John Lennon’s son Julian reveals the Beatles hit that drives him ‘up the wall’

Julian Lennon said Beatles classic Hey Jude will always be ‘dark’ to him as it serves as a reminder of the pain behind his parents divorce and ‘the fact that I rarely saw my father again’.

The son of late Beatles superstar John Lennon said Sir Paul McCartney wrote the song to provide comfort to Julian and his mother Cynthia over the 1968 separation and the affair with Yoko Ono.

‘It’s a beautiful sentiment, no question about that, and I’m very thankful – but I’ve also been driven up the wall by it,’ Julian told Esquire magazine.

‘I love the fact that he wrote a song about me and for mum, but depending on what side of the bed one woke up on, and where you’re hearing it, it can be a good or a slightly frustrating thing.’

Julian said he saw his father ‘maybe a couple of times’ before he was shot and killed on December 8, 1980 in New York.

‘The weird thing with the audience is they think it’s cute sometimes, quoting Hey Jude to me, but I don’t think they realise there’s a lot of pain behind what happened,’ he said.

‘Every time you quote that, it reminds me of my mother being separated from my father, the love that was lost, the fact that I rarely saw my father again ever.

“‘..A lot of people don’t quite get how intense, how emotional, and how personal that is. It’s not just a “pick yourself up and dust yourself off and be happy”.

‘There’s deep emotional pain. I can celebrate it – but also it’s something that’ll always be dark to me.’

Musician Julian released his seventh album titled Jude in a nod to his father’s band and the song.

It comes after it emerged The Beatles’ 1972 Grammy Trustee Award presented to John Lennon is expected to fetch up to $500,000 (£392,825), through the Gotta Have Rock And Roll auction house.

Each of the four members of The Beatles — which includes Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr — were given the statuettes in recognition for their ‘significant contributions to the field of recording’ two years after the band broke up, according to the auction’s website.

But, it turns out Lennon wanted no part of his award and told the president of the Grammys at the time: ‘I’m not a Beatle anymore, you can keep it,’ as reported by Gotta Have Rock And Roll to TMZ.

The legendary Revolution singer-songwriter ended up gifting the award directly to the head of Apple Records, who was also the President of Naras The Grammys.

The golden gramophone award is mounted on a wood base with an inscribed plaque affixed to it reading, ‘National Academy Of Recording Artists And Sciences, National Trustees Awards 1972, To, The Beatles, John Lennon’.

Currently, the bid sits at $200,000, but with more than four days left the auction house closes on Friday estimates that the final price tag will shoot up to between $300,000 (£235,707) and $500,000 (£392,825).

Once the winning bid is determined the trophy, which is said to be museum quality, will receive a letter from the executive confirming the details, along with a Gotta Have Rock And Roll certificate of authenticity.