The process of inheriting family heirlooms doesn’t work in quite the same way when someone in that family is one of the biggest celebrities in the world, which is how Paul McCartney’s “Hey Jude” recording notes took a long, expensive journey through several hands before the document found its way to its rightful owner. In this case, the “owner” was the man—at that time, the young boy—for whom McCartney originally wrote this classic Beatles track.
Several decades after McCartney first wrote the musical pep talk to his bandmate’s young son, “Hey Jude”’s namesake finally got to say he owned the physical evidence of McCartney’s heartwarming message of strength and love.
From Song Devotee To Auction Bidder
Because of their status as one of the biggest bands in the world, virtually everything The Beatles ever put their hands on developed great, instantaneous value. Whether a scrap piece of tape from a session, hand-drawn doodles during a bit of band downtime, or the notepads where the musicians scribbled down their lyrics or recording notes, these momentos have passed among the artists’ family members, music historians, museum curators, and collectors ever since the band dissolved in the late 1960s. With so many hands eager to snatch onto these items, some rightful owners are bound to be overlooked.
Such was the case for Julian Lennon, who, despite being the main source of inspiration for Paul McCartney’s classic Beatles track, “Hey Jude”, had to buy back the handwritten recording notes from his father’s former bandmate when they resurfaced at a London auction in 1996. These were lyrics that McCartney wrote for Lennon, who was only five at the time. One would think that Lennon would automatically receive ownership rights for this fact alone. Yet, the son of John Lennon and his first wife, Cynthia Lennon, bought back those lyrics for $39,030. (That would be around $80,000 in 2025.)
“He is collecting for personal reasons,” Julian’s manager, John Cousins, told the Tampa Bay Times. “These are family heirlooms, if you like.”
Some critics have blamed John’s second wife, Yoko Ono, for withholding family heirlooms from Julian in favor of the son Ono had with John, Sean Ono Lennon. However, this assumption plays into the unfair narrative that Ono somehow “broke up” the band, especially considering Ono herself had to fight to keep heirlooms and other possessions of her own.
Where Paul McCartney’s “Hey Jude” Notes Finally Ended Up
After years of holding on to the recording notes Paul McCartney took down for “Hey Jude”, Julian Lennon decided to auction off an NFT, or non-fungible token, of the document to benefit his White Feather Foundation. Lennon sold that NFT for $76,800 in 2022. The actual lyrics McCartney wrote down are far more expensive, with an anonymous buyer nabbing the lyrics for over $900,000 in 2020. While it’s unclear whether Lennon will also attempt to purchase the lyrics for “Hey Jude” (assuming he wasn’t the anonymous buyer), he has a connection to the classic Beatles song that money literally can’t buy.
“It was only later in life that I really appreciated what he was trying to say and do for us,” Lennon told Variety of the song. Paul McCartney wrote “Hey Jude” (originally “Hey Jules”) for John Lennon’s young son. John and his first wife, Cynthia Lennon, were divorcing, and Julian was struggling through his parents’ separation. Although it took a while for him to warm up to “Hey Jude”, Julian told Variety, “I’m forever thankful for it. I also have a love/hate relationship with hearing it. Not a week goes by that I don’t hear it in some capacity. But I’m truly honored that he did it, and Uncle Paul will always be my Uncle Paul.”
Photo by Frank Tewkesbury/Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images