Written by: Lennon-McCartney
Recorded: 13 October 1968
Producer: George Martin
Engineer: Ken Scott
Released: 22 November 1968 (UK), 25 November 1968 (US)
John Lennon: vocals, acoustic guitar
Available on:
The Beatles (White Album)
Anthology 3
Love
Julia was written by John Lennon for his mother, who died in a road accident in 1958. It is the only solo Lennon recording in The Beatles' canon.
The song was written in India. Like Dear Prudence and Happiness Is A Warm Gun, it contained the fingerpicking guitar style taught to Lennon by Donovan.
Some afternoons we would gather at one of our pads and play the acoustic guitars we had all brought with us. Paul Horn, the American flute wizard, was there. John was keen to learn the finger-style guitar I played and he was a good student. Paul already had a smattering of finger style. George preferred his Chet Atkins style. John wrote Julia and Dear Prudence based on the picking I taught him.
Many Years From Now, Barry Miles
While inspired as a tribute to his mother, Julia also showed the increasing influence of Yoko Ono upon Lennon's world. The line "Ocean child calls me" referred to Ono, whose name means 'child of the sea' in Japanese.
Julia was my mother. But it was sort of a combination of Yoko and my mother blended into one. That was written in India. On the White Album. And all the stuff on the White Album was written in India while we were supposedly giving money to Maharishi, which we never did. We got our mantra, we sat in the mountains eating lousy vegetarian food and writing all those songs. We wrote tons of songs in India.
All We Are Saying, David Sheff
Sections of the song were adapted from lines from the poem Sand And Foam by the then-fashionable Lebanese poet Kahlil Gibran. The opening words of Julia were taken from Gibran's lines, "Half of what I say is meaningless; but I say it so that the other half may reach you."
Lennon also adapted the lines "When I cannot sing my heart, I can only speak my mind" from Gibran's "When life does not find a singer to sing her heart she produces a philosopher to speak her mind". Other imagery, including 'seashell eyes', was also taken from Gibran.
As an exorcism of years of hurt and regret at losing her, Julia marked the point at which Lennon laid bare his soul after years of writing allusions to mother/lover figures. The song implies that he has, in Yoko Ono, finally found a love to equal his mother's, and was thereafter free to lay his soul bare to his new muse.
On the Love album, Julia is used as an instrumental transitional track, between Eleanor Rigby and I Am The Walrus. Lennon's guitar is overlaid with the sounds of children playing, the orchestra from A Day In The Life and effects from Revolution 9.
In the studio
The Beatles had recorded a demo of Julia at George Harrison's Esher bungalow in May 1968. Although very similar to the studio version, it appears to contain vocal contributions from other members of the group, and ends in ad-libbed whistling.
Julia was the last song to be started for the White Album. Lennon recorded three takes of the song on 13 October 1968, double tracking his vocals and acoustic guitar to the last of these.
The mostly instrumental take two was later released on Anthology 3, along with some dialogue between Lennon and Paul McCartney, who was observing the recording from the studio control room.
Maybe John Lennon had a bit of Oedipus Complex
I’ve thought the same myself. It makes sense because of the fact that he never really met his mother until his teenage years, when feelings of love and sexual attraction get confused anyway.
Haunting!
The song felt like it belonged on the Plastic Ono Band album. It had the same minimalism musically and the same intense emotional honesty as songs like “Mother” (which, I suppose, is appropriate).
I might be the only person who believes this but I always felt that the opening lyric was:
“Half of what I say is meaning less”
In that half of what he is saying is losing it’s meaning.
I was the same. However, according to wikipedia, The line “Half of what I say is meaningless, but I say it just to reach you” was a slight alteration from Kahlil Gibran’s “Sand and Foam” (1926) in which the original verse reads, “Half of what I say is meaningless, but I say it so that the other half may reach you”. (which in my humble opinion is a far superior line).
Not only is it mentioned on Wikipedia, but the original Gibran quote is also in the above article.
I do feel awfully silly for reading the comments first. It was late.
I love tha Anthology version because it shows a vulnerable Lennon who is self-conscious about his guitar playing with a comforting McCartney encouraging him. I think when people really analyze that relationship they tend to look at the bad rather than the good and, I don’t know, listening to that just makes me appreciate the love that they really had for each other.
I am glad to see this comment. It is a testament to how close they truly were, in their heart of hearts.
Absolutely! Paul always said he ‘knows’ John in despite the limited spoken words exchanged between them two.
