MANHATTAN, NY — In an unprecedented blunder, singer-songwriter and former Beatle, Paul McCartney froze on stage during last night’s sold-out concert at Madison Square Garden, forgetting the words to his critically-acclaimed, chart-topping masterpiece ‘Hey Jude’.

The incident occurred during the final leg of a 6-month, 100 city tour wherein McCartney ended each concert with a solo performance of the 1968 classic.

After a few moments of deafening silence, McCartney, who has played ‘Hey Jude’ thousands of times over his storied career, urged the crowd to, “hold on a second,” and attempted to reassure the 20,000 concert-goers by saying, “I’ve totally got this”.

“It was weird. I mean, you’d think after playing the song for nearly 45 years he’d have it down,” reported the visibly-disappointed, long-time Beatles fan David Owensworth. “He just sort of sat there. It was difficult to watch”.

In the minutes following the blooper, McCartney employed a number of tactics to divert the crowd’s attention, including him fumbling for his bottle of water, pretending to need a big stretch, and taking song requests from the audience.

“He started playing a weird, silly tune on the piano and giving the audience a big smile as if he was in on the joke. But nobody was laughing,” said Owensworth.

In a final, thinly-veiled attempt to buy himself some time while he figured out the lyrics, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member and two-time Grammy winner launched into an anecdote about a funny dog he had seen on the subway earlier that day. At the story’s conclusion, McCartney reportedly stood up, stared out at the crowd, and briskly walked off stage.

McCartney, who has sold over 100 million singles and has accumulated 60 gold discs, spoke with reporters after the concert, apologizing profusely and making up excuses for the error.

“There’s this really hard part in the song where I have to go from an F to a C, and every time I play the song I just barely hit it,” said the famed, veteran musician. “I was really nervous I was going to miss it this time, so I think I focused too much on the piano and not enough on the lyrics. Whoops!”

As of press time, McCartney still had not figured out what comes after, “that part with the ‘na na na’s’.”