Buckle up and make yourselves comfortable, cause we’ve hit our longest number one single yet. One of the longest ever. Seven minutes and ten seconds of Beatlesy goodness.

Hey Jude, by The Beatles (their 15^th of seventeen #1s)

2 weeks, from 11^th – 25^th September 1968

It starts off in beautiful simplicity. Just Paul and a piano. Hey Jude, Don’t make it bad… Take a sad song, And make it better… You’re there, in the studio. You can picture his face as he sings. Remember, To let her into your heart, Then you can start, To make it better…

I love the way the instruments are slowly added into the mix. Before you know it there’s a tambourine, a guitar, then backing vocals and Ringo’s drums. Hey Jude, Don’t be afraid, You were made to, Go out and get her… It sounds like an encouragement to a friend, to go and get the girl he loves, but it was inspired by John’s separation from his first wife Cynthia. Paul wrote it to comfort their son Julian (Julian – Jules – Jude). John, however, claimed that it was about him, and that the song’s lyrics were Paul’s blessing to him and Yoko Ono. Others still – mainly McCartney’s exes – have claimed that it was written about them. Who knows? A great song means something different to everyone.

And this is a great song. I’ve always liked the bridge best: And anytime you feel the pain, Hey Jude, Refrain…  It’s almost, without wanting to sound hopelessly pretentious, spiritual. Pop music as hymn. If I were religious, I’d go to churches where they sang ‘Hey Jude.’ I gave Paul McCartney a hard time in my post on ‘Hello, Goodbye’, and I stand by that, but here… His voice grows ever more soulful. It’s something else – it’s undeniable.

Just over three minutes in we reach the bit that means this record will live on for ever more. When the waves finally lap over the last bit of unsubmerged land left on earth, the final sound man hears will probably be the coda of ‘Hey Jude’. Na-na-na… Nananana! Nananana… Hey Jude! It lives on at karaoke nights, in pubs, outside pubs, in football stadiums… And you can see why. It isn’t hard to remember some ‘nananana’s. Whatever language you speak. Nananana.

(‘Hey Jude’ was the 1st single released on The Beatles’ own Apple Label)

I had forgotten – having not actually listened to ‘Hey Jude’ properly for years, how crazy Paul goes over the coda. He riffs, he scats, he howls and yells. By the end he sounds as if he’s properly lost it. This was recorded at a particularly difficult time in The Beatles’ history: John spending all his time with Yoko, Ringo temporarily leaving the band… Maybe he was just letting some frustrations out.

The song starts to fade a full minute and a half before it actually ends. Does it really need to be over seven minutes long? Probably not. But at the same time: why the hell not? By this point in their careers, The Beatles could do whatever they wanted. ‘Hey Jude’ is a full two minutes forty seconds longer than the previous ‘Longest #1 Single’ title-holder, The Animal’s ‘The House of the Rising Sun’. You could play the shortest #1 – Adam Faith’s ‘What Do You Want’ – almost five times before ‘Hey Jude’ plays once. As far as I’m aware, it is still the 4^th longest #1 single ever, and won’t be displaced as the longest until 1998, when Oasis will release their cover version… sorry, their completely different song… ‘All Around the World.’

And so we reach the end, finally, as the nananas fade and we are left to return to everyday life. ‘Hey Jude’ is a song that has entered the fabric of British life, of our national identity even… Paul McCartney plays it at most of his concerts, as a tribute to his long-dead song writing partner. It’s only right that it hit number one, but it seems wrong that it stayed at the top for just a fortnight. In the US it tied for the longest-ever run, at nine-weeks. That seems more appropriate. A long old run in pole position, for a long old song… Na-na-na-na!

Listen to all the previous, much shorter, #1 singles here: