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The Beatles · S1 E3
Mendips & Forthlin Road
Two houses in Liverpool that will become museums. Mimi raises John in middle-class Woolton. Paul grows up in a council house in Allerton with Jim and brother Mike
Two semi-detached houses in Liverpool, a mile and a half apart. One raises a rebel, the other raises a melody maker.
Paul wrote "Hey Jude" for John's son Julian during his parents' divorce. The seven-minute coda, with a full audience singing along, is one of the greatest moments in recorded music.
Hey Jude (1968)
Paul started singing this in the car, driving to visit Julian and Cynthia Lennon after John had left. The original lyric was "Hey Jules." He changed it to Jude because it felt stronger. John heard an early version and was convinced Paul had written it about him, about giving him permission to be with Yoko. Paul said it was for Julian. Both readings are probably true. The single runs seven minutes and eleven seconds, and every label executive told him it was too long for radio. It became the best-selling single of 1968.
Mendips, 251 Menlove Avenue
Woolton, Liverpool. The house where Aunt Mimi and Uncle George raise John from the age of five. John's bedroom faces the back garden, and from it he can hear the Salvation Army band playing in the grounds of a children's home called Strawberry Field.
“The guitar's all very well, John, but you'll never make a living out of it.”
— Mary "Mimi" Smith. John later had these words engraved on a gold plaque and presented it to her.
TAP TO REVEAL: Why is the front room at 20 Forthlin Road one of the most important rooms in music history?
I'll Follow the Sun (The Beatles)
From Beatles for Sale (1964). Paul wrote this at about sixteen in the front room at 20 Forthlin Road, making it one of the earliest McCartney compositions to survive into the Beatles' catalogue. A gentle, wistful song about leaving before things go wrong, written by a teenager who hadn't yet left Liverpool.
Both Mendips and 20 Forthlin Road are now preserved as museums by which organization?
Two houses, two boys, two families shaped by music and loss. Next: Julia Lennon, the mother who gave John away, taught him banjo chords on weekends, and was killed crossing Menlove Avenue when he was seventeen.
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