Chords for The Hidden F-Bomb in "Hey Jude" by the Beatles
Tempo:
74.425 bpm
Chords used:
F
C
Ab
Tuning:Standard Tuning (EADGBE)Capo:+0fret
Start Jamming...
[F] 47 years ago this week, the Beatles released one of their most well-known singles.
Hey Jude
Hey Jude was a first for a lot of reasons.
In Britain and in the US, at over 7 minutes long, it was the longest single to ever hit number one.
It was also the first single to be released on the Beatles' very own label, Apple Records.
But you might not have known that it was the first number one song to ever have hit an F-bomb.
Now let's be clear, it isn't part of the lyrics and frankly it isn't all that easy to hear,
but I'll warn you, once you hear it you can't un-hear it.
So let that be a fair warning.
So where in the song can you find this hit an F-bomb?
It comes just before the coda, which is really more like a second song in itself,
that famous na-na-na section which builds for the better part of four minutes,
complete with a 36-piece orchestra scored by the legendary George Martin.
So let's see if you can hear it.
If you're listening on a mobile device or slow internet connection,
the quality might not even be good enough for you to catch it.
This will work better if you're wearing headphones too.
Okay, so we're just before three minutes.
Pay attention closely in the center channel,
that is, you'll hear it coming from both speakers or earbuds, and what feels to be in front of you.
It's not the main vocal track, but rather a voice that's clearly seeping through one of the backing
tracks.
And I'll explain more behind the theories of who said it later on.
So here it is, coming up
around two minutes and 58 seconds.
Let's see if you catch it.
It'll come right as Paul McCartney,
who's singing the lead vocal, says the word begin.
[C] Let's [F] take another listen.
[C] It's not terribly clear what he's saying, but it's been confirmed over the years by the various
recording engineers who were mixing the track [Ab] that it's there.
For whatever reason, they either
didn't catch it during the final mixdown, or according to one account, they left it in on
purpose as a kind of wink or a bit of civil disobedience, perhaps.
Although it's kind of hard
to imagine nowadays, in the late 1960s, it was still extremely uncommon for popular musicians
to use any sort of [F] cursing in their music.
So who actually said it?
Well, we're pretty sure it was
either John or Paul, since it seems pretty uncharacteristic of George to say it.
And
Ringo's drum set was probably not mic'd in such a way that you'd even pick up his voice were he to
have said it.
So it's either Paul or John.
Interestingly enough, John Lennon actually
thought it was Paul, who, according to John, had hit a wrong note on the piano.
Others,
such as Malcolm Toff, the recording engineer at Trident Studios, where the track was being
recorded, claimed it was John, who apparently was startled by the volume being too loud in
his headphones during an overdubbing of his harmony track.
But I'm not sure, honestly.
It
sounds like it could be either of them.
It's there, and it'll always be there.
And now you'll
never unhear it.
Who do you think it was?
[C] Hey Jude is [N] one of the first Beatles tracks that I can
vividly remember hearing for the first time.
It was summer camp, and one of my counselors had the
Beatles anthology set on CD.
I distinctly remember hearing Hey Jude every single day that summer,
and it has remained one of my favorite tracks ever since.
It's simple without being derivative,
it has an incredible hook, and there's nothing else quite like that coda.
Most of all, though,
the song is incredibly hopeful.
According to some accounts, Paul wrote it as a coded message of
comfort to Julian Lennon, John Lennon's son, who at the time was going through his parents, John
and Cynthia's divorce.
John had met Yoko and would soon remarry to her and eventually have another
son, Sean.
But regardless of what Paul specifically had in mind when writing it, the song is just
incredibly uplifting.
Looking back at the world in which it was released is even more interesting.
After all, this was the summer of 1968, the year both Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy had
been assassinated.
Vietnam was rapidly deteriorating.
There were riots in DC, Baltimore, elsewhere.
And even more interesting, it debuted on the same day that the Democratic National Convention in
what we'll remember was violent and cataclysmic.
Without being explicitly political, The Beatles
struck a deep nerve in a world longing for some kind of hope.
No wonder it spent nine weeks at
the top of the US music charts, more than any Beatles single had done.
If you found this
interesting, please subscribe and follow my new podcast series, You Can't Unhear This, where I'll
be uncovering some of the most interesting anomalies in recorded music.
