Backed by John Lennon's "I Am the Walrus", it was issued as a non-album single in November 1967, the group's first release since the death of their manager, Brian Epstein.

Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in April 1967, the Beatles typically embraced randomness and simplicity as part of the creative process.

[9] He added: "It's such a deep theme in the universe, duality – man woman, black white, ebony ivory, high low, right wrong, up down, hello goodbye – that it was a very easy song to write."

[10] Among Beatles biographers, Ian MacDonald dates the composition to late September 1967,[11] while Bob Spitz says it was written in time for the Our World international television broadcast, in June that year.

[15] Musicologist Walter Everett writes that the bassline in the chorus is an inverted form of the descending scale, which is accentuated on the Beatles' recording by the lead guitar part.

[14][4] Following the third chorus, at 2:36 on the released recording, the bassline descends chromatically to mark the start of what musicologist Alan Pollack terms the "first outro"[14] and Everett calls a "codetta".

[23][24] Under the working title "Hello Hello", the Beatles taped the basic track for the song on 2 October,[25] with George Martin producing the session and Geoff Emerick and Ken Scott as engineers.

[20] Author Richie Unterberger comments that the production and recording was unusually straightforward, relative to the experimentalism that had characterised much of the Beatles' studio work since completing Sgt.

[35][36] In his book The Unreleased Beatles, Unterberger writes that take 16 features a more "active" guitar line from Harrison, who answers McCartney's vocal phrasing over the opening verse with a series of descending fills.

[39][40] These string parts were played by classical musicians Kenneth Essex and Leo Brinbaum,[15] and scored by Martin, who based the arrangement on a melody McCartney supplied on piano.

[55] For three weeks from 27 December 1967, the band held the top two positions in the UK, with the Magical Mystery Tour soundtrack EP trailing "Hello, Goodbye".

[56] The single was released on 27 November in the United States, as Capitol 2056,[51] and in the issue dated 30 December replaced the Monkees' "Daydream Believer" at number one on Billboard's Hot 100, where it remained for three weeks,[57] becoming the band's fifteenth American chart-topper.

[62] "Hello, Goodbye" was included on the American Magical Mystery Tour album,[64] which Capitol Records compiled by adding five non-album singles tracks from 1967 to the six songs issued in most other countries on the double EP.

I didn't really direct the film[s] – all we needed was a couple of cameras, some good cameramen, a bit of sound and some dancing girls ... we took our Sgt Pepper suits along.

[75][76] In author John Winn's description of the three clips, this version shows the Beatles performing the song against a psychedelic backdrop, while over the coda they are joined on the stage by female hula dancers.

[76][77] Author Mark Hertsgaard describes the film as "a slapdash affair featuring the hula dancers that was salvaged only by some ludicrously spastic dancing by Lennon".

[71] For the 7 December edition of the same show, the BBC ran a clip comprising still photographs mixed with some of the editing-suite film[75] – a combination that served as the promo for "Hello, Goodbye" throughout the remainder of its UK chart run.

[87] In his single review for Melody Maker, Nick Jones wrote: "Superficially it's a very 'ordinary' Beatles record without cascading sitars, and the involved, weaving hallucinogenic sounds that we've grown to love so much.

[89] Cash Box's reviewer said that the song's closing section was "brilliant" and wrote: "Minimum of words, minimum of melody and practically no subject at all, yet the Beatles have a new side that packs a panchromatic rainbow of sound into the narrow limits that Lennon & McCartney have chosen to work with …"[90] In his book Revolution in the Head, Ian MacDonald views the track as "blandly catchy" and comments that its long stay at number 1 in Britain "says more about the sudden decline of the singles chart than the quality of the song itself".

[91] Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone considers that, at this stage in their career, "the Beatles didn't need to push – they could have hit #1 with a tape of themselves blowing their noses", which, he suggests, "would have been catchier" than both "Hello, Goodbye" and the band's next single, "Lady Madonna".

[92] Writing for Rough Guides, Chris Ingham describes "Hello, Goodbye" as a "harmless, facile word and chord-play that kept the far more challenging 'Walrus' from being the A-side of the [Beatles'] first post-Epstein single".

[93] In the opinion of cultural commentator Steven D. Stark, the song has "the catchiest of tunes" but "insipid" lyrics, which, had the Beatles' two principal songwriters been collaborating in the manner of previous years, Lennon would have insisted that McCartney rework.

[95] In a 2005 review of the Magical Mystery Tour album, Sputnikmusic lauded the song for "encapsulating everything that made the Beatles such a great pop band", and praised its piano line, Starr's drumming, and the coda.

[96] Writing for AllMusic, Richie Unterberger names "Hello, Goodbye" as one of the "huge, glorious, and innovative singles" on Magical Mystery Tour,[97] while Billboard's Chris Payne rates the track among the band's "most perfect pop songs".

[98] Scott Plagenhoef of Pitchfork cites it as an example of how McCartney "excelled at selling simplistic lyrics that risk seeming cloying", although he adds: "the kaleidoscopic, carnival-ride melody and interplay between lead and backing vocals ensure it's a much better record than it is a song.

"[102] In 2006, the track appeared at number 36 in a similar list compiled by Mojo, accompanied by commentary from Alan McGee, who described it as "the greatest-ever pop song, bar none".

[103] "Hello, Goodbye" is ranked 76th by Stephen Spignesi and Michael Lewis in their book 100 Best Beatles Songs, where the authors call it a "classic" and a "fine, fresh, fun piece of pop".

[105] More recent covers include recordings by Dwight Twilley and the band Ash, and a novelty version by Looney Tunes characters credited to "Bugs & Friends".