The Beatles were intrinsic to each other’s lives for about a decade. You don’t spend as much time together as these four men did without becoming more like family than friends. They held onto each other while earning more and more fame, being whisked away on the ride of their lives. Despite the unique circumstances around their friendship, they experienced deeply normal moments together as well. Getting married. Having kids. Even the Beatles fell in line with the traditional order of things. They also couldn’t escape the ills of marital strain.
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John Lennon, in particular, had a caustic relationship with his first wife, Cynthia. Before they divorced, she gave birth to Julian, giving Lennon his first child. Infamously, Lennon had little to do with Julian’s life after Yoko Ono came into the picture. Famously, Paul McCartney stepped up as a guiding voice for Julian in the absence of his father. This created an unbalanced dynamic between the songwriting partners and the younger Lennon. Though it generated one of the best songs of all time, both McCartney and the Lennons have reflected on the way their relationship developed with marked heartache.
The Unbalanced Relationship Between John Lennon, Julian Lennon, and Paul McCartney–And the Iconic Song It Inspired
“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 once said of Cynthia and Julian Lennon. Though John distanced himself from his first wife and son, McCartney couldn’t bring himself to shut them out.
Their dynamic can be summed up in one story. While on location for the Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour movie, McCartney and Julian were playing somewhere off set. Lennon saw them and apparently asked McCartney, “How do you do that?”
Lennon’s inability to become an active part of Julian’s life becomes all more sad when you consider his relationship with his second son, Sean. Lennon penned one of the most emotionally effective songs ever, “Beautiful Boy”, for him–a stark contrast to his lack of musical acknowledgement for Julian.
“[He] is in the majority, along with me and everyone else,” Lennon once said of Julian, who was an “accident” child, according to the rock giant. “Sean is a planned child, and therein lies the difference.”
Despite the harshness of that comment, Lennon made sure to follow it up with a clarification: “I don’t love Julian any less as a child. He’s still my son, whether he came from a bottle of whiskey or because they didn’t have pills in those days. He’s here, he belongs to me, and he always will.”
“Hey Jude”
Though Lennon wasn’t very outwardly affectionate towards Julian, McCartney earned one of his biggest tracks ever by offering him a guiding hand. “Hey Jude” is undisputedly a masterpiece. Even if you didn’t know the story behind the lyrics, there is no mistaking the raw power behind this seemingly simple song.
Hey Jude, don’t be afraid / You were made to go out and get her, McCartney told the younger Lennon in the wake of his parents’ divorce. They are iconic lines that mean something to all of us, but they mean something very particular to Julian himself.
According to Julian, he has a “love-hate” relationship with “Hey Jude”. There is a darkness to this song that only he seems to have picked up on.
“I have a love-hate [relationship] with it, I have to say,” Julian once explained. “I’ve probably heard that song and heard renditions of it more than most people alive. And even my dear friends send me babies in nappies playing guitars [and] singing, ‘Hey Jude’, which I really don’t need.”
It’s understandable. If someone were to write a song about one of our toughest moments in life, we’re not sure we’d be too keen on listening to it either. At the end of the day, though, the dynamic between both Lennons and McCartney will forever be cemented into the era-defining ballad below.
(Photo by Central Press/Getty Images)
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