Why Hey Jude is the Greatest Song Ever Written - A True Story

Growing up on a tough public housing estate in England, soccer was all we had. When the visiting team started making fun of our mismatched uniforms and poor soccer pitch, we turned to the Beatles!

Warndon is a huge public housing estate on the edge of a Midland town in England. It’s considered “rough” by all those who didn’t live there. In the 1960s Warndon didn’t seem rough to me, it was where I grew up. The Warndon fathers worked in factories, on the railway, or were resting while they waited for their next job in the factories or on the railway. Warndon Mothers didn’t do a whole lot other than stand outside on ratty lawns, gossip all day and moan at the neighborhood kids. When it rained, as it often did, people just stared out the windows at their ratty lawns and complained about the weather.

 

For the kids, soccer was our purpose and our religion. Some kids didn’t play soccer. They were considered odd, and so were you if you so much as spoke with them. From an abandoned field we cobbled together a soccer pitch and entered ourselves into a local soccer league. The field was divoty and sorrowful. Overused and under maintained the goal areas were no more than mud. Grass struggled to grow in the margins near the edges and corners of the pitch. You soon got wise to the areas of the pitch to avoid, the ankle-breaking holes and one area where a local builder dumped a load of concrete. Other than that, it was regulation size and served its purpose. We picked yellow as our team color for no other reason than most of the players already had a yellow shirt and so our team uniform ranged from bright lemon to burnt orange with an array of logos, brands, frays and tears.

 

On this particular day we were hosting a team from another part of town. Our changing rooms were two large corrugated iron sheds windowless and with a long rusty bench that ran the length.  The visiting team arrived with their crisp matching uniforms and Adidas soccer boots soft and supple as carpet slippers.

 

They had the “away” shed, and we had the “home” shed.

 

As we changed for the game, we could hear the “aways” grumbling about the condition of the pitch, picking fun at our net-less goal posts and criticizing the erratic white lines that marked out the field. At first, we sat quiet, embarrassed and almost apologetic. Then they started talking about us " our kit, our mismatched uniform, our big nobly soccer boots. The team’s best player, Pee Green, was wearing hideously oversized shorts " hand-me-downs no doubt from an older brother, or even his father. We sat silently as Pee looked down, shameful of his shorts, his boots and his socks. He was wearing the same grey ankle socks we were required to wear at school. They knew that we could hear them. They were gibing us, getting our goat, messing with our heads. They were picking on our best player.

 

Pee said nothing, but started to sing, “Na-na-na nananana”, the refrain the Hey Jude. Growing up in England in the 1960s you heard the Beatles on the radio day and night. Grandmothers loved the Beatles, parents sang to their songs on the radio, you knew the words of every new release by heart. The Beatles united the whole country in compendium of hymns and anthems. Hey Jude is 7 minutes 8 seconds long, twice the length of most pop songs. It’s written by Paul McCartney about John Lennon’s son, Julian. It was written at the time when John was divorcing Julian’s mother, Cynthia. Paul composed the song as he drove from Cynthia’s house one evening. He knew in an instant that Hey Jude would top the British top twenty. It did. It went to straight to number one. The song starts with “Hey Jude, don’t make it bad take a sad song and make it better” the song plays for 3 minutes and 8 seconds before “na-na-na nananan” begins and then the song continues for another 4 mintues,  the “na-na-na nanana” anthem.  

 

Now Trevor Locke was singing with Pee Green, “na-na-na”.  Tiggy Harris joined in, “take a sad song and make it better”, then Chris White, Chipper Chapmen, me, Peat Moss, Scrappy Hughes, China Lewis. The whole team was singing Hey Jude with everything we had. The iron hut was vibrating with our voices. We got louder and louder until we were screaming at the top of our adolescent lungs “na-na-na nanana”. We came out of the changing hut screaming Hey Jude. The “away” team wide eyed and petrified huddled at the edge of the field fearful to step on to the pitch. We had changed into demons in the inadequate shed. We took up our positions singing Hey Jude. Pee Green’s shorts were billowing and flapping and we were all singing Hey Jude.

 

It was only when the referee told us that he wouldn’t start the game unless we stopped did we quiet down. That game we were tigers. We played like we had never played before. Our hand-me-down boots heavy with leather studs flew across the field faster than any Adidas ‘slipper’. We scored one goal and then another, and with every goal we celebrated by singing “na-na-na nanana” until the referee told us to quiet down or leave the field. It was the best game I ever played and even from my left-back defensive position I scored a goal. It was almost as if Hey Jude was out there playing with us, edging us on, and encouraging us to do the best we could - a twelfth yellow-shaded jersey running up and down the field invisible to all but us.

 

At the end of the game, the losing away team left the field dejected and embarrassed, their crisp uniforms mudded and their shins bruised. We had taught them not to mess with the Warndon boys and the Beatles.

 

More that forty years later, Hey Jude still sounds as fresh as it did on that winter’s day in England. Even now when I hear it I recall the smell of newly churned mud, the taste of victory, and the joy of being part of a team made up of your best friends. Pee Green (Philip) went on to be professional soccer player, where he was given a fresh pair of shorts and a matching jersey for every game. I often wonder if before a big game, he would softly sing the words of Hey Jude before taking to the pitch.

Author's Note

A true story from 40 years ago!