"Hey Jude" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles, written by Paul McCartney and credited to Lennon-McCartney. The ballad evolved from "Hey Jules", a song McCartney wrote to comfort John Lennon's son, Julian, during his parents' divorce. "Hey Jude" begins with a verse-bridge structure incorporating McCartney's vocal performance and piano accompaniment; further instrumentation is added as the song progresses. After the fourth verse, the song shifts to a fade-out coda that lasts for more than four minutes. "

Scott, Martin and the Beatles mixed the finished recording at Abbey Road. The transfer of the Trident master tape to acetate proved problematic due to the recording sounding murky when played back on EMI's equipment. The issue was resolved with the help of Geoff Emerick, whom Scott had recently replaced as the Beatles' principal recording engineer. Emerick happened to be visiting Abbey Road, having recently refused to work with the Beatles any longer, due to the tension and abuse that had become commonplace at their recording sessions. A stereo mix of "Hey Jude" was then completed on 2 August and the mono version on 8 August.  Everett writes that the song's "most commented-on feature" is its considerable length, at 7:11. The precedent for issuing such a long track on a single had recently been set by Richard Harris' hit recording of "MacArthur Park", the composer of which, Jimmy Webb, was a visitor to the studio around this time. According to Webb, Martin admitted to him that "Hey Jude" was only allowed to run over seven minutes because of the success of "MacArthur Park".  In the song's final bridge section, at 2:58, the spoken phrase "Fucking hell!" appears. Scott admits that although he was told about it, he could not hear the words originally. Lennon attributed the expletive to McCartney, according to Emerick, who reports Lennon's comment in his autobiography: "'Paul hit a clunker on the piano and said a naughty word,' Lennon gleefully crowed, 'but I insisted we leave it in [at Trident], buried just low enough so that it can barely be heard. Most people won't ever spot it ... but we'll know it's there.'" Womack considers that the expletive was actually uttered by Lennon. Malcolm Toft, the mix engineer on the Trident recording, also attributes it to Lennon. In Toft's recollection, Lennon was overdubbing his harmony vocal when, in reaction to the volume being too loud in his headphones, he first called out "Whoa!" then, two seconds later, swore as he pulled the headphones off.

Ask a question about this article.
When was the song mixed?