You’ll just be the son of an adored pop star. Always the uncertainty that youonly get attention and work because you are the son of. And then they alwayscompare your albums with your father’s. You see them thinking: ‘Less’.
British pop singer Julian Lennon had had enough. The son of Beatles leaderJohn Lennon opted for the flight forward: he named his new album Jude. Aclear reference to the Beatles hit ‘Hey Jude’. On the cover you see him as achild.
Julian (Liverpool, 1963) is a child from Lennon’s first marriage, born in theearly Beatlemania. His father was not at his birth due to Beatles commitments,and was rarely home after that. When his parents divorced in 1968, and Lennondisappeared from Julian’s life, his colleague Paul McCartney wrote the song’Hey Jude’ for the abandoned son, to encourage him.
Photo May Pang
pop album
Julian Lennon – Jude is out at BMG, €17.99. Inl:julianlennon.com
Since then, for Julian, Lennon was mostly an absent father, who hardly paidany attention to him. Lennon moved to New York with his new wife Yoko Ono,estranged from his British friends and family. The attention he denied hisfirst son, he put into his second son Sean, whom he cared for for the firstfive years. Just before Lennon was murdered before his New York home in 1980,he said in an interview that Julian was born “from a whiskey bottle.” In otherwords: in a drunken stupor, unplanned, unwanted. After his death, Julian saidbitterly: “Daddy was a hypocrite. To the world he spoke of peace and love, buthe could not show it to his wife and child.”
When Julian released his first album in 1984, Valotte , almost all criticswrote that his voice was so similar to that of his father. Initially Julianhad success with his soft rock, including the hit ‘Too Late for Goodbyes’, butafter the hit ‘Saltwater’ (1991) this became less and less. Until hecompletely stopped his music career in 2011, and focused on documentaries andphotography.
I see ‘Hey Jude’ as the beginning of my musical journey
Why the title ‘Jude’?
“I did that on purpose so that you would ask this question. I wanted toreclaim the name ‘Jude’. Until now, it’s always been the name others framed meas the boy that song was about.
“I’ve always felt a bit lost, I’ve had my share of depression and anxietyattacks. The corona crisis, when I was almost alone at home for two years,forced me to take a good look in the mirror. Who am I? Am I happy? Am Igloomy? If so, how can I fix that? I wanted to finally get myself together andfill the gaps in my life.
“In my passport my name was ‘John Charles Julian Lennon’. That means I wasalways told at customs, “Hey, you’re John Lennon. Witty.’ [Vermoeid:] fuckoff! Every time that confrontation. I already had a panic attack on my way tothe airport. I didn’t want to be another John Lennon anymore. I wanted to bemyself. That’s why two years ago I had my name changed to: Julian Charles JohnLennon. I put myself, Julian, first. It’s like shedding the old skin. I wantto do it on my own terms from now on, I want to become a happier and morepositive person.”
Wouldn’t you rather break free from the eternal association with your fatherand the Beatles?
“I can’t run from it, I can’t hide from it, so I better respect and acceptthat legacy. Paul wrote “Hey Jude” for me when I was five, and the lyricsremained appropriate for the rest of my life. ‘ Take a sad song and make itbetter‘. I see ‘Hey Jude’ as the beginning of my musical journey. I’veanswered literally every possible question about the Beatles and my father inmy life. Now I want to continue.”
Julian Lennon with his father and Yoko Ono in 1968.
Photo Getty
The Beatles have often crossed Julian’s path lately. To raise money for hischaritable trust, he held an NFT auction of Beatles memorabilia, including thehandwritten lyrics to “Hey Jude.” In the spring of this year, he sang’Imagine’, his father’s best-known solo hit, for the first time for a Ukrainebenefit. He also watched the new documentary with his half-brother Sean Lennon_Get Back_ about the recordings of the LP let it be. In pop magazine _mojo_he said: “It reminded me of what my father was like when we were together: socrazy, smart, funny and idiotic. I loved him again so much.”
Why did you return to music?
“I had to self-publish my last two albums, without the support of a recordcompany. I couldn’t exactly pay the bills from the sale. So I tried othercareers, documentaries, photography, and it worked out really well. So Iproved to myself that I could do more than sing songs. That was a relief.
“Then a former financial advisor, who retired, gave me a few boxes from hisbasement. Most contained financial papers, but one contained demos, in allpossible formats. Some I had recorded thirty years ago. I listened to them andthought some of them were quite good. So I started tinkering with it,initially with the idea of extracting a few singles or an EP. But graduallyit became an album. I was able to do it at my own pace without furtherpressure. That made it feel very different from the previous albums.”
“My oldest friend, guitarist Justin Clayton, helped me. My memory is a cheesehole, but he remembered exactly which guitar we had used from every demo, andthat I was wearing a black T-shirt then and then. I used a lot of the originalvocals. Those demos were all recorded with a drum machine, because that wasfashionable at the time. So I dubbed real instruments over it. Four songs arereally new: ‘Freedom’, ‘Gaia’, ‘Breathe’, and ‘Lucky Ones’. Sound engineerSpike Stent has mixed the album in such a way that it still sounds like oneunit. He did a Nigel – he turned the album to eleven, just like in the movie_This Spinal Tap_.”
Why the cover photo of yourself as a child?
“I found the look in my eyes striking. That photo was taken by May Pang, wewere at Disney World with Dad. Someone said the photo is reminiscent of thecover of With the Beatles : with the face so half in the shade.”
Christmas vacation 1974, eleven-year-old Julian went to Disney World inFlorida with his father. The photo may mark the last time he saw his father.In an earlier interview, Julian said: “For me at the time, the big questionwas: how long is this going to take? Is he going to leave me again?”
At the time, Lennon was temporarily separated from Yoko Ono. His girlfriendMay Pang tried to mend Lennon’s older relationships, including those withMcCartney, and those with his ex-wife and son Julian. So during the year and ahalf that Lennon was with Pang, Julian saw his father more often. When Lennonwent back to Yoko Ono after this, he broke those contacts again. The ones heleft out in the cold, Pang, Cyntia, and Julian, kept in touch.
That Christmas break at Disney World is also significant in the history of theBeatles. There and then Lennon signed the papers officially ending the band,more than five years after the four members were last together.
What did you see in the child’s eyes?
“A lost soul, I think. But also determination. He knew he would survive, andthat it would propel him to better things.”