The thing that might have threatened John was (probably), the fact that Paul read through him despite his tough facade, and he knew it too. Hence the tension between them. I would be threatened and defensive too, if I knew someone is reading through me through my defensive walls and moat.
I don’t think it was that simple. Remember, from the beginning, it was John who let Paul join “his band”. This dynamic stayed unquestioned for many years, with obvs things like it being “Long John and The Silver Beetles” to John taking the lead singing the intended first single, “How Do You Do It”, followed by how he pretty much dominated the songwriting through Help!, John was the unquestioned leader of the band. Then Paul really started developing, both in craft, starting with of course “Yesterday” and all the praise that was heaped on him, and in ego. So suddenly, esp after Epstein died, I’m sure John felt threatened, then overwhelmed as Paul started to take over. Meanwhile, the famous acid-trip they shared(was it the only time they ever did), where Paul says he did it because he “wanted to be with his friend” after taking him home from the studio. And Paul imagines John as the king of the universe – not hard to read the psychology there. I think it’s obvious they both kind of intimidated each other – Paul never lost that desire, there from the moment he played “Twenty Flight Rock” to John in the hopes he would let him in the band, to this day(impossible though t may be), was to simply get John’s unequivocal approval. Then things became very competitive, maybe less so in a friendly-way than before. As Paul himself said, they were both in their 20’s with big egos, and neither was sensitive enough or mature enough to just say “hey I love you man” – “you know what, I love you too”, which is all it would have taken. Maybe it would have happened, but after Yoko came into the picture, Paul in particular felt as if he had been replaced in John’s heart by someone else. Still, you can see this great fondness they had for each other was always there by moments like the one mentioned above, or the way John always seemed to make Paul crack up(“Las Paranoias!”). love the story where they were in the middle of a big fight, and John just stopped, lowered his granny glasses and said “hey, it’s only me”. So there was def an understanding and a love throughout – they just were both a little too immature and insecure with how the other would react to be that honest. Unfortunately, with the way the break-up went, and esp bc that competition only grew all the more after the band broke-up.
My impression had always been that Paul was despite his younger age, was the more mature of the two – between him and John. AND you were dead on there! I wish we could hear what Paul really said to John during that take 2 recording! But I couldn’t really make it out.
I had no doubt that you were right, though! Paul was encouraging John to play on, sensing immediately that John was self-conscious, not to mention the subject of the song was a haunting subject which Paul was almost as familiar with as John was, having been ‘there’ with John at the time of Julia’s death.
I find it a little insulting that Lennon named this song after his mother, when it’s all about Yoko. Plus it’s really lazy and amateurish.
A little insulting?
Not medium insulting?
The song to me is about both women.
Lennon is not only talking to Julia but he is telling her about Yoko.
Why should you be insulted?
Well, maybe because I love my mother. And, if I was gonna write a song about her, I wouldn’t write it about my wife and just name it after her. Lennon should have called the song: “Yoko”. But he probably wasn’t brave enough to do it at the time.
Spoken like someone who has truly never written a song.
Or he could have combined the two names and called the song “Yulia” — or “Joko”…
This song was written in India, where John was with his first wife Cynthia, while secretly corresponding regularly with Yoko. I think it makes perfect sense that he wrote a love song for a woman who wasn’t his wife and named it after his mother, just as one of his earlier extra-marital affairs morphed into the not-so-direct poetry of Norwegian Wood.
You hit the nail on the head….he wanted his mothers blessing with Yoko. John also encouraged Paul to sing with his throat and was cheering him on in the song Oh darling, even shouted , whew!!!!!! When Paul really let go!
Ah. Everytime I hear this song I instantly bawl. I can feel all of the emotion Lennon put into the song. It somehow makes me think of my grandmother who passed away nearly two years ago. Her name wasn’t Julia though. This song is simply breath-taking and I will never tire of it.
RIP Julia and John Lennon. 🙂
Yes, yes, and YES! I’ve been listening to the different variations of “Julia”, and have found myself crying through each one ?
Touching moment (for me atleast) on the anthology version: Lennon messes up and sounds a bit embarrassed. You can hear Paul in the background, encouraging him from the control booth. So sad that these two geniuses had to part the way they did.
You’re so right. Surprisingly,John seemed a bit insecure recording this song alone.
The voice of Paul encouraging him shows that, despite the rivalry, they were great friends. “Here Today” from Paul’s solo work it’s a great evidence.