Of course, there'll
be a ton on The Beatles, since they have an incredibly interesting library and were one of
the first popular groups to spend exorbitant amounts of time in a studio, leaving us tons of
little surprises, mistakes, and other tidbits that have been closely examined over the years.
So please subscribe and tune in
Hey Jude
Hey Jude was a first for a lot of reasons.
In Britain and in the US, at over 7 minutes long, it was the longest single to ever hit number one.
It was also the first single to be released on the Beatles' very own label, Apple Records.
But you might not have known that it was the first number one song to ever have hit an F-bomb.
Now let's be clear, it isn't part of the lyrics and frankly it isn't all that easy to hear,
but I'll warn you, once you hear it you can't un-hear it.
So let that be a fair warning.
So where in the song can you find this hit an F-bomb?
It comes just before the coda, which is really more like a second song in itself,
that famous na-na-na section which builds for the better part of four minutes,
complete with a 36-piece orchestra scored by the legendary George Martin.
So let's see if you can hear it.
If you're listening on a mobile device or slow internet connection,
the quality might not even be good enough for you to catch it.
This will work better if you're wearing headphones too.
Okay, so we're just before three minutes.
Pay attention closely in the center channel,
that is, you'll hear it coming from both speakers or earbuds, and what feels to be in front of you.
It's not the main vocal track, but rather a voice that's clearly seeping through one of the backing
tracks.
And I'll explain more behind the theories of who said it later on.
So here it is, coming up
around two minutes and 58 seconds.
Let's see if you catch it.
It'll come right as Paul McCartney,
who's singing the lead vocal, says the word begin.
[C] Let's [F] take another listen.
[C] It's not terribly clear what he's saying, but it's been confirmed over the years by the various
recording engineers who were mixing the track [Ab] that it's there.
For whatever reason, they either
didn't catch it during the final mixdown, or according to one account, they left it in on
purpose as a kind of wink or a bit of civil disobedience, perhaps.
Although it's kind of hard
to imagine nowadays, in the late 1960s, it was still extremely uncommon for popular musicians
to use any sort of [F] cursing in their music.
So who actually said it?
Well, we're pretty sure it was
either John or Paul, since it seems pretty uncharacteristic of George to say it.
And
Ringo's drum set was probably not mic'd in such a way that you'd even pick up his voice were he to
have said it.
So it's either Paul or John.
Interestingly enough, John Lennon actually
thought it was Paul, who, according to John, had hit a wrong note on the piano.
Others,
such as Malcolm Toff, the recording engineer at Trident Studios, where the track was being
recorded, claimed it was John, who apparently was startled by the volume being too loud in
his headphones during an overdubbing of his harmony track.
But I'm not sure, honestly.
It
sounds like it could be either of them.
It's there, and it'll always be there.
And now you'll
never unhear it.
Who do you think it was?
[C] Hey Jude is [N] one of the first Beatles tracks that I can
vividly remember hearing for the first time.
It was summer camp, and one of my counselors had the
Beatles anthology set on CD.
I distinctly remember hearing Hey Jude every single day that summer,
and it has remained one of my favorite tracks ever since.
It's simple without being derivative,
it has an incredible hook, and there's nothing else quite like that coda.
Most of all, though,
the song is incredibly hopeful.
According to some accounts, Paul wrote it as a coded message of
comfort to Julian Lennon, John Lennon's son, who at the time was going through his parents, John
and Cynthia's divorce.
John had met Yoko and would soon remarry to her and eventually have another
son, Sean.
But regardless of what Paul specifically had in mind when writing it, the song is just
incredibly uplifting.
Looking back at the world in which it was released is even more interesting.
After all, this was the summer of 1968, the year both Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy had
been assassinated.
Vietnam was rapidly deteriorating.
There were riots in DC, Baltimore, elsewhere.
And even more interesting, it debuted on the same day that the Democratic National Convention in
what we'll remember was violent and cataclysmic.
Without being explicitly political, The Beatles
struck a deep nerve in a world longing for some kind of hope.
No wonder it spent nine weeks at
the top of the US music charts, more than any Beatles single had done.
If you found this
interesting, please subscribe and follow my new podcast series, You Can't Unhear This, where I'll
be uncovering some of the most interesting anomalies in recorded music.
Of course, there'll
be a ton on The Beatles, since they have an incredibly interesting library and were one of
the first popular groups to spend exorbitant amounts of time in a studio, leaving us tons of
little surprises, mistakes, and other tidbits that have been closely examined over the years.
