Paul McCartney’s songs have always had a love/hate relationship with John Lennon. Lennon was more than willing to throw McCartney’s songs in the mud if he thought they deserved it. Despite the fact that the two were an incredible songwriting team when they were members of The Beatles. He was also known to despise “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer”. Though Lennon was able to establish laws, he believed that one song was far better than anything else he had produced.
It was evident in The Beatles’ early years that John Lennon was in charge of the group. Starting with the first few albums, Lennon was typically the driving force behind each one. He take the lead vocals on most of the tracks and contrasting himself with McCartney on ballads like ‘If I Fell’ and ‘You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away’.
In contrast to Lennon’s trademark bite, McCartney was more interested in creating upbeat music. He always aimed to inspire the listener with his melodic abilities. Lennon was a sucker for a good McCartney song. Even though that optimism could usually be detrimental to the band’s workload. He singled out “Here There and Everywhere” as one of the best songs his partner ever wrote.
In the latter part of their career, McCartney gradually became the group’s dominant player while they were in the studio. Lennon provided more experimental material with “Strawberry Fields Forever”. But McCartney soon assumed the lead creative role in the group after making significant progress on albums like Sgt Peppers.
Even though Lennon would never stop writing “Hey Jude,” the two would eventually reach their creative breaking point while working on The White Album. Composed by McCartney to lift the spirits of his honorary nephew Julian Lennon, the song is directed towards Julian. He watches his parents go through a divorce.
Every time he played the song, which has one of the longest outros in rock history, Lennon would get a personal kick out of it. Lennon always heard the material as a song about their friendship, even though he could appreciate the songcraft involved.
“Hey Jude” was a major turning point in McCartney’s recording career, according to Lennon, who was discussing the band’s back catalogue with Rolling Stone. He called it one of Paul McCartney’s masterpieces. It has always sounded to me like a song. Yoko has recently entered the scene. Paul is indicating that he is ready to go. He wished to keep his partner.
McCartney has interpreted portions of the song as subliminal guidance he was also giving to himself over the years. “Now go and get her” might as well have been a plea for him to follow his heart. This is instead of staying behind and allowing Linda Eastman to leave, given that he was only beginning their relationship.
Despite writing the majority of the song, McCartney acknowledged that one line captured Lennon’s essence. When talking about the song’s composition, McCartney mentioned that Lennon is in the line “the movement you need is on your shoulder”. Even to this day becoming emotional when he performs the song live.
“Hey Jude,” a hit song by The Beatles, is a testament to their ambition and success, regardless of the intended recipient. Even John Lennon, who was sometimes regarded as a cynical band member, was unable to dispute the strength Macca conveyed in this song.
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More specifically, in “Hey Jude”, the line, “the movement you need is on your shoulder”, wasn’t “about” John, but how Paul himself thought the line wasn’t good enough and he told John he wanted to change it but John said, “You won’t, you know,” and told him that was the best line in the song. So Paul kept it.