Hey Jude (Remastered 2015)
The Beatles · 1 (Remastered 2015)
Take a sad song and make it better
Remember to let her into your heart
Then you can start to make it better Hey Jude, don't be afraid
You were made to go out and get her
The minute you let her under your skin
Then you begin to make it better And any time you feel the pain, hey Jude,
Don't carry the world upon your shoulders
For well you know that it's a fool who plays it cool
By making his world a little colder
Na na na na Hey Jude, don't let me down
You have found her now, go and get her
Remember to let her into your heart
Then you can start to make it better So let it out and let it in Hey Jude begin
You're waiting for someone to perform with
And don't you know that it's just you
Hey Jude, you'll do
The movement you need is on your shoulder
Na na na na Hey Jude, don't make it bad
Take a sad song and make it better
Remember to let her under your skin
Then you'll begin to make it better, better, better Na na na na na na na
Hey Jude
A private reassurance turned into a stadium singalong
“Hey Jude” begins as a gesture of comfort and grows into one of pop music’s most communal endings. Paul McCartney originally wrote the song to console Julian Lennon during his parents’ separation, first imagining it as “Hey Jules” before settling on Jude. Its message is not a tidy solution to pain; it encourages the listener to face it, shape it into something livable and allow love to enter. The long “na-na-na” coda transforms that private reassurance into a mass singalong.
The Beatles released the single in August 1968, and it later became the opening track on the 2015 remastered edition of *1*. This catalog entry identifies the remaster, not a new performance or a different arrangement. Recorded at Trident Studios in London, “Hey Jude” was among the first Beatles recordings made with eight-track technology and was the first single released on the group’s Apple label. Its unusually long running time, especially the extended closing refrain, was a bold choice for radio in the late 1960s.
The original single spent nine consecutive weeks at No. 1 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and also topped the UK chart, becoming one of the band’s biggest commercial successes. Critics and historians regularly treat it as a defining Beatles recording, praising its gradual build and the emotional force of its communal finale. The 2015 remaster preserves that familiar performance for the *1* compilation, where its position among the group’s chart-topping songs underlines both its popularity and its place in their legacy.