take is a single continuous recorded performance. The term is used in film and music to denote and track the stages of production.-Film:In cinematography, a take refers to each filmed "version" of a particular shot or "setup"...
s of "Hey Jude" at Abbey Road Studios
Abbey Road Studios
Abbey Road Studios is a recording studio located at 3 Abbey Road, St John's Wood, City of Westminster, London, England. It was established in November 1931 by the Gramophone Company, a predecessor of British music company EMI, its present owner...
in two nights, 29 and 30 July 1968. These were mostly rehearsals, however, as they planned to record the master track at Trident Studios
Trident Studios
Trident Studios was a British recording facility, originally located at 17 St. Anne's Court in London's Soho district. It was constructed in 1967 by Norman Sheffield a drummer of former 1960's group The Hunters and his Brother Barry....
to utilise their eight-track recording machine
Multitrack recording
Multitrack recording is a method of sound recording that allows for the separate recording of multiple sound sources to create a cohesive whole...
(Abbey Road was still limited to four-tracks). One take from 29 July is available on the Anthology 3
Anthology 3
Anthology 3 is a compilation album by The Beatles released in October 1996 by Apple Records as part of The Beatles Anthology series. The album includes rarities and alternative tracks from the final two years of the band's career, ranging from the initial sessions for The Beatles to the last...
CD. The master rhythm track was recorded on 31 July at Trident. Four takes were recorded; take one was selected. The song was completed on 1 August with additional overdubs including a 36-piece orchestra for the song's long coda
Coda (music)
Coda is a term used in music in a number of different senses, primarily to designate a passage that brings a piece to an end. Technically, it is an expanded cadence...
, scored by George Martin
George Martin
Sir George Henry Martin CBE is an English record producer, arranger, composer and musician. He is sometimes referred to as "the Fifth Beatle"— a title that he often describes as "nonsense," but the fact remains that he served as producer on all but one of The Beatles' original albums...
. The orchestra consisted of ten violins, three violas, three cellos, two flutes, one contra bassoon, one bassoon, two clarinets, one contra bass clarinet, four trumpets, four trombones, two horns, percussion, and two string basses. While adding backing vocals, The Beatles asked the orchestra members if they would clap their hands and sing along to the refrain in the song's coda. Most complied (for a double fee), but one declined, reportedly saying, "I'm not going to clap my hands and sing Paul McCartney's bloody song!"
Ringo Starr
Ringo Starr
Richard Starkey, MBE better known by his stage name Ringo Starr, is an English musician and actor who gained worldwide fame as the drummer for The Beatles. When the band formed in 1960, Starr was a member of another Liverpool band, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. He became The Beatles' drummer in...
almost missed his drum cue. He left for a toilet break—unnoticed by the other Beatles—and the band started recording. In 1994, McCartney said, "Ringo walked out to go to the toilet and I hadn't noticed. The toilet was only a few yards from his drum booth, but he'd gone past my back and I still thought he was in his drum booth. I started what was the actual take, and 'Hey Jude' goes on for hours before the drums come in and while I was doing it I suddenly felt Ringo tiptoeing past my back rather quickly, trying to get to his drums. And just as he got to his drums, boom boom boom, his timing was absolutely impeccable."
At 2:58 of the song, someone can allegedly be heard to say, "Fucking hell!" There is some dispute as to who said this, and whether it was really exclaimed at all. Sound engineers Ken Scott
Ken Scott
Ken Scott is an English record producer and recording engineer.-Career:Scott started at the age of 16 working in the tape library at Abbey Road Studios. He became a recording engineer working with such acts as The Beatles, Jeff Beck, Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones and Procol Harum...
and Geoff Emerick
Geoff Emerick
Geoffrey Emerick is an English recording studio audio engineer, who is best known for his work with The Beatles' albums Revolver, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles and Abbey Road...
claim the exclamation came from McCartney, and that it was Lennon's idea to leave the mistake in the final mix. "'Paul hit a clunker on the piano and said a naughty word,' Lennon gleefully crowed, 'but I insisted we leave it in, buried just low enough so that it can barely be heard. Most people won't ever spot it...but we'll know it's there.'" However, in the book Recording The Beatles, engineer Malcolm Toft recalls, "Barry Sheffield engineered 'Hey Jude', but I mixed it... John Lennon says a very rude word about halfway through the song. At 2:59 you will hear a 'Whoa!' from him in the background. About two seconds later you will hear, 'F***ing hell!' This was because when he was doing a vocal backing, Barry sent him the foldback level [headphone volume] too loud and he threw the cans on the ground and uttered the expletive. But, because it had been bounced down [mixed] with the main vocal, it could not be removed. I just managed to bring the fader down for a split second on the mix to try to lessen the effect." Others argue that the voice is Ringo Starr's. In fairness, it should be stated that there is no 100% concrete proof that profanity can be heard on the record (as demonstrated by the conflicting reports from supposed insiders), and it has been theorised that the phrase in question is actually, "Help me out..." - a direction from McCartney to the other Beatles to assist him in the big choral refrain that they were about to hit at that point in the take.
George Harrison
George Harrison
George Harrison, MBE was an English musician, guitarist, singer-songwriter, actor and film producer who achieved international fame as lead guitarist of The Beatles. Often referred to as "the quiet Beatle", Harrison became over time an admirer of Indian mysticism, and introduced it to the other...
and McCartney had a disagreement over this song. According to McCartney, during a rehearsal Harrison played an answer to every line of the vocal. This did not fit with McCartney's idea of the song's arrangement, and he vetoed it. In a 1994 interview, McCartney said, "We were joking when we made the Anthology: I was saying: 'I realise I was a bossy git.' And George said, 'Oh no, Paul, you never did anything like that!' ... But it was essential for me and looking back on it, I think, Okay. Well, it was bossy, but it was ballsy of me, because I could have bowed to the pressure." Ron Richards, who worked for George Martin at both Parlophone
Parlophone
Parlophone is a record label that was founded in Germany in 1896 by the Carl Lindström Company as Parlophon. The British branch was formed in 1923 as "Parlophone" which developed a reputation in the 1920s as a leading jazz label. It was acquired in 1927 by the Columbia Graphophone Company which...
at AIR Studios
Associated Independent Recording
Associated Independent Recording , an independent recording company, was founded in London in 1965 by Beatles producer George Martin and his partner John Burgess after their departure from EMI....
, and who discovered The Hollies
The Hollies
The Hollies are an English pop and rock group, formed in Manchester in the early 1960s, though most of the band members are from throughout East Lancashire. Known for their distinctive vocal harmony style, they became one of the leading British groups of the 1960s and 1970s...
, was present for many Beatles' recording sessions. He said McCartney was "oblivious to anyone else's feelings in the studio," and that he was driven to make the best possible record, at almost any cost.
Composition and structure
The verse-bridge structure of the song persists for approximately three minutes, after which the band leads into a four-minute-long coda. During the coda, the rest of band, backed by an orchestra that also provides backing vocals, repeat the phrase "Na-na-na na" followed by the words "Hey Jude" until the song gradually fades out. Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine described the coda as "a fadeout that engagingly spoofs the fadeout as a gimmick for ending pop records." Riley notes the repeated chord progression of the coda (I-flat VII-IV-I) "answers all the musical questions raised at the beginnings and ends of bridges," for "The flat seventh that pose dominant turns into bridges now has an entire chord built on it." This three-chord refrain allows McCartney "a bedding [. . .] to leap about on vocally", as he ad-libs his vocal performance for the rest of the song. Riley concludes that the song "becomes a tour of Paul's vocal range: from the graceful inviting tones of the opening verse, through the mounting excitement of the song itself, to the surging raves of the coda."
Single release
"Hey Jude" was released on 26 August 1968, in the United States and 30 August in the United Kingdom, backed with "RevolutionRevolution (song)
"Revolution" is a song by The Beatles written by John Lennon and credited to Lennon–McCartney. The Beatles released two distinct arrangements of the song in 1968: a hard rock version as the B-side of the single "Hey Jude", and a slower version titled "Revolution 1" on the eponymous album The Beatles...