So please subscribe and tune in
Key:
F
C
Ab
F
C
Ab
F
C
[F] 47 years ago this week, the Beatles released one of their most well-known singles.
Hey Jude
_ Hey Jude was a first for a lot of reasons.
In Britain and in the US, at over 7 minutes long, it was the longest single to ever hit number one.
It was also the first single to be released on the Beatles' very own label, Apple Records.
But you might not have known that it was the first number one song to ever have hit an F-bomb.
Now let's be clear, it isn't part of the lyrics and frankly it isn't all that easy to hear,
but I'll warn you, once you hear it you can't un-hear it.
So let that be a fair warning.
So where in the song can you find this hit an F-bomb?
It comes just before the coda, which is really more like a second song in itself,
that famous na-na-na section which builds for the better part of four minutes,
complete with a 36-piece orchestra scored by the legendary George Martin.
So let's see if you can hear it.
If you're listening on a mobile device or slow internet connection,
the quality might not even be good enough for you to catch it.
This will work better if you're wearing headphones too.
Okay, so we're just before three minutes.
Pay attention closely in the center channel,
that is, you'll hear it coming from both speakers or earbuds, and what feels to be in front of you.
It's not the main vocal track, but rather a voice that's clearly seeping through one of the backing
tracks.
And I'll explain more behind the theories of who said it later on.
So here it is, coming up
around two minutes and 58 seconds.
Let's see if you catch it.
It'll come right as Paul McCartney,
who's singing the lead vocal, says the word begin.
_ _ _ [C] _ _ Let's [F] take another listen.
_ _ _ [C] _ _ It's not terribly clear what he's saying, but it's been confirmed over the years by the various
recording engineers who were mixing the track [Ab] that it's there.
For whatever reason, they either
didn't catch it during the final mixdown, or according to one account, they left it in on
purpose as a kind of wink or a bit of civil disobedience, perhaps.
Although it's kind of hard
to imagine nowadays, in the late 1960s, it was still extremely uncommon for popular musicians
to use any sort of [F] cursing in their music.
So who actually said it?
Well, we're pretty sure it was
either John or Paul, since it seems pretty uncharacteristic of George to say it.
And
Ringo's drum set was probably not mic'd in such a way that you'd even pick up his voice were he to
have said it.
So it's either Paul or John.
Interestingly enough, John Lennon actually
thought it was Paul, who, according to John, had hit a wrong note on the piano.
Others,
such as Malcolm Toff, the recording engineer at Trident Studios, where the track was being
recorded, claimed it was John, who apparently was startled by the volume being too loud in
his headphones during an overdubbing of his harmony track.
But I'm not sure, honestly.
It
sounds like it could be either of them.
It's there, and it'll always be there.
And now you'll
never unhear it.
Who do you think it was?
_ _ _ [C] _ Hey Jude is [N] one of the first Beatles tracks that I can
vividly remember hearing for the first time.
It was summer camp, and one of my counselors had the
Beatles anthology set on CD.
I distinctly remember hearing Hey Jude every single day that summer,
and it has remained one of my favorite tracks ever since.
It's simple without being derivative,
it has an incredible hook, and there's nothing else quite like that coda.
Most of all, though,
the song is incredibly hopeful.
According to some accounts, Paul wrote it as a coded message of
comfort to Julian Lennon, John Lennon's son, who at the time was going through his parents, John
and Cynthia's divorce.
John had met Yoko and would soon remarry to her and eventually have another
son, Sean.
But regardless of what Paul specifically had in mind when writing it, the song is just
incredibly uplifting.
Looking back at the world in which it was released is even more interesting.
After all, this was the summer of 1968, the year both Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy had
been assassinated.
Vietnam was rapidly deteriorating.
There were riots in DC, Baltimore, elsewhere.
And even more interesting, it debuted on the same day that the Democratic National Convention _ _ _ in
what we'll remember was violent and cataclysmic.
Without being explicitly political, The Beatles
struck a deep nerve in a world longing for some kind of hope.
No wonder it spent nine weeks at
the top of the US music charts, more than any Beatles single had done.
If you found this
interesting, please subscribe and follow my new podcast series, You Can't Unhear This, where I'll
be uncovering some of the most interesting anomalies in recorded music.
Of course, there'll
be a ton on The Beatles, since they have an incredibly interesting library and were one of
the first popular groups to spend exorbitant amounts of time in a studio, leaving us tons of
little surprises, mistakes, and other tidbits that have been closely examined over the years.
