start to make it better

     Like a hymn, an anthem, a prayer, an inspiration, the song "Hey Jude" transcends the present and lifts the listener forward to a new place.

     On You Tube I found three videos to represent this song -- one shows the band playing, or ready to play, live in David Frost's studio -- 

one is a black background with lyrics in white print, 

and one shows the Sergeant Pepper album cover.

The Pepper album cover one is an early demo; the David Frost live one is -- live; and the black background one is probably the closest to, or exactly, the version you've been used to hearing.

If a person was going to select only one of these to listen to, the black-background-with-lyrics one is recommended.


What this song is "about" isn't something a listener needs to analyze, unless they feel like it -- what is significant is what Tina Turner calls, "the feeling that a song gives."

     This might be various different feelings for various different listeners:  it might be 1968 for some people -- one year before Woodstock.  

It might be, in 2018 (or at the very end of 2017) for some people -- "Hey, that is a good song!" if they might have not heard it before.  ("Hey, Jude -- that's a good song")


     Some people might listen and say, "It's been so long since I've heard that song!"  My feeling, listening to it on cassette tape a decade or two ago was, "It has been so long since I have heard this wonderful song, why am I not listening to it every day, all day?!"


     The idea that there is more heavenly music in the world than we even have enough time to hear and appreciate can give a person a feeling of Grand Abundance -- 

like there is more music, and fun, and relevance, and goodness and beauty in the world than we will ever have time to experience and share, even if we could "Enjoy" full-time, every day.  Take that concept to its natural conclusion, and the whole human race is rich.  We have all we need, and want, and even more.


     "...na-na-na-Nahh -- Hey Jude!" -- "hey, Jude--ee-- Judyjudyjudyjudy! -- aaahhhhhhggh!"

     On the Free Encyclopedia entry for this song, a musicologist says Paul McCartney's "melody over the verses borrows in part from John Ireland's 1907 liturgical piece Te Deum, as well as (with the first change to a b-flat chord) suggesting the influence of the Drifters' 1960 hit 'Save the Last Dance for Me.'"

Similar to Jackson Browne's song "Running On Empty" and Van Morrison's Moondance album -- I could listen to "Hey Jude" a thousand times, and then a thousand more. ...

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