" on the B-side
A-side and B-side
A-side and B-side originally referred to the two sides of gramophone records on which singles were released beginning in the 1950s. The terms have come to refer to the types of song conventionally placed on each side of the record, with the A-side being the featured song , while the B-side, or...
of a 7" single. The single was the debut release of The Beatles' record label Apple Records; in the US, it was also the first Beatles' single to be issued in a company sleeve rather than a picture sleeve. Even though "Hey Jude" was recorded during the sessions for the album The Beatles
The Beatles (album)
The Beatles is the ninth official album by the English rock group The Beatles, a double album released in 1968. It is also commonly known as "The White Album" as it has no graphics or text other than the band's name embossed on its plain white sleeve.The album was written and recorded during a...
, also known as the White Album, it was always intended as a single and not an album track. Lennon wanted "Revolution" to be the A-side of the single, but the other Beatles did not agree. In his 1970 interview with Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
, he said "Hey Jude" was worthy of an A-side, "but we could have had both." Ten years later in 1980, he told Playboy
Playboy
Playboy is an American men's magazine that features photographs of nude women as well as journalism and fiction. It was founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. The magazine has grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc., with...
he still disagreed with the decision.
"Hey Jude" began its sixteen-week run on the British charts on 7 September 1968, claiming the top spot a week later. It only lasted two weeks on top before being knocked off by another single from Apple, Mary Hopkin
Mary Hopkin
Mary Hopkin , credited on some recordings as Mary Visconti, is a Welsh folk singer best known for her 1968 UK number one single "Those Were The Days". She was one of the first musicians to sign to The Beatles' Apple label....
's "Those Were the Days
Those Were the Days (song)
"Those Were the Days" is a song credited to Gene Raskin, who put English lyrics to the Russian song "Dorogoi dlinnoyu" , written by Boris Fomin with words by the poet Konstantin Podrevskii. It deals with reminiscence upon youth and romantic idealism...
" (a song which, incidentally, if not penned was actually produced by McCartney). The single was certified gold
RIAA certification
In the United States, the Recording Industry Association of America awards certification based on the number of albums and singles sold through retail and other ancillary markets. Other countries have similar awards...
by the Recording Industry Association of America
Recording Industry Association of America
The Recording Industry Association of America is a trade organization that represents the recording industry distributors in the United States...
on 13 September; that same week NME
NME
The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...
reported that two million copies of the single had been sold. The song entered the US charts on 14 September 1968, where it stayed for nineteen weeks. Two weeks later, "Hey Jude" was number one in the charts, and held that position for nine weeks, the longest time spent by a Beatles' single at number one, as well as being the longest-playing single to reach number one.
"Hey Jude" clocked in at 7:11. The only other chart-topping song worldwide in the 1960s that ran over seven minutes was Richard Harris' "MacArthur Park
MacArthur Park (song)
"MacArthur Park" is a song by Jimmy Webb, originally composed as part of an intended cantata. The song was initially rejected by The Association. Richard Harris was the first to record it, in 1968; the song was subsequently covered by numerous artists. Among the best-known covers are Donna Summer's...
". In the UK, where "MacArthur Park" did not top the chart, "Hey Jude" remained the longest number-one hit for nearly a quarter of a century, until it was surpassed in 1993 by Meat Loaf
Meat Loaf
Michael Lee Aday , better known by his stage name, Meat Loaf, is an American hard rock musician and actor...
's "I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)
I'd Do Anything for Love (but I Won't Do That)
"I'd Do Anything for Love " is a song composed and written by Jim Steinman, and recorded by Meat Loaf. The song was released in 1993 as the first single from the album Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell. The title of the song confused some listeners, who were curious to know what "that" is...
", which ran 7:58 as a single.
On 30 November 1968 NME reported that sales had reached nearly six million copies worldwide. "Hey Jude" became the biggest-selling debut release for a record label ever, selling an estimated eight million copies worldwide and topping the charts in eleven countries. "Hey Jude" was the top Billboard Hot 100
Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...
single for 1968, according to year-end charts. Less than three weeks after its release, the record was certified gold for sales of one million copies. In 1999, it was certified 4x platinum
RIAA certification
In the United States, the Recording Industry Association of America awards certification based on the number of albums and singles sold through retail and other ancillary markets. Other countries have similar awards...
