Photo: Gamma-Keystone
Julian Lennon was five years old when his dad John Lennon and his mom Cynthia split up, and during a new interview with Esquire he spoke about his complicated relationship with his father, and with The Beatles classic "Hey Jude," which Paul McCartney wrote to console him.
“The weird thing with the audience is they think it’s cute sometimes, quoting ‘Hey Jude’ 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," he divulged. “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.”
“It’s not a position where forgiveness comes into it. It was just a time and a place in my life where things happened," Julian explained. "Who knows if I’ve dealt with it? Maybe I haven’t. Do I need to do therapy? No, I think life is therapy enough. So, it’s a weird one.”
Despite the "dark" feelings associated with the song, Julian titled his seventh studio album JUDE after it last year.
“Many of these songs have been in the works for several years, so it almost feels like a coming-of-age album,” Julian explained in a statement when he announced the album. "With great respect for the overwhelming significance of the song written for me, the title JUDE conveys the very real journey of my life that these tracks represent.”