McCartney praises Hey Jude uniting audiences politically

Paul McCartney praised the unifying power of music during a recent appearance on the Goalhanger podcast "The Rest Is Entertainment," pointing to live performances of his Beatles classic "Hey Jude" as an example where audiences transcend political divides.

In the interview with hosts Richard Osman and Marina Hyde, the 83-year-old musician described how the song fosters communal harmony. "Particularly these days, too, you do something like Hey Jude and you see this whole audience singing together," McCartney said. "I mean, in Trump's America, and the Republicans and Democrats all at each other's throats, when we do that song, they're not. They're all loving it, and it's like, wow, this is pretty amazing. You know, suddenly this room has forgotten all of that, and is not, you know, going to argue with each other, they're just going to sing together. So those kinds of things, I think, are valuable."

The comments followed a pair of intimate shows McCartney performed in Los Angeles earlier this year, where "Hey Jude" capped career-spanning setlists that included other Beatles staples such as "Get Back," "Blackbird" and "Let It Be." Originally released in 1968, the track has become a...