, representing four million units shipped.
The Apple Boutique incident
A failed early promotional attempt for the single was later recalled by The Beatles' personal assistant Alistair TaylorAlistair Taylor
James Alistair Taylor was the English personal assistant of Brian Epstein who accompanied him to the Cavern Club when he first saw The Beatles play on 9 November 1961...
. On 7 August 1968, McCartney took his new girlfriend Francie Schwartz
Francie Schwartz
Francie Schwartz, born 1944, is an American scriptwriter and the former girlfriend, during the late 1960s, of Paul McCartney, who referred to her as "Franny". At the time, McCartney was engaged to the actress Jane Asher who broke off the engagement when she found them in bed together, although...
and Taylor to the Apple Boutique
Apple Boutique
The Apple shop was a retail store that opened on 7 December 1967 located in a now demolished building on the corner of Baker Street and Paddington Street, Marylebone, London, and that closed on 30 June 1968. The shop was one of the first business ventures made by The Beatles' fledgling Apple...
closed only a week before, in order to paint the upcoming single's title Hey Jude/Revolution on its large street-side shop window. Within a day, the hand-made piece of promotion was mistaken for an anti-Semitic
Anti-Semitism
Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...
graffito (as Jude, beside being an English first name, happens to mean "Jew" in German), and the window was smashed by passers-by.
McCartney himself related the incident like this in 1996:
I went into the Apple shop just beforeHey Jude was being released. The windows were whited-out, and I thought: "Great opportunity. Baker Street
Baker Street
Baker Street is a street in the Marylebone district of the City of Westminster in London. It is named after builder William Baker, who laid the street out in the 18th century. The street is most famous for its connection to the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, who lived at a fictional 221B...
, millions of buses going around…" So, before anyone knew what it meant, I scraped Hey Jude out of the whitewash.
A guy who had a delicatessen
Delicatessen
Delicatessen is a term meaning "delicacies" or "fine foods". The word entered English via German,with the old German spelling , plural of Delikatesse "delicacy", ultimately from Latin delicatus....
in Marylebone
Marylebone
Marylebone is an affluent inner-city area of central London, located within the City of Westminster. It is sometimes written as St. Marylebone or Mary-le-bone....
rang me up, and he was furious: "I'm going to send one of my sons round to beat you up." I said, "Hang on, hang on — what's this about?" and he said: "You’ve written Jude in the shop window." I had no idea it meant "Jew", but if you look at footage of Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
, "Juden Raus" was written in whitewashed windows with a Star of David
Star of David
The Star of David, known in Hebrew as the Shield of David or Magen David is a generally recognized symbol of Jewish identity and Judaism.Its shape is that of a hexagram, the compound of two equilateral triangles...
. I swear it never occurred to me.
I said: "I'm really sorry," and on and on… "some of my best friends are Jewish, really. It's just a song we've got coming out. If you listen to the song you'll see it’s nothing to do with any of that – it's a complete coincidence." He was just about pacified in the end.
— Paul McCartney, The Beatles Anthology
The Beatles Anthology (book)
The Beatles Anthology is a book released in October 2000 as part of The Beatles Anthology film project. It includes interviews with all four band members, John Lennon , Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr, and others involved, most notable, George Martin, plus over 1,200 rare photos...
Critical reception
Upon the release of the "Hey Jude" single, Time contrasted it with its B-side "Revolution." Time wrote, "The other side of the new disk urges activism of a different sort" as McCartney "liltingly exhorts a friend to overcome his fears and commit himself in love." Music analyst Alan Pollack praised "Hey Jude," saying, "it's such a good illustration of two compositional lessons—how to fill a large canvas with simple means, and how to use diverse elements such as harmony, bassline, and orchestration to articulate form and contrast." He also said it is unusual for a long song because it uses a "binary form that combines a fully developed, hymn-like song together with an extended, mantra-like jam on a simple chord progression." Pollack described the song's long coda and fadeout as "an astonishingly transcendental effect," while Unterberger observed, "What could have very easily been boring is instead hypnotic". John Lennon said "Hey Jude" was "one of his [Paul's] masterpieces.""Hey Jude" was nominated for the Grammy Awards of 1969
Grammy Awards of 1969
The 11th Grammy Awards were held on March 12, 1969. They recognized accomplishments of musicians for the year 1968.-Award winners:*Record of the Year**Paul Simon & Roy Halee & Simon & Garfunkel for "Mrs...
