Until July, I had not heard the name Julian Lennon for many years. It’s safe to assume I was not the only one – no pun intended! After Saltwater, a nice tune from Lennon’s fourth album Help Yourself released in 1991, he had disappeared from my radar screen. Now, Lennon is back with Jude, his seventh studio album and first in 11 years, which was released last Friday (Sep 9). If you had been waiting and hoping for new music from him, it was definitely worth the wait!
Julian Lennon of course is the son John Lennon had with his first wife Cynthia Lennon (born Powell). After launching a music career in 1984 with the great album Valotte, he started branching out into other areas, including philanthropy, film (both before and behind the camera), photography and book publishing.
Lennon’s endeavors outside of music became more successful than his albums. For example, his 2006 documentary WhaleDreamers about an aboriginal tribe in Australia and its special relationship with whales won multiple awards and was shown at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival. In 2019, he completed what became a New York Times best-selling trilogy of children’s books.
After his previous album Everything Changes came out in October 2011, Lennon thought he was done with the music business for good. So what made him change his mind? “I just happened upon a box of old demos initially, which I brought to light and found that there were some really good songs that I still loved but I never quite finished or they just didn’t belong on an album or project back then,” Lennon told Smashing Interviews Magazine in June 2022. “I thought, ‘Okay. Let me fix what needs fixing, update the production and go from there.'” And here we are. Let’s get to some music!
Since I just covered the opener Save Me in my latest Best of What’s New installment I’m skipping it here and go right to Every Little Moment. The tune was co-written by Lennon and longtime collaborator Mark Spiro. Together with Freedom, it became available on April 8, coinciding with Lennon’s 59th birthday. “Every Little Moment,” is a song I wrote many years ago, Lennon stated on his website. The lyrical narrative not only confronts the wars within, but the ongoing battles we face on the outside. Commenting on the song’s official video, he added, it represents a more hopeful vision for the future. It celebrates a time of peace where someday, the weapons of war will be replaced with seeds of love. I love the song’s atmosphere! In addition, Lennon sounds very mature, which also is the case on the album’s 10 other tracks.
Not One Night is a nice acoustically-oriented ballad penned by Spiro. The tune has a personal feel to it. I used to dream of only you/But now I don’t do that/And I used to miss talking to you/But now I don’t do that/Since you’ve been gone I’ve learned to stop/Tryna hold on because there’s not/Only night, one single day/That I wouldn’t give to you/So with all my might, in every way/I’ll try to forget you, too…
Lucky Ones is the most recent single from the album, released on August 3. It is credited to multiple writers who in addition to Lennon include Albin Nedler, Gregg Alexander, Gregory Darling, John Martin, Kristoffer Fogelmark, Martijn Garritsen and Michel Zitron. “”Lucky Ones” is the realization of how lucky we really are,” Lennon told SPIN. “We are faced with being on a beautiful planet, in a beautiful world and have the opportunity to have the most incredible of lives. Unfortunately, there are some negativities in this world, which I don’t think will ever go away. But, we must embrace the good and we must embrace it on such a level that we can share it with people, so that love spreads around the world and we can all “Imagine a world without war.””
The last track I’d like to call out is Stay, which Lennon penned together with yet another writer, Peter-John Vettese. Of course, one has to keep in mind Jude includes songs that were written over a long period of time.
I’d like to touch on two additional things. First, the album’s title, an obvious nod to Hey Jude, which Paul McCartney had penned in 1968 to comfort then-5-year-old Julian following his parents’ separation. Originally written as “Hey Jules,” McCartney changed the title to Hey Jude since he felt it sounded better.
“Calling the album Jude was very much a coming of age,” Lennon explained to Smashing Interviews Magazine. “A lot of people really don’t understand that may have been a great song, a great chanting song, a favorite Beatles song, but it’s a harsh reminder of what actually happened in my life, which was that my Father walked out on my Mother and me. I barely saw him at all before he was taken away. That was a truly, truly difficult time…It’s all about having understood what that was all about, coming to terms with that, coming to terms with me and who I am today and what that means not only for everybody else but for me, too.”
And then there’s also that captivating photo of young Julian on the album cover. “I remember at that point [when the photo was taken – CMM] Dad was seeing May Pang and May Pang and my mother were trying to get Dad and I to spend more time together,” Lennon pointed out to SPIN. “It was taken in Disney World in 1974 after Christmas that year. It was just a moment where I looked like I was in another world, where all around was a blur. I guess because although I was happy to see dad again, it was a weird and unique situation not having seen him for years, to finally be with him again. The biggest question for me at this time, was “How long is this going to last?” or “Is he going to disappear again?” I think that’s predominately what the look on my face represents. It’s one big question.”
Jude is a mature pop album by a versatile artist who after nearly 40 years into his career finally appears to be fully comfortable in his own skin. The album appears on BMG. In March, Lennon announced he had signed a new global recordings agreement with that label. Jude was co-produced by Lennon and Justin Clayton, the lead guitarist of Lennon’s backing band who has played on most of his albums.
The final word shall belong to Lennon: “I feel very much that I am my own man, and I’ve built a very serious working foundation on many, many levels, and that cannot be taken away from me,” he told Smashing Interviews Magazine. “So some people think I’ve been a hermit, but no, I’ve just not been on the camera in front of everything. That’s not a place I actually like to be really. I could be there sometimes to do certain things, but for the most part, let me be behind the camera. I’m happiest behind the scenes on most of the things that I do. I just try to be me these days, and that’s part of who I am.”
Here’s a link to the album on Spotify.
Sources: Wikipedia; Smashing Interviews Magazine; Julian Lennon website; SPIN; YouTube; Spotify
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