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As John and Yoko started living
together, not surprisingly divorce proceedings began between
John and Cynthia. An interim agreement was reached whereby
Cynthia and Julian were allowed to stay at Kenwood while the
two respondents took up residence in a Montagu Square flat
in central London.
Paul had always enjoyed a close
relationship with John's sun Julian, then five years old
and, to show his support for mother and child during the
breakup, he drove down to Weybridge from his home in St.
John's Wood bearing a single red rose. Paul often used
driving time to work out new songs and, on this day, with
Julian's uncertain future on his mind, he started singing
'Hey Julian' and improvising lyrics on the theme of comfort
and reassurance. At some point during the hour-long journey,
'Hey Julian' gave way to 'Hey Jules' and Paul developed the
lines 'Hey Jules, don't make it bad, Take a sad song and
make it better.' It was only later, when he came to flesh
out the lyric, that he changed Jules to Jude, feeling that
Jude was a stronger sounding name.
As with so many of Paul's songs, it
was the music that drove the lyric, with sound taking
precedence over sense. One line in particular - 'the
movement you need is on your shoulder' - was only seen as a
temporary filler. When Paul played the song to John on July
26, 1968, he pointed out that this line needed replacing,
saying he knew that it sounded as if he was singing about
his parrot. "It's probably the best line in the song," said
John. "Leave it in. I know what it means."
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Julian Lennon grew up knowing the
story behind 'Hey Jude' but it wasn't until 1987 that he
heard the facts of the composition first-hand from Paul,
whom he bumped into while staying at the same hotel at New
York. "It was the first time in years that we'd sat down and
talked to each other," says Julian. "He told me that he'd
been thinking about my circumstances all those years ago,
about what I was going through in the future. Paul and I
used to hang out a bit - more than dad and I did. Maybe Paul
was into kids a bit more at the time. We had a great
friendship going and there seem to be far more pictures of
me and Paul playing together at that age than there are
pictures of me and dad."
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