in the Record of the Year
Grammy Award for Record of the Year
The Record of the Year is one of the four most prestigious Grammy Awards presented annually. It has been awarded since 1959.-History:The honorees through its history have been:*1959-1965: Artist only.*1966-1998: Artist and producer....
, Song of the Year
Grammy Award for Song of the Year
The Song of the Year is one of the four most prestigious awards in the Grammy Awards ceremony, if not in all of the American music industry. It has been awarded since 1959 and unlike the Record of the Year award, which goes to the performer and production team of a single song, Song of the Year...
and Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal
Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal
The Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals was awarded between 1966 and 2011...
categories, but failed to win any of them. It did win the 1968 Ivor Novello Award
Ivor Novello Awards
The Ivor Novello Awards, named after the Cardiff born entertainer Ivor Novello, are awards for songwriting and composing. They are presented annually in London by the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors and were first introduced in 1955.Nicknamed The Ivors, the awards take place...
for "A-Side With the Highest Sales". In the 1968 NME
NME
The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...
Readers' Poll, "Hey Jude" was named the best single of the year. In 2001, "Hey Jude" was inducted into the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences
National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences
The National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, Inc., known variously as The Recording Academy or NARAS, is a U.S. organization of musicians, producers, recording engineers and other recording professionals dedicated to improving the quality of life and cultural condition for music and its...
Grammy Hall of Fame. In 2010, Rolling Stone ranked it #7 on The Beatles' 100 Greatest Songs. It came in third on Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
's list of 100 Greatest Singles. The Amusement & Music Operators Association ranked "Hey Jude" the 11th-best jukebox
Jukebox
A jukebox is a partially automated music-playing device, usually a coin-operated machine, that will play a patron's selection from self-contained media...
single of all time.
Promotional film
The Beatles hired Michael Lindsay-HoggMichael Lindsay-Hogg
Sir Michael Edward Lindsay-Hogg, 5th Baronet is a British television and stage director and an occasional writer and actor.-Background and early work:...
to shoot the "Hey Jude" promotional film (he had previously directed a 'promo' film for "Paperback Writer
Paperback Writer
"Paperback Writer" is a 1966 song recorded and released by The Beatles. Written by Paul McCartney and credited to Lennon–McCartney, the song was released as the A-side of their eleventh single...
") and they settled on the idea of filming with a live, albeit controlled audience. In the film, the four Beatles are first seen by themselves, performing the initial chorus and verses, and then are joined by the audience who appear as the last chorus concludes and coda begins; the audience sings and claps along with the Beatles through the song's conclusion. Hogg shot the film at Twickenham Film Studios
Twickenham Film Studios
Twickenham Film Studios is a film studio located in St Margarets, London, England used by many motion picture and television companies. It was established in 1913 by Dr. Ralph Jupp on the site of a former ice-rink. At the time of its original construction, it was the largest film studio in the...
on 4 September 1968, with McCartney himself designing the set. Tony Bramwell, a friend of The Beatles, later described the set as "the piano, there; drums, there; and orchestra in two tiers at the back." The event is also memorable as it marked Starr's return to the group after a two-week hiatus, during which he had announced that he had left the band. The eventual, final film was a combination of several different takes and included filmed 'introductions' to the song by David Frost
David Frost
Sir David Frost is a British broadcaster.David Frost may also refer to:*David Frost , South African golfer*David Frost , classical record producer*David Frost *Dave Frost, baseball pitcher...
(who introduced The Beatles as "the greatest tea-room orchestra in the world") and Cliff Richard
Cliff Richard
Sir Cliff Richard, OBE is a British pop singer, musician, performer, actor, and philanthropist who has sold over an estimated 250 million records worldwide....
