Contrasting with the problems afflicting the band, this performance captured the song's theme of optimism and togetherness by featuring the studio audience joining the Beatles as they sang the coda.

"[10] On 30 June, after recording the Black Dyke Mills Band's rendition of his instrumental "Thingumybob" in Yorkshire,[11] McCartney stopped at the village of Harrold in Bedfordshire and performed "Hey Jude" at a local pub.

[29][nb 3] Author Mark Hertsgaard has commented that "many of the song's lyrics do seem directed more at a grown man on the verge of a powerful new love, especially the lines 'you have found her now go and get her' and 'you're waiting for someone to perform with.

[32] The first two takes from 29 July, which author and critic Kenneth Womack describes as a "jovial" session,[38] have been released on the 50th Anniversary box set of the White Album in 2018 and the Anthology 3 compilation in 1996, respectively.

[21] The film shows only three of the Beatles performing "Hey Jude", as George Harrison remained in the studio control room,[44] with Martin and EMI recording engineer Ken Scott.

[48][49] Author Simon Leng views this as indicative of how Harrison was increasingly allowed little room to develop ideas on McCartney compositions, whereas he was free to create empathetic guitar parts for Lennon's songs of the period.

[76] "Hey Jude" was one second longer than Richard Harris's recent hit recording of "MacArthur Park",[77] the composer of which, Jimmy Webb, was a visitor to the studio around this time.

[79][nb 8] Pleased with the result, McCartney played an acetate copy of "Hey Jude" at a party held by Mick Jagger, at Vesuvio's nightclub in central London, to celebrate the completion of the Rolling Stones' Beggars Banquet album.

[86] Everett comments that McCartney's melody over the verses borrows in part from John Ireland's 1907 liturgical piece Te Deum, as well as (with the first change to a B♭ chord) suggesting the influence of the Drifters' 1960 hit "Save the Last Dance for Me".

Tim Riley writes that, with the "restrained tom-tom and cymbal fill" that introduces the drum part, "the piano shifts downward to add a flat seventh to the tonic chord, making the downbeat of the bridge the point of arrival ('And any time you feel the pain').

[nb 11] In his analysis of the composition, musicologist Alan Pollack comments on the unusual structure of "Hey Jude", in that it uses a "binary form that combines a fully developed, hymn-like song together with an extended, mantra-like jam on a simple chord progression".

[95] It was one of four singles issued simultaneously to launch Apple Records – the others being Mary Hopkin's "Those Were the Days", Jackie Lomax's "Sour Milk Sea", and the Black Dyke Mills Band's "Thingumybob".

[125] The decision was made to hire an orchestra and for the vocals to be sung live, to circumvent the Musicians' Union's ban on miming on television, but otherwise the Beatles performed to a backing track.

[129] The final edit was a combination of two different takes[125] and included "introductions" to the song by David Frost (who introduced the Beatles as "the greatest tea-room orchestra in the world")[127] and Cliff Richard, for their respective TV programmes.

[135] Norman comments that it evoked "palpable general relief" for viewers who had watched Frost's show two weeks before, as Lennon now adopted a supporting role to McCartney, and Ono was "nowhere in sight".

[136] Referring to the sight of the Beatles engulfed by a crowd made up of "young, old, male, female, black, brown, and white" fans, Hertsgaard describes the promotional clip as "a quintessential sixties moment, a touching tableau of contentment and togetherness".

While he viewed the track overall as "a beautiful, compelling song", and the first three minutes as "absolutely sensational", Johnson rued the long coda's "vocal improvisations on the basically repetitive four-bar chorus".

[140] Chris Welch of Melody Maker said he had initially been unimpressed, but came to greatly admire "Hey Jude" for its "slow, heavy, piano-ridden beat, sensuous, soulful vocals and nice thumpy drums".

[141] Cash Box's reviewer said that the extended fadeout, having been a device pioneered by the Beatles on "All You Need Is Love", "becomes something of an art form" in "Hey Jude", comprising a "trance-like ceremonial that becomes almost timeless in its continuity".

The reviewer contrasted "Hey Jude" with "Revolution", saying that McCartney's song "urges activism of a different sort" by "liltingly exhort[ing] a friend to overcome his fears and commit himself in love".

[146] Walter Everett admires the melody as a "marvel of construction, contrasting wide leaps with stepwise motions, sustained tones with rapid movement, syllabic with melismatic word-setting, and tension ... with resolution".

[20] He cites Van Morrison's "Astral Weeks", Donovan's "Atlantis", the Moody Blues' "Never Comes the Day" and the Allman Brothers' "Revival" among the many songs with "mantralike repeated sections" that followed the release of "Hey Jude".

"[149] Alan Pollack highlights the song as "such a good illustration of two compositional lessons – how to fill a large canvas with simple means, and how to use diverse elements such as harmony, bassline, and orchestration to articulate form and contrast.

"[91] Pollack says that the long coda provides "an astonishingly transcendental effect",[91] while AllMusic's Richie Unterberger similarly opines: "What could have very easily been boring is instead hypnotic because McCartney varies the vocal with some of the greatest nonsense scatting ever heard in rock, ranging from mantra-like chants to soulful lines to James Brown power screams.

[150] MacDonald concluded: "'Hey Jude' strikes a universal note, touching on an archetypal moment in male sexual psychology with a gentle wisdom one might properly call inspired.

[68] In the description of music journalist Paul Du Noyer, the song's "monumental quality ... amazed the public in 1968"; in addition, the release silenced detractors in the British mainstream press who had relished the opportunity to criticise the band for their December 1967 television special, Magical Mystery Tour, and their trip to Rishikesh in early 1968.

[155] "Hey Jude" was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on 13 September; that same week, NME reported that two million copies of the single had been sold.

Writing in the magazine, Nick Levine said: "Don't allow yourself to overlook this song because of its sheer ubiquity ... 'Hey Jude' is a huge-hearted, super-emotional epic that climaxes with one of pop's most legendary hooks.

[177][183] McCartney applied the revised credit to this and 18 other Lennon–McCartney songs on his 2002 live album Back in the U.S.,[184] attracting criticism from Ono, as Lennon's widow,[185] and from Starr, the only other surviving member of the Beatles.

"[197] He has continued to feature the song in his concerts,[115] leading the audience in organised singalongs whereby different segments of the crowd – such as those in a certain section of the venue, then only men followed by only the women – chant the "Na-na-na na" refrain.