I think they made their peace with each other, Paul mentioned it in an interview, can’t remember there are so many articles interviews books etc, but it stuck with me that Paul said he was so glad he and John at least were communicating. John even mentions while recording “how do you sleep” with George, he thought the song was again about himself and not Paul …as long as he and Paul were alright with each other that was all that mattered he goes on to say in his interview. I think he felt a bit guilty.
What was Paul saying in the anthology version? I can’t quite make it out.
Anyone think the melody line ‘Her hair of floating sky is shimmering’ sounds very like ‘That when I tell you that I love you’ from ‘I Should Have Known Better’? Always strikes me. The melody (I think) is in the Lydian mode, very distinctive. Both wonderful songs, IMO.
Wow! Yes, indeed.
I don’t talk about other than my feelings about John Lennon. As far as I understand John has lived with a heavy heart that he couldn’t live with his mother to his heart’s content. (She’s died in an accident).But I am sure his mother likes, and love”s” him much much more than any other thing. (by the way sorry for my bad English, because I’m a Turk, I can’t use English very well).
I am named after this song! It is an inspiration to me and I have tried to live up to it 🙂 it is so beautiful!
One of my favorites on Anthology…so haunting, good to hear Paul encouraging John from the control room.
Do you know if there were engineers/producers/type personnel other than Paul present during this recording? I’ve been sitting on that thought for a while.
I have been reading and reading that John started to cry while recording the take that appeared on Anthology, but I haven’t found a source that verify this? Is it true or not? I have listened to the song, and it could be true as he sounds like he is singing whispering-cracking-like.
Hey guys, just wondering…anyone listened to ‘Homeward Bound’ by Simon and Garfunkel? AWFULLY similar guitar melody. Now, this might be conjecture, but the album Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme came out in 1966, two years before the Beatles traveled to Rishikesh where Donovan taught John the fingerpicking technique that would eventually find itself in ‘Julia’ among other White Album songs. Being a folk singer himself, Donovan more likely than not would have heard S & G material…thoughts?
– Fantastic site, by the way. I doff my hat to you, Joe!
I sent my oldest son who is a huge Beatle/ Lennon fan a text asking him if he had ever heard S&Gs Homeward Bound cause it reminded me of John and Paul singing the Two of Us, the harmonies were so similar.
A timeless song, I never tire of!
The greatness of John Lennon´s ability to compose is that he has two kinds of melody-mobility. One outer mobility, and one inner mobility. In the outer mobility the melody moves up and down (that´s what George Martin like), or uses several notes. In the inner melody, the melody consists of almost one note, but instead the accompaniment changes. In that case the song will be more expressive, like this wonderful song Julia.
Great breakdown! I never thought of it that way, I think you’re completely right, except that the idea of his “outer mobility” melodies (like “Jealous Guy” or “Across The Universe” or even the bridge of this song) can be as expressive as anything I’ve heard. But yes, I roll my eyes when I hear all these foolish critics simplifying things and saying “Paul was the melody-maker” and “John’s songs tend to have less notes”. John could write melody that’s as “vertical” as anybody who’s written music…listen especially to the early stuff, or the stuff he wrote near the end of his life especially (“Real Love”, “Grow Old With Me”, “Now and Then”, etc). I feel like in the later years of the Beatles, when he was destroying the present and past of music with unfathomable things like “I Am The Walrus” he had become somewhat bored with needing to have to fill all his songs with all these vocal notes – isn’t it much more of a challenge to write a great song like this and not have to rely on such a “traditional” notion as cramming a song with as much “show-off” melodic hopping-and-skipping? I think Beethoven was the same way…think of “Moonlight Sonata” – a lot of repetition in the melody and still perhaps the most haunting piece of music ever written.
It seems to me this was an obvious love song to Yoko. It was written in the time when he was still trying to deceive his wife Cynthia and the only reference so his mother is the name. All the other allusions would be entirely inappropriate to anyone other than a lover.
Lovely song, John Lennon wrote and sung on the back of his Mothers tragic death a decade earlier. Also Yoko is referenced heavily in this song. John Lennons lyrics are beautiful.
A really beautiful song, sounds so simple yet so pure, the bridge always makes me feel so warm, it’s true it could have belonged to the “Plastic Ono band” album, like “look at me”, but I think it closes side two of the white album perfectly. John’s bridges tend to touch deeply on my emotions, like in “How”, “I’m losing you”, or “Grow old with me”. Pure genius! there’s a heavenly connection sometimes in John’s work.
As the new 50th outtakes showed that 3 takes can be deceiving since there were many rehearsals which were unnumbered. Most of these were wiped once the formal takes started but it was great to hear some of these rehearsals like Julia and Revolution