So please subscribe and tune in
Hey Jude
_ Hey Jude was a first for a lot of reasons.
In Britain and in the US, at over 7 minutes long, it was the longest single to ever hit number one.
It was also the first single to be released on the Beatles' very own label, Apple Records.
But you might not have known that it was the first number one song to ever have hit an F-bomb.
Now let's be clear, it isn't part of the lyrics and frankly it isn't all that easy to hear,
but I'll warn you, once you hear it you can't un-hear it.
So let that be a fair warning.
So where in the song can you find this hit an F-bomb?
It comes just before the coda, which is really more like a second song in itself,
that famous na-na-na section which builds for the better part of four minutes,
complete with a 36-piece orchestra scored by the legendary George Martin.
So let's see if you can hear it.
If you're listening on a mobile device or slow internet connection,
the quality might not even be good enough for you to catch it.
This will work better if you're wearing headphones too.
Okay, so we're just before three minutes.
Pay attention closely in the center channel,
that is, you'll hear it coming from both speakers or earbuds, and what feels to be in front of you.
It's not the main vocal track, but rather a voice that's clearly seeping through one of the backing
tracks.
And I'll explain more behind the theories of who said it later on.
So here it is, coming up
around two minutes and 58 seconds.
Let's see if you catch it.
It'll come right as Paul McCartney,
who's singing the lead vocal, says the word begin.
_ _ _ [C] _ _ Let's [F] take another listen.
_ _ _ [C] _ _ It's not terribly clear what he's saying, but it's been confirmed over the years by the various
recording engineers who were mixing the track [Ab] that it's there.
For whatever reason, they either
didn't catch it during the final mixdown, or according to one account, they left it in on
purpose as a kind of wink or a bit of civil disobedience, perhaps.
Although it's kind of hard
to imagine nowadays, in the late 1960s, it was still extremely uncommon for popular musicians
to use any sort of [F] cursing in their music.
So who actually said it?
Well, we're pretty sure it was
either John or Paul, since it seems pretty uncharacteristic of George to say it.
And
Ringo's drum set was probably not mic'd in such a way that you'd even pick up his voice were he to
have said it.
So it's either Paul or John.
Interestingly enough, John Lennon actually
thought it was Paul, who, according to John, had hit a wrong note on the piano.
Others,
such as Malcolm Toff, the recording engineer at Trident Studios, where the track was being
recorded, claimed it was John, who apparently was startled by the volume being too loud in
his headphones during an overdubbing of his harmony track.
But I'm not sure, honestly.
It
sounds like it could be either of them.
It's there, and it'll always be there.
And now you'll
never unhear it.
Who do you think it was?
_ _ _ [C] _ Hey Jude is [N] one of the first Beatles tracks that I can
vividly remember hearing for the first time.
It was summer camp, and one of my counselors had the
Beatles anthology set on CD.
I distinctly remember hearing Hey Jude every single day that summer,
and it has remained one of my favorite tracks ever since.
It's simple without being derivative,
it has an incredible hook, and there's nothing else quite like that coda.
Most of all, though,
the song is incredibly hopeful.
According to some accounts, Paul wrote it as a coded message of
comfort to Julian Lennon, John Lennon's son, who at the time was going through his parents, John
and Cynthia's divorce.
John had met Yoko and would soon remarry to her and eventually have another
son, Sean.
But regardless of what Paul specifically had in mind when writing it, the song is just
incredibly uplifting.
Looking back at the world in which it was released is even more interesting.
After all, this was the summer of 1968, the year both Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy had
been assassinated.
Vietnam was rapidly deteriorating.
There were riots in DC, Baltimore, elsewhere.
And even more interesting, it debuted on the same day that the Democratic National Convention _ _ _ in
what we'll remember was violent and cataclysmic.
Without being explicitly political, The Beatles
struck a deep nerve in a world longing for some kind of hope.
No wonder it spent nine weeks at
the top of the US music charts, more than any Beatles single had done.
If you found this
interesting, please subscribe and follow my new podcast series, You Can't Unhear This, where I'll
be uncovering some of the most interesting anomalies in recorded music.
Of course, there'll
be a ton on The Beatles, since they have an incredibly interesting library and were one of
the first popular groups to spend exorbitant amounts of time in a studio, leaving us tons of
little surprises, mistakes, and other tidbits that have been closely examined over the years.
So please subscribe and tune in