John Lennon explained the origin of The Beatles’ “Hey Jude.” Notably, the song doesn’t really resolve itself. Despite this, a famous movie created a narrative for the character of Jude.
“He said it was written about Julian, my child,” John said. “He knew I was splitting with [his first wife] Cyn and leaving Julian. He was driving over to say ‘Hi’ to Julian. He’d been like an uncle to him.
“You know, Paul was always good with kids,” he added. “And so he came up with ‘Hey Jude.’ But I always heard it as a song to me. If you think about it … Yoko’s just come into the picture. He’s saying, ‘Hey, Jude — hey, John.'” John felt the song was Paul giving him permission to leave the band.
John was asked what he thought of Paul as a lyricist. “I don’t think he’s made an effort to, but I don’t think he’s incapable,” he said. “I don’t think he’s as good as me, but he’s certainly not incapable. ‘Hey Jude’ is a damn good set of lyrics and I made no contribution to that. A couple of lines he’s come up with show indications he’s a good lyricist, but he just never took it anywhere.”
Source: Matthew Trzcinski/cheatsheet.com