Julian Lennon said Beatles classic Hey Jude will always be “dark” to him as it serves as a reminder of the pain behind his parents divorce and “the fact that I rarely saw my father again”.
The son of late Beatles superstar John Lennon said Sir Paul McCartney wrote the song to provide comfort to Julian and his mother Cynthia over the 1968 separation and the affair with Yoko Ono.
“It’s a beautiful sentiment, no question about that, and I’m very thankful – but I’ve also been driven up the wall by it,” Julian told Esquire magazine.
“I love the fact that he wrote a song about me and for Mum, but depending on what side of the bed one woke up on, and where you’re hearing it, it can be a good or a slightly frustrating thing.”
Julian said he saw his father “maybe a couple of times” before he was shot and killed on December 8, 1980 in New York.
“The weird thing with the audience is they think it’s cute sometimes, quoting ‘Hey Jude’ to me, but I don’t think they realise there’s a lot of pain behind what happened,” he said.
“Every time you quote that, it reminds me of my mother being separated from my father, the love that was lost, the fact that I rarely saw my father again ever.
“…A lot of people don’t quite get how intense, how emotional, and how personal that is. It’s not just a ‘pick yourself up and dust yourself off and be happy’.
“There’s deep emotional pain. I can celebrate it – but also it’s something that’ll always be dark to me.”
Julian released his seventh album titled Jude in a nod to his father’s band and the song.