and I saw this African lady with a baby. And underneath the picture it said ‘Mountain Madonna’. But I said, oh no – Lady Madonna – and I wrote the song.”
Released as a single in March 1968, ‘Lady Madonna’ went to Number 1 in Britain but stalled at Number 4 in America.
THE INNER LIGHT
On September 29, 1967, John and George were guests of David Frost on the live late-night television show The Frost Report. The subject of this edition was Transcendental Meditation and it included an interview with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, filmed earlier the same day at London Airport.
In the invited audience at the studio in Wembley, north London was Sanskrit scholar Juan Mascaró, a Cambridge professor. The following month, Mascaró wrote to George enclosing a copy of Lamps Of Fire , a collection of spiritual wisdom from various traditions that he had edited. He suggested that George might consider putting verses from the Tao Te Ching to music, in particular a poem titled ‘The Inner Light’.
In his preface to Lamps Of Fire , first published in 1958, Mascaró wrote: “The passages of this book are lamps of fire. Some shine more and some shine less, but they all merge into that vast lamp called by St John of the Cross ‘the lamp of the being of God’.”
‘The Inner Light’ was the first song of George’s to appear on a single when it became the B side of ‘Lady Madonna’.
HEY JUDE
As John and Yoko started living together, not surprisingly, divorce proceedings began between John and Cynthia. An interim agreement was reached whereby Cynthia and Julian were allowed to stay at Kenwood while the two respondents took up residence in a Montagu Square flat in central London.
Paul had always enjoyed a close relationship with John’s son Julian, then five years old and, to show support for mother and child during the break-up, he drove down to Weybridge from his home in St John’s Wood bearing a single red rose. Paul often used driving time to work out new songs and, on this day, with Julian’s uncertain future on his mind, he started singing ‘Hey Julian’ and improvising lyrics on the theme of comfort and reassurance. At some point during the hour-long journey, ‘Hey Julian’ became ‘Hey Jules’ and Paul developed the lines ‘Hey Jules, don’t make it bad, Take a sad song and make it better’. It was only later, when he came to flesh out the lyric, that he changed Jules to Jude, feeling that Jude was a name that sounded stronger. He had liked the name Jud when he’d seen the musical Oklahoma.
The song then became less specific. John believed it was addressed to him, encouraging him to make the break from the Beatles and build a new future with Yoko (‘You were made to go out and get her…’). Paul felt that, if it was addressed to anyone, it was to himself, dealing with the adjustments he knew that he was going to have to make as old bonds were broken within the Beatles.
The music drove the lyric, with sound taking precedence over sense. One line in particular – ‘the movement you need is on your shoulder’ – was intended as a temporary filler. When Paul played the song to John, he pointed out that this line needed replacing, saying itsounded as if he was singing about his parrot. “It’s probably the best line in the song,” said John. “Leave it in. I know what it means.”
Julian Lennon grew up knowing the story behind ‘Hey Jude’ but it wasn’t until 1987 that he heard the facts first-hand from Paul, whom he bumped into in New York. “It was the first time in years that we’d sat down and talked to each other,” says Julian. “He told me that he’d been thinking about my circumstances all those years ago, about what I was going through and what I would have to go through in the future. Paul and I used to hang out quite a bit – more than dad and I did. Maybe Paul was into kids a bit more at the time. We had a great friendship going and there seem to be far more pictures of me
Released as a single in March 1968, ‘Lady Madonna’ went to Number 1 in Britain but stalled at Number 4 in America.
THE INNER LIGHT
On September 29, 1967, John and George were guests of David Frost on the live late-night television show The Frost Report. The subject of this edition was Transcendental Meditation and it included an interview with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, filmed earlier the same day at London Airport.
In the invited audience at the studio in Wembley, north London was Sanskrit scholar Juan Mascaró, a Cambridge professor. The following month, Mascaró wrote to George enclosing a copy of Lamps Of Fire , a collection of spiritual wisdom from various traditions that he had edited. He suggested that George might consider putting verses from the Tao Te Ching to music, in particular a poem titled ‘The Inner Light’.
In his preface to Lamps Of Fire , first published in 1958, Mascaró wrote: “The passages of this book are lamps of fire. Some shine more and some shine less, but they all merge into that vast lamp called by St John of the Cross ‘the lamp of the being of God’.”
‘The Inner Light’ was the first song of George’s to appear on a single when it became the B side of ‘Lady Madonna’.
HEY JUDE
As John and Yoko started living together, not surprisingly, divorce proceedings began between John and Cynthia. An interim agreement was reached whereby Cynthia and Julian were allowed to stay at Kenwood while the two respondents took up residence in a Montagu Square flat in central London.
Paul had always enjoyed a close relationship with John’s son Julian, then five years old and, to show support for mother and child during the break-up, he drove down to Weybridge from his home in St John’s Wood bearing a single red rose. Paul often used driving time to work out new songs and, on this day, with Julian’s uncertain future on his mind, he started singing ‘Hey Julian’ and improvising lyrics on the theme of comfort and reassurance. At some point during the hour-long journey, ‘Hey Julian’ became ‘Hey Jules’ and Paul developed the lines ‘Hey Jules, don’t make it bad, Take a sad song and make it better’. It was only later, when he came to flesh out the lyric, that he changed Jules to Jude, feeling that Jude was a name that sounded stronger. He had liked the name Jud when he’d seen the musical Oklahoma.
The song then became less specific. John believed it was addressed to him, encouraging him to make the break from the Beatles and build a new future with Yoko (‘You were made to go out and get her…’). Paul felt that, if it was addressed to anyone, it was to himself, dealing with the adjustments he knew that he was going to have to make as old bonds were broken within the Beatles.
The music drove the lyric, with sound taking precedence over sense. One line in particular – ‘the movement you need is on your shoulder’ – was intended as a temporary filler. When Paul played the song to John, he pointed out that this line needed replacing, saying itsounded as if he was singing about his parrot. “It’s probably the best line in the song,” said John. “Leave it in. I know what it means.”
Julian Lennon grew up knowing the story behind ‘Hey Jude’ but it wasn’t until 1987 that he heard the facts first-hand from Paul, whom he bumped into in New York. “It was the first time in years that we’d sat down and talked to each other,” says Julian. “He told me that he’d been thinking about my circumstances all those years ago, about what I was going through and what I would have to go through in the future. Paul and I used to hang out quite a bit – more than dad and I did. Maybe Paul was into kids a bit more at the time. We had a great friendship going and there seem to be far more pictures of me
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