57-Year-Old Rock Classic Makes Surprise Return to the Charts

Once a lullaby and a final goodnight from The Beatles as they began to part ways for good, "Golden Slumbers" has recently found itself introducing a new generation of audiences to the Fab Four.

"Golden Slumbers" is the 14th of 17 tracks on Abbey Road, the 1969 album that, while preceding the release of 1970's Let It Be, was the final studio album recorded by the Beatles. Although the song is credited to the Lennon-McCartney songwriting partnership, the song was written in isolation by Paul McCartney while John Lennon, along with his new wife and musical collaborator Yoko Ono, as they recovered from a serious car accident in Scotland.

Composed weeks before the birth of his daughter, Mary McCartney, Paul took lyrics from the poem and lullaby "Cradle Song" by Thomas Dekker, found at the home of his father, Jim, and Paul's young half-sister, Ruth. The result was the beginning of a path to the end of the Beatles' journey as a four-piece unit. Gently wishing his beloved a good night, McCartney reflects on the end of an era: "Once, there was a way/To get back home/Sleep, pretty darling, do not cry/And I will sing a lullaby."

"Golden Slumbers," both musically and thematically, begins the end of the final album, transitioning into the tracks "Carry That Weight" and "The End." The three songs were written as one entire piece, later divided into three by McCartney. Although not intended by its songwriter or the EMI label to be a single, the song is hitting the charts once more, 57 years after its original release.

As documented by Forbes, "Golden Slumbers" hit #37 on the Official Singles Downloads chart and #41 on the Official Singles Sales list in the UK, a new peak for the song on both charts. No single factor has been cited as the cause of this return like Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)" dominating the charts almost 40 years later, after Stranger Things used the song as a needle drop, TikTok, like with Bush's iconic track, likely played a role.

The song has been used in over 260,000 videos on the platform, as of June 2026, although much of its use has been Jennifer Hudson's cover of the song for the 2016 children's movie Sing, for which McCartney personally approved the use of, according to his book The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present. The song has also been used in a major campaign by Airbnb in 2026, featuring heavily during the Winter Olympics, which likely both introduced and reintroduced the magic of the song to listeners across the world.

This story was originally published by Men's Journal on Jun 7, 2026, where it first appeared in the News section. Add Men's Journal as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

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This story was originally published June 7, 2026 at 8:00 AM.