Julian Lennon on ‘Hey Jude’ and The Beatles Family

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When Julian Lennon released Jude in 2022, his first studio album in 11 years, he did a wide-ranging interview with journalist Ryan D’Agostino, an editorial director at Hearst. In the piece, which was finally published a year later on December 18, 2023, via Esquire.com, the son of John Lennon and Cynthia Lennon talks about his childhood, the emotion he feels about the Paul McCartney composition “Hey Jude,” his relationship with his brother, Sean Ono Lennon (“we’ve never had a fight in our life”), and the impact of watching the 2021 Beatles docuseries, Get Back.

Of attending the Get Back screening in Hollywood with Sean, Julian says, “Sean didn’t really want to go to the Get Back premiere. He felt overwhelming pressure. And I didn’t particularly want to go. But he said he felt obligated to go, so because I love him so much I said, ‘Listen, I’m coming with you. We’ll face the demons together.’ And it’s funny because there’s always been, especially in the U.K. press, ‘Lennon Sons Feuding,’ this, that. We’ve never had a fight in our life. It’s such bull.”

Many of The Beatles’ family attended that November 2021 screening. “This was important for me and for the peace and for family, because there has been friction, no question, in the past between everybody,” he says. “But we’re all getting a bit older, and as we get older we lose people and we realize now what’s most precious in life.

“The love for Sean, and the love for Yoko, and Stella, and Paul, and Mary, and Dhani, and Zak—it’s a big old, weird family. But as they say, families are always a bit screwed up.”

John Lennon’s Twitter account posted a photo of Julian, Sean and Stella McCartney at the premiere.

☮️💟✊Family: Julian, Stella & Sean.
The movement you need is on your shoulder.@JulianLennon @StellaMcCartney @SeanOnoLennon at the GET BACK Premiere at @ElCapitanThtre Hollywood, USA.#TheBeatlesGetBack @TheBeatles @JohnLennon @PaulMcCartney @GeorgeHarrison @RingoStarrMusic pic.twitter.com/AqovLXjVOe

— John Lennon (@johnlennon) November 19, 2021

“Watching Get Back, I fell in love with my father again because I saw him as he was, as I remember him as a kid, before it all went a bit pear-shaped. I came away feeling so proud to be a Lennon. I’ve always pushed it away a little bit, trying to forge my own path, but after this I’ve just now taken on this new mantle of like, fucking, I’m so proud to be part of the legacy and history of what went before and hopefully going to do some justice in carrying on with that.”

He addresses the pain of his childhood and the only person he ever looked up to: his mother, Cynthia. “I was very, very shy and I remained shy,” he says. “I’m still working through the shy thing, believe it or not. In the last few years I’ve been pushing myself to stop being afraid. I’ve always had to have some kind of defense system. People in the outside world think that I spent time a lot with Dad as a kid and that money was available. That was never the case. Not ever the case.

“When they separated, Mom made her own way. I think Mom was wondering, how do I keep the family going? I don’t have a husband anymore. I’ve got to look after Julian. It was a struggle for her, and I think partly the reason why I am the way I am is because there was so much grace and dignity on her. She was without question my beacon, my hero. The only person I really looked up to.”

Of the enormity of “Hey Jude,” Julian says, “The weird thing with the audience is they think it’s cute sometimes, quoting [it] to me, but I don’t think they realize there’s a lot of pain behind what happened. Every time you quote that, it reminds me of my mother being separated from my father, the love that was lost, the fact that I rarely saw my father again ever. I saw him maybe a couple of times before he died. A lot of people don’t quite get how intense, how emotional, and how personal that is. It’s not just a ‘pick yourself up and dust yourself off and be happy.’ There’s deep emotional pain. I can celebrate it—but also it’s something that’ll always be dark to me.

“’Hey Jude’ probably has more importance to me now than it ever did.

“You wish some things had been different, but those things you cannot change. So, there’s no point living in the past in any way. No point to that. Just take what you have, all the goodness, the wisdom that you’ve experienced and learned, and try to be happy. That’s all I do now.”

Of his 2022 album, Jude: “When the label said, ‘Do you have a title?’ I said yeah. I told them and they all had the same reaction: Oh, wow.”

Watch the music video for “Breathe” from the album