The Beatles - Julia (cover by Luis Gomes)

Now I’d like to do one of the most beautiful songs... released in 1968 The Beatles double album known as The White Album... called “Julia”. This lovely tune was written by John Lennon in Rishikesh during the Beatles’ stay in India, in early 1968. It was here where he learned the song’s finger-picking guitar style – known as Travis-picking – from the Scottish musician Donovan, who not only taught the guitar picking but helped him develop the lyrics of the song. Lennon was the only one in the band who learned and improved the finger-picking technique properly, using on other songs like “Dear Prudence”, “Happiness Is Warm Gun” and “Look At Me”. While inspired as a tribute to his mother Julia, who died in a road accident in 1958, the lyrics 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. Other sections of the song were adapted 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. John recorded various demo versions of "Julia". Three of these demos were undoubtedly recorded sometime in May of 1968 in the music room of his 'Kenwood' residence in Weybridge, Surrey. The fourth demo, recorded at George Harrison's ‘Kinfauns’ home in Esher, Surrey on May 29th, made part of the famous bootleg series called Esher Demos, included on the 2018 Super Deluxe 50th Anniversary edition of the White Album. After four-and-a-half months in the studio recording what became the “White Album”, John finally premiered “Julia” in EMI Studio Two on October 13th of that year. John painfully recorded three takes of the song, double tracking his vocals and acoustic guitar to the last of these. That’s the only Lennon solo recording in The Beatles’ canon... and it’s marvelous!!! Hope you guys enjoy this one. Thank you once again... stay safe... and Peace & Love everybody!!!