Considering the Beatles are still considered the most iconic band in music history over 50 years after they broke up, it’s no surprise to learn that the group had a whopping 20 number one hits and 34 Top 10 hits on the Billboard charts over the course of their (roughly) eight years as a group.
Not only did songs like “She Loves You,” “A Hard Day’s Night,” “Get Back” and “All You Need Is Love” hit the top of the charts, but some of them stayed there for record-breaking amounts of time. As Newsweek reported, “I Want to Hold Your Hand” and “She Loves You” both spent 15 weeks on the charts in 1964, while “Let It Be” and “Love Me Do” both spent 14 weeks on the charts (in 1970 and 1964, respectively).
The Beatles’ second-longest running hit, “Come Together,” hit number one on November 29, 1969, and spent 16 weeks on the charts…but “Hey Jude” achieved an even more impressive feat. The piano-driven ballad became both the longest running single of 1968 and the longest running rock single of the decade, spending a staggering 19 weeks on the charts overall. “Hey Jude” even managed to hang out at the very top of the Billboard Hot 100 for nine weeks. (The longest running single of the ’60s in any genre was the instrumental “Theme from A Summer Place” by Percy Faith and his Orchestra.)
As most longtime Beatles fans are probably aware, “Hey Jude” was originally called “Hey Jools” — and was written by Paul McCartney in an attempt to comfort John Lennon‘s son, Julian, as he dealt with the divorce of his parents (John and his first wife, Cynthia Lennon).
“I started singing, ‘Hey Jools — don’t make it bad, take a sad song, and make it better,” McCartney recalled in The Beatles Anthology. “It was optimistic, a hopeful message for Julian: ‘Come on, man, your parents got divorced. I know you’re not happy, but you’ll be okay.'”
John Lennon said he heard ‘Hey Jude’ as a song to him
In a 1980 interview with Playboy, Lennon gave his own take on the song’s inspiration.
“[Paul] said it was written about Julian. He knew I was splitting with Cyn and leaving Julian then,” Lennon said. “He was driving to see Julian to say hello. He had been like an uncle. And he came up with ‘Hey Jude.’ But I always heard it as a song to me. Now I’m sounding like one of those fans reading things into it.”
“Think about it: Yoko [Ono] had just come into the picture,” he continued. “He is saying. ‘Hey, Jude’ — ‘Hey, John.’ Subconsciously, he was saying, ‘Go ahead, leave me.’ On a conscious level, he didn’t want me to go ahead. The angel in him was saying, ‘Bless you.’ The devil in him didn’t like it at all, because he didn’t want to lose his partner.”
Clearly, the song was just as relevant and meaningful to the Beatles’ many fans as it was to the musicians and their families…and the charts are proof.
Related: John Lennon Said This 1966 Beatles Classic ‘Wouldn’t Mean That Much’ to Jesus
