{"id":285574,"date":"2025-11-15T06:10:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-15T06:10:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/285574\/"},"modified":"2025-11-15T06:10:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-15T06:10:13","slug":"john-lennon-saved-the-best-line-in-one-of-the-beatles-greatest-songs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/285574\/","title":{"rendered":"John Lennon Saved the ‘Best’ Line in One of the Beatles’ Greatest Songs"},"content":{"rendered":"

When you think of the Beatles<\/a>\u2019 discography, so many classic songs feel untouchable, almost impossible to imagine sounding any other way. But even the band\u2019s biggest hits had moments of uncertainty behind the scenes.<\/p>\n

One of those moments happened when Paul McCartney<\/a> was writing a song that would go on to top the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart for nine consecutive weeks in 1968 and become the year\u2019s best-selling single.<\/p>\n

\u201cHey Jude,\u201d widely considered one of the Beatles\u2019 greatest hits, could have sounded different from the version fans know and love today. McCartney has explained that, at the time, he was struggling with self-doubt.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny time you write a song, you\u2019re going, \u2018This is crap. This is terrible. Come on,\u2019\u201d McCartney told GQ<\/a> in 2020. To push through, he explained, he would kick himself to improve it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it\u2019s terrible, get it better,\u201d but that approach didn\u2019t always work on its own. What often helped was getting perspective from people he trusted.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes someone will come along, someone who you respect, and say, \u2018No, that\u2019s great. Don\u2019t worry about that,\u2019 and then show you a side to it that you didn\u2019t notice and, then you\u2019ll go, \u2018Oh, yeah,\u2019\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

For \u201cHey Jude,\u201d that someone was John Lennon<\/a>.<\/p>\n

At the time, McCartney hadn\u2019t finished the lyrics. There was a line he considered temporary, a placeholder he thought he might replace later. But Lennon saw something special in it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was playing \u2018Hey Jude\u2019 to John,\u201d McCartney recalled, \u201cI said, \u2018The movement you need is on your shoulder.\u2019 I turned round to him and Yoko [Ono], who was standing behind me, and said, \u2018Don\u2019t worry, I\u2019ll fix that.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

John, however, was adamant. \u201cAnd John said, \u2018No, you won\u2019t. That\u2019s the best line in it,\u201d he continued. \u201cWhen someone\u2019s that firm about a line that you\u2019re going to junk, and he said, \u2018No, keep it in,\u2019 so, of course, you love that line twice as much because it\u2019s a little stray, it\u2019s a little mutt that you were about to put down and it was reprieved and so it\u2019s more beautiful than ever.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thanks to Lennon\u2019s insight, what could have been a small, forgotten line became one of the song\u2019s most memorable moments.<\/p>\n

This story was originally reported by Parade<\/a> on Nov 14, 2025, where it first appeared in the News<\/a> section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When you think of the Beatles\u2019 discography, so many classic songs feel untouchable, almost impossible to imagine sounding…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":285575,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[64,63,164941,134,72224,14061,136,13683],"class_list":{"0":"post-285574","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-billboard-hot-100-chart","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-hey-jude","13":"tag-john-lennon","14":"tag-music","15":"tag-paul-mccartney"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285574\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}