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 hit for the band in America, tying Elvis Presley's record at the time for most number-one songs there. "Billboard" ranked it as the number-one song for 1968. In the UK, where "MacArthur Park" had failed to top the chart, "Hey Jude" remained the longest number-one hit for nearly a quarter of a century. It was surpassed in 1993 by Meat Loaf's "I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)", which ran to 7:52 as a single. On 30 November 1968, "NME" reported that sales had reached nearly six million copies worldwide. "Hey Jude" became the biggest-selling debut release