, for their respective, eponymous TV programmes. As filming wore on, Lennon repeatedly asked Lindsay-Hogg if he had the footage he needed. After twelve takes, McCartney said, "I think that's enough" and filming concluded. It was first aired in the UK on 8 September 1968 and the film was later broadcast for the United States on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour
The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour
The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour is an American comedy and variety show hosted by the Smothers Brothers and initially airing on CBS from 1967 to 1969.-History:...
on 6 October 1968. Footage of the performance can be seen in the Anthology DVD series. Two versions of the film exist.
Auctioned lyrics
In 1996, Julian Lennon paid £25,000 for the recording notes to "Hey Jude" at an auction. Julian Lennon spent another £35,000 at the auction buying John Lennon memorabilia. John Cousins, Julian Lennon's manager, stated, "He has a few photographs of his father, but not very much else. He is collecting for personal reasons, these are family heirlooms if you like."In 2002, the original handwritten lyrics for the song were nearly auctioned off at Christie's
Christie's
Christie's is an art business and a fine arts auction house.- History :The official company literature states that founder James Christie conducted the first sale in London, England, on 5 December 1766, and the earliest auction catalogue the company retains is from December 1766...
in London. The sheet of notepaper with the scrawled lyrics had been expected to fetch up to £80,000 at the auction, which was scheduled for 30 April 2002. McCartney went to court to stop the auction, claiming the paper had disappeared from his West London home. Richard Morgan, representing Christie's, said McCartney had provided no evidence that he had ever owned the piece of paper on which the lyrics were written. The courts decided in McCartney's favour and prohibited the sale of the lyrics. They had been sent to Christie's for auction by Frenchman Florrent Tessier, who said he purchased the piece of paper at a street market stall in London for £10 in the early 1970s. In the original catalogue for the auction, Julian Lennon had written, "It's very strange to think that someone has written a song about you. It still touches me."
Charts
| Chart (1968) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| Austrian Singles Chart Ö3 Austria Top 40 Ö3 Austria Top 40 is the name of the official Austrian singles chart, as well as the radio show which presents it, aired Fridays on Hitradio Ö3. The show presents the Austrian singles, ringtones and downloads chart. It premiered on 26 November 1968 as Disc Parade and was presented by Ernst Grissemann... |
1 |
| Canadian RPM 100 Singles Chart RPM (magazine) RPM was a Canadian music industry publication that featured song and album charts for Canada. The publication was founded by Walt Grealis in February 1964, supported through its existence by record label owner Stan Klees. RPM ceased publication in November 2000.RPM stood for "Records, Promotion,... |
1 |
| Dutch Top 40 Dutch Top 40 The Dutch Top 40 is a weekly music chart, which started as the "Veronica Top 40", because the offshore radio station Radio Veronica was the first to introduce it. It remained "The Veronica Top 40" until 1974, when the station was forced to stop broadcasting... |
1 |
| Norwegian Singles Chart | 1 |
| Swiss Singles Chart | 1 |
| UK Singles Chart UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ... |
1 |
| US Billboard Billboard (magazine) Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis... Hot 100 Billboard Hot 100 The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday... |
1 |
| Chart (1976) | Peak position |
| UK Singles Chart UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ... |
12 |
| Chart (1988) | Peak position |
| UK Singles Chart UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ... |
52 |
| Chart (2010) | Peak position |
| UK Singles Chart UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ... |
40 |
Personnel
- George HarrisonGeorge HarrisonGeorge Harrison, MBE was an English musician, guitarist, singer-songwriter, actor and film producer who achieved international fame as lead guitarist of The Beatles. Often referred to as "the quiet Beatle", Harrison became over time an admirer of Indian mysticism, and introduced it to the other...
– backingBacking vocalistA backing vocalist or backing singer is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists...
vocalSingingSinging is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...
, leadLead guitarLead guitar is a guitar part which plays melody lines, instrumental fill passages, guitar solos, and occasionally, some riffs within a song structure...
guitarGuitarThe guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with... - John LennonJohn LennonJohn Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...
