The Beatles took the musical world and the world at-large by storm in the 1960s. It initially started off as a five-piece band, with its two vocalists becoming the most prominent members.

Judging by how well it performed on music charts around the globe, “Hey Jude” sits comfortably as one of the Beatles’ best songs. It was released in 1968, eight years after the Beatles came into inception. Hey Jude sat on top of the charts in the UK, Canada, the US, and even Australia for roughly nine weeks.

The only hint that Beatles fans could have had about the inspiration behind “Hey Jude” is the strains in John Lennon’s relationship around that time. Lennon was finalizing a divorce from his first wife, Cynthia, and getting involved with a new girlfriend—Yoko Ono.

Julian, Lennon’s only son with Cynthia, was five years old when the couple agreed to get a divorce in 1968. The separation left a huge dent on Julian’s personality. So, McCartney, who was quite close to the family of his fellow band member, decided to write a song titled “Hey Julian.”

The years that followed the separation of Julian’s parents changed the chap’s outlook on life and dampened his admiration for his father. Several years later, during a 1998 interview, Julian said something to the effect of his father being a hypocrite.

Looking at the entire drama from Julian’s perspective, his father was not just guilty of infidelity but separated their otherwise blissful family, and didn’t communicate with him for several years.

However, contrary to the impression created by the press, Lennon once denied loving his second son any more than the first. He just saw his deficiency as the result of his absence as a pal and mentor for Julian.

During Julian’s childhood, prior to Lennon’s divorce, father and son were inseparably knit. So, it came as a shocking experience when his father became unexpectedly absent. It was a tough reality for the young child to adjust to.

Being a close friend of the Lennon family, McCartney tried to wade into the post-divorce crisis as much as possible. He revealed, only recently, that “Hey Jude” was one of the ways he tried mediating the Lennon familial crisis.

“Hey Jude” was composed in the spur of the moment. McCartney’s original was addressed to “Jules.” However, he later changed the name to Jude. Of course, he didn’t want fans of the Beatles to outrightly realize that the song was addressed to Julian.

Lennon was quite aware that “Hey Jude” was a product of McCartney’s closeness with Julian. However, he still managed to convince himself that McCartney wrote the song for him. Lennon blindly felt McCartney was wishing him well in his new relationship and life adventures.

Lennon and McCartney were global celebrities, and it’s easy for fame to go to a person’s head. However, Lennon seemed to sway more easily under its intoxication. In the 1960s, fans of the Beatles band saw them as a close-knit group.

In 1970, as far as the public knew, McCartney was the sole member of the Beatles that instigated the band’s breakup. This assumption was held by everyone who didn’t know the details because McCartney released a solo record that year.

According to a widely-circulated report, the other members of the band convened as soon as the news hit the tabloids. They tried to salvage what they could from the burning house by sending another bandmate, Ringo Starr, to placate McCartney.

The standoff between McCartney and Starr did not go public until the dissolution of the band was taken to court. The case was initiated by McCartney, who mentioned several years later he did not regret starting the process that made the breakup official.

Later revelations helped fans discover that Lennon had announced he was leaving the band long before McCartney did. The claim was that after meeting Yoko Ono, Lennon was trying to keep the band idle by going on long vacations and recording multiple solo tracks with his girlfriend.

It is often said that Epstein was a major driving force in the early success of the Beatles—he knew how to curb their individual excesses and could give them the cue that brought out the best in each member of the band.

After Epstein’s death, one of the initiatives that McCartney came up with was making a movie. Unfortunately, it received widespread negative reviews, and other members of the band heaped the blame on the brain behind it.

Lennon is long gone, but looking back on the quality times the Beatles had together, McCartney tried to bring back the good old days in 2021. He decided to put out some of their unreleased songs. One example is his song titled, “Tell Me Who He Is.”

Several details of the Beatles’ breakup were not made public until the 2000s, long after Lennon’s demise. However, the revelation that stirred the most emotion among all was a recent one by McCartney.