Hey Jude climaxes with one of pop's most legendary hooks." Julian Lennon discovered that "Hey Jude" had been written for him almost 20 years after McCartney composed the song. He recalled of his and McCartney's relationship: "Paul and I used to hang about quite a bit – more than Dad and I did. We had a great friendship going and there seems to be far more pictures of me and Paul playing together at that age than there are pictures of me and my dad." In 1996, Julian paid £25,000 for the recording notes to "Hey Jude" at an auction. He spent
Hey Jude 2 August and the mono version on 8 August. Everett writes that the song's "most commented-on feature" is its considerable length, at 7:11. The precedent for issuing such a long track on a single had recently been set by Richard Harris' hit recording of "MacArthur Park", the composer of which, Jimmy Webb, was a visitor to the studio around this time. According to Webb, Martin admitted to him that "Hey Jude" was only allowed to run over seven minutes because of the success of "MacArthur Park". In the song's final bridge section, at 2:58, the spoken phrase "Fucking hell!" appears.