{"id":237737,"date":"2025-09-19T01:25:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-19T01:25:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/237737\/"},"modified":"2025-09-19T01:25:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T01:25:11","slug":"the-long-expensive-journey-of-paul-mccartneys-hey-jude-recording-notes-and-how-they-got-to-their-rightful-owner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/237737\/","title":{"rendered":"The Long, Expensive Journey of Paul McCartney\u2019s \u201cHey Jude\u201d Recording Notes (And How They Got to Their Rightful Owner)"},"content":{"rendered":"

The process of inheriting family heirlooms doesn\u2019t 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\u2019s \u201cHey Jude\u201d<\/a> recording notes took a long, expensive journey through several hands before the document found its way to its rightful owner. In this case, the \u201cowner\u201d was the man\u2014at that time, the young boy\u2014for whom McCartney originally wrote this classic Beatles track.<\/p>\n

Several decades after McCartney first wrote the musical pep talk to his bandmate\u2019s young son, \u201cHey Jude\u201d\u2019s namesake finally got to say he owned the physical evidence of McCartney\u2019s heartwarming message of strength and love.<\/p>\n

From Song Devotee To Auction Bidder<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\u2019 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.<\/p>\n

Such was the case for Julian Lennon, who, despite being the main source of inspiration for Paul McCartney\u2019s classic Beatles track, \u201cHey Jude\u201d, had to buy back the handwritten recording notes from his father\u2019s former bandmate when they resurfaced at a London auction in 1996. These were lyrics that McCartney wrote for Lennon<\/a>, 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.)<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is collecting for personal reasons,\u201d Julian\u2019s manager, John Cousins, told the Tampa Bay Times<\/a>. \u201cThese are family heirlooms, if you like.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some critics have blamed John\u2019s 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 \u201cbroke up\u201d the band, especially considering Ono herself had to fight to keep heirlooms and other possessions of her own.<\/p>\n

Where Paul McCartney\u2019s \u201cHey Jude\u201d Notes Finally Ended Up<\/strong><\/p>\n

After years of holding on to the recording notes Paul McCartney took down for \u201cHey Jude\u201d, 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\u2019s unclear whether Lennon will also attempt to purchase the lyrics for \u201cHey Jude\u201d (assuming he wasn\u2019t the anonymous buyer), he has a connection to the classic Beatles song that money literally can\u2019t buy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was only later in life that I really appreciated what he was trying to say and do for us,\u201d Lennon told Variety<\/a> of the song. Paul McCartney wrote \u201cHey Jude\u201d (originally \u201cHey Jules\u201d) for John Lennon\u2019s young son. John and his first wife, Cynthia Lennon, were divorcing, and Julian was struggling through his parents\u2019 separation. Although it took a while for him to warm up to \u201cHey Jude\u201d, Julian told Variety, \u201cI\u2019m forever thankful for it. I also have a love\/hate relationship with hearing it. Not a week goes by that I don\u2019t hear it in some capacity. But I\u2019m truly honored that he did it, and Uncle Paul will always be my Uncle Paul.\u201d<\/p>\n

Photo by Frank Tewkesbury\/Evening Standard\/Hulton Archive\/Getty Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The process of inheriting family heirlooms doesn\u2019t work in quite the same way when someone in that family…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":237738,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[171,975,53324,4185,978,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-237737","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music","10":"tag-paul-mccartney","11":"tag-rock-music","12":"tag-the-beatles","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115228359175241326","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237737"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237737\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/237738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}