Why The Beatles Left in a Curse Word at the End of ‘Hey Jude’
“Hey Jude” is one of the biggest hits by The Beatles. While the track has been listened to billions of times, many fans miss an odd moment where a curse word can be heard in the background. The Beatles were aware of the curse word in the middle of the song but decided to leave it in, despite the swear being accidental.
The Beatles experienced sound issues while listening to ‘Hey Jude’
Paul McCartney wrote “Hey Jude” as a song of comfort for John Lennon’s son, Julian, as his parents were going through a divorce. The track was released as a single in 1968, with “Revolution” as the B-side. In an interview with Clash, McCartney said that The Beatles recorded “Hey Jude” at Trident studios in Soho, a recording studio they used when Abbey Road Studios was unavailable.
The Beatles believed it sounded great after listening to the track at Trident. However, when the band brought it over to Abbey Road, the different speakers made the song sound terrible.
“We took it back to Abbey Road, and we were more preoccupied with the thing that we’d fooled ourselves with the sound – it sounded great on these great big speakers, but when we put it on the naff speakers that we always tested everything on, which was just a couple of very ordinary JBLs, it sounded c***,” McCartney stated. “We had to put in like full bass and full treble; the engineers really had to load it back up ‘cause we’d fooled ourselves on the sound.”
The Beatles were too distracted by the sound to notice the curse word
Around the 2:55 mark of “Hey Jude,” someone can be heard saying “Ow,” followed by someone saying “F***ing hell.” Most people will miss it entirely, but it can be heard when listening for it. According to McCartney, The Beatles were so preoccupied with the sound issues for “Hey Jude” that they failed to notice the swear word. He said once they notice it, it may have been too late.
“I think we were so preoccupied with that, that we didn’t really listen to it until it was too late, and then we listened to it very carefully on headphones and sort of thought, ‘Oh, s***!’ Because there were a lot of vocal part harmonies, you know: ‘And any time you feel the… Aaaahhhhhh…’ A lot of long notes, and I think probably someone made a mistake and went, ‘Aw, f*** it!’ or whatever, and that just found itself in the mix. It wasn’t intentional.”
Paul McCartney is the one who dropped the f-bomb
In the Clash interview, Macca appears to blame an EMI engineer for being the one who curses in the song. However, frequent Beatles engineer Geoff Emerick wrote in his autobiography, Here, There, and Everywhere, that John Lennon said the f-bomb came from McCartney, who made a mistake while playing piano.
“Paul hit a clunker on the piano and said a naughty word,” Emerick quoted Lennon as admitting. “Most people won’t ever spot it … but we’ll know it’s there.”