– backing vocal, acoustic guitarAcoustic guitarAn acoustic guitar is a guitar that uses only an acoustic sound board. The air in this cavity resonates with the vibrational modes of the string and at low frequencies, which depend on the size of the box, the chamber acts like a Helmholtz resonator, increasing or decreasing the volume of the sound... - Paul McCartneyPaul McCartneySir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of The Beatles and Wings , McCartney is listed in Guinness World Records as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100...
– lead vocalLead vocalistThe lead vocalist is the member of a band who sings the main vocal portions of a song. They may also play one or more instruments. Lead vocalists are sometimes referred to as the frontman or frontwoman, and as such, are usually considered to be the "leader" of the groups they perform in, often the...
, pianoPianoThe piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
, bass guitarBass guitarThe bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick.... - Ringo StarrRingo StarrRichard Starkey, MBE better known by his stage name Ringo Starr, is an English musician and actor who gained worldwide fame as the drummer for The Beatles. When the band formed in 1960, Starr was a member of another Liverpool band, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. He became The Beatles' drummer in...
– backing vocal, drumsDrum kitA drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
, tambourineTambourineThe tambourine or marine is a musical instrument of the percussion family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called "zils". Classically the term tambourine denotes an instrument with a drumhead, though some variants may not have a head at all.... - Uncredited – 10 violinViolinThe violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
s, three violaViolaThe viola is a bowed string instrument. It is the middle voice of the violin family, between the violin and the cello.- Form :The viola is similar in material and construction to the violin. A full-size viola's body is between and longer than the body of a full-size violin , with an average...
s, three celloCelloThe cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...
s, two double bassDouble bassThe double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...
es, two fluteFluteThe flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...
s, two clarinetClarinetThe clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...
s, one bass clarinetBass clarinetThe bass clarinet is a musical instrument of the clarinet family. Like the more common soprano B clarinet, it is usually pitched in B , but it plays notes an octave below the soprano B clarinet...
, one bassoonBassoonThe bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family that typically plays music written in the bass and tenor registers, and occasionally higher. Appearing in its modern form in the 19th century, the bassoon figures prominently in orchestral, concert band and chamber music literature...
, one contrabassoonContrabassoonThe contrabassoon, also known as the double bassoon or double-bassoon, is a larger version of the bassoon, sounding an octave lower...
, four trumpetTrumpetThe trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...
s, two hornsHorn (instrument)The horn is a brass instrument consisting of about of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. A musician who plays the horn is called a horn player ....
, four tromboneTromboneThe trombone is a musical instrument in the brass family. Like all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player’s vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate...
s, and one percussion instrumentPercussion instrumentA percussion instrument is any object which produces a sound when hit with an implement or when it is shaken, rubbed, scraped, or otherwise acted upon in a way that sets the object into vibration...
. EMI archives do not record the names of the studio musicians, but it has been established that one of the cellists was Bobby Kok and two of the flautists were Bill JackmanAndrew JackmanAndrew Pryce Jackman was a keyboard player and arranger. He was in The Syn with bassist Chris Squire . Jackman subsequently worked on Squire's solo album Fish Out of Water, on The Steve Howe Album and on the Yes album Tormato.-History:In the mid-1960s, Jackman was the keyboard player in The Selfs...
and Brian Warren.
- Personnel per Ian MacDonaldIan MacDonaldIan MacCormick was a British music critic and author, best known for Revolution in the Head, his forensic history of The Beatles which borrowed techniques from art historians, and The New Shostakovich, a controversial study of the Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich...
and Mark LewisohnMark LewisohnMark Lewisohn is an English author and historian, regarded as the world's leading authority on the English rock band The Beatles.-The Beatles and related subjects:...
.
2009 Children in Need
Paul sang this song live at the Royal Albert HallRoyal Albert Hall
The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall situated on the northern edge of the South Kensington area, in the City of Westminster, London, England, best known for holding the annual summer Proms concerts since 1941....
at the 2009 Children in Need being to last act. This was voted number one out of fifty greatest moments of Children in Need in 2011.