Song of the Week: "Hey Jude"

"Hey Jude"

The Beatles

Single b/w "Revolution"

1968

My nephew Jude was born the other day. My first thought was "I can't wait to meet him!" My second thought was "I'm glad everyone is healthy and doing well!" My third thought was "Jesus fucking christ, am I going to have to pretend that I like that song now?!"

Do I actually hate "Hey Jude"? It depends on how you define "hate," I guess. The song itself is fine. It's not grating or painful or anything. It's just bland, and totally unworthy of the hype it still gets, 50 years later.

It's corny and schmaltzy; "take a sad song and make it better" makes me literally queasy. It's preachy, like, what right did Paul McCartney have to be giving John Lennon's son advice? Its ending inspired a thousand copy cats (#25), and sure, maybe it deserves to be copied, but at the same time, sometimes I just wanna tell McCartney to chill the fuck out. He comes off so hackneyed with his faux white boy interjections and stutters.

But still, these opinions are going to have to live and die on the blog now that baby Jude is here. And that's okay. I don't want to come off as a crotchety or snobby uncle, ya know what I mean? I want to inspire my nephew to appreciate music in all forms, and to seek out great art and put it between his ears. Dunking on him because he shares a name with a song that I don't particularly enjoy is not going to do any favors for either of us.

Like I did way back when, hopefully he'll use the Beatles as a starting point, and go forth from there, in a life full of musical discoveries. And hopefully he'll be more inclined to do so because he relates to a famous song right there at the start.