Paul McCartney's Handwritten 'Hey Jude' Notes to Be Auctioned as NFT John Lennon's son, Julian Lennon, will be auctioning off Beatles memorabilia as an NFT collection.
By Emily Rella Edited by Amanda Breen
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NFTs have certainly made a splash as of recently, with everything from original artwork, to social media posts to event tickets being sold digitally to respective owners.
Regardless of their new and at times controversial presence in the metaverse, it's undeniable that NFTs offer a way for buyers and sellers to own pieces of history that might have otherwise been difficult to store, purchase or price.
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Next up on the NFT pipeline? Beatles history in a new collection to be auctioned off named Lennon Connection: The NFT Collection.
Julian Lennon, son of famed Beatle and musician John Lennon, announced that he would be auctioning off pieces of Beatles' history as NFTs, including three guitars, outfits of Lennon's and most interestingly (and perhaps expensively) Sir Paul McCartney's original handwritten notes for hit song Hey Jude.
The history and meaning of the song is near and dear to Julian, whose parents divorced when he was five and Lennon left his wife for Yoko Ono.
Originally dubbed Hey Jules, McCartney wrote the song to help comfort Julian through the tumultous time.
"I thought, as a friend of the family, I would motor out to Weybridge and tell them that everything was all right: to try and cheer them up, basically, and see how they were," McCartney said in a 1995 Anthology special. "I had about an hour's drive. I would always turn the radio off and try and make up songs, just in case… I started singing: "Hey Jules – don't make it bad, take a sad song, and make it better…' It was optimistic, a hopeful message for Julian: "Come on, man, your parents got divorced. I know you're not happy, but you'll be OK.'"
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The starting NFT bid on the original notes was $30,000, with a portion of the proceeds from all of the items being donated to Lennon's White Feather Foundation.
"I've been collecting these personal items for about 30 years, and I was getting a bit fed up with them being locked away in a vault, where I've had to keep them because I didn't want them to get damaged," Julian Lennon told Variety. "I actually felt very bad about keeping all that stuff locked away, and I just felt that this was a unique way to continue dad's legacy and to show people the collections I have, and with the videos and narration, to give people a little more than they would normally get and hear some stories that they haven't heard before in a new art form and a different medium."
The NFTs are being auctioned in a 1 of 1 digital representation of the physical item that Lennon will continue to have possession over.
The final auction is set to take place on February 7.
