“A Day in a Life" (Lennon/McCartney – June 2, 1967)
Sgt. Peppers… - Side 2, Track 6 (5:39)
YouTube (Studio version)
"A Day in the Life" is the final song on The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album. Credited to Lennon–McCartney, the song comprises distinct segments written independently by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, with orchestral additions. While Lennon's lyrics were inspired by contemporary newspaper articles, McCartney's were reminiscent of his youth. The decisions to link sections of the song with orchestral glissandos and to end the song with a sustained piano chord were made only after the rest of the song had been recorded.
The supposed drug reference in the line "I'd love to turn you on" resulted in the song initially being banned from broadcast by the BBC. Since its original album release, "A Day in the Life" has been released as a B-side, and also on various compilation albums. It has been covered by other artists including Sting, Bobby Darin, Jose Feliciano, Wes Montgomery, the Fall, Neil Young, Tori Amos, Jeff Beck, the Bee Gees, Robyn Hitchcock, Chris Cornell, Phish and since 2008, by McCartney in his live performances. It was ranked the 28th greatest song of all time by Rolling Stone magazine.
History –
The supposed drug reference in the line "I'd love to turn you on" resulted in the song initially being banned from broadcast by the BBC. Since its original album release, "A Day in the Life" has been released as a B-side, and also on various compilation albums. It has been covered by other artists including Sting, Bobby Darin, Jose Feliciano, Wes Montgomery, the Fall, Neil Young, Tori Amos, Jeff Beck, the Bee Gees, Robyn Hitchcock, Chris Cornell, Phish and since 2008, by McCartney in his live performances. It was ranked the 28th greatest song of all time by Rolling Stone magazine.
History –
Perhaps the most famous of all Beatles songs inspired by real life, creation of "A Day in the Life" was begun by John Lennon on January 17, 1967, as he sat in front of his piano at his home in Weybridge, Sussex. Opening that afternoon's edition of the Daily Mail for inspiration, he found shocking news: an autopsy report on an acquaintance of his, Tara Browne, millionaire playboy and heir to the Guinness fortune, who'd died in a traffic accident on December 18, 1966. Speeding through traffic in downtown London with his mistress, model Suki Potier, at over 100 mph, he'd crashed into a van at the intersection of Redcliffe Square and Redcliffe Gardens roads.(Suki claimed he saved her life by purposefully slamming into the van in order to avoid hitting another car, a crash which he realized would kill her instead.) It was the first any of the Beatles had heard of the death.
Here's where the stories diverge. Paul claimed much later that he and John wrote the first two verses together, and that the phrase "he blew his mind out in a car" referred instead to a politician (or, as George Martin remembers it, a policeman) so stoned that he fails to notice the traffic "lights had changed." John always maintained it was inspired by Browne's fatal crash, and that the line about blowing his mind out was simply one he'd already had floating around in his head. It's generally believed that the second verse ("The English Army had just won the war") refers to the movie How I Won The War, John's first and only real acting vehicle, which he'd just completed filming in Spain, and that the third verse ("4,000 holes in Blackburn, Lancashire") was inspired by yet another Daily Mail report about potholes. (John's close friend Terry Doran, the man who co-owned a car dealership with Brian Epstein, literally put the last word in place, offering the suggestion that the holes should "fill" the Albert Hall.)
All agree that Paul contributed the jaunty middle passage of the song, the part which begins "Woke up, got out of bed." A song fragment that McCartney had been fiddling with for some time, it may have been at least partially inspired by the jazz standard "On the Sunny Side of the Street," which opens with the line "Grab your coat and get your hat," a line almost unchanged in Paul's song. The fragment was also part of Paul's attempt to fit in with the "Pepper" concept of childhood, as it was inspired by the bassist's carefree teenage school days.
Though the main part of the song is widely considered John's creation, and the bridge Paul's, few realize that McCartney also did quite a bit of work on the rest of the song's structure. The phrase "I'd love to turn you on," occurring at the end of each verse section, was his, another fragment he hadn't found a song for yet, while the idea to bring in the orchestra was also Paul's, However, although most credit him with the idea of a cacophonous swirl of sound, George Martin has credited both he and John with the idea of building a massive crescendo that sounded "like the end of the world." Finally, because Lennon's song was in the key of C and McCartney's was in E, Paul devised the "dream sequence" of chords which come after the bridge and lead back into the last verse as a way of returning to the home key. (John performs the wordless, echoed vocals there.)
Recording "A Day in the Life" took 34 hours, three times as long as the entire session for their first album, Please Please Me. The basic track was simple enough, begun on January 19, 1967 with John's acoustic guitar, Paul on piano, Ringo on bongos and George on maracas. As a placeholder, associate Mal Evans counted off 24 bars in the middle and at the end of the song, echoed heavily, though the idea of violent orchestration had not occurred to the band yet. John overdubbed his wordless vocals on the "dream sequence," while Paul added more piano. The next day, McCartney recorded his vocals for the bridge; his bass was also overdubbed. Ringo also decided to re-record his drum part and add more tom-tom fills. The February 3rd session was mostly touch-up work -- John and Paul redid their vocals on the bridge, while more bass, drums, and piano were added.
By February 10, the "end of the world" orchestration had been decided upon, and was performed by a 41-piece orchestra outfitted, as per Paul's instructions, in full concert dress. A session recorded on audio and video for a later BBC special, it showed McCartney and Martin working out the proper cacophony, realizing that each part would have to be written out from a certain note to each instrument's highest note in order for it to sound like anything but a total mess. The orchestra was recorded using a primitive technique called "ambisonics," in which microphones are strategically placed in the room to achieve the same effect "surround sound" does today. Though Paul wanted an orchestra more than twice that size, they settled for Martin overdubbing the result not twice but four times, creating the proper effect.
However, the "end of the world" was followed by silence, and that seemed somehow unsatisfactory for a song that now carried the entire weight of the Sgt. Pepper album on its back. On February 10, the band toyed with (and recorded) the idea of everyone humming the same note in one massive overdub; when that failed to produce the proper result, someone -- no one remembers who -- suggested trying the same thing with a piano chord. On February 22, Mal Evans, Paul, John and Ringo hit the same E major chord as hard as possible (sforzando), on three different pianos at once, overdubbed three times and overdubbed once more with Martin striking the same chord on the studio's harmonium. The resulting chord, which took nine takes to get right, also took 40 seconds to decay, assisted by engineers turning up the faders louder and louder as the sound faded out. The Sgt. Pepper masterwork was complete. (On March 1, Paul attempted to add yet another piano part behind the verse which begins "I saw a film today, oh boy," but it was never used.)
Composition –
According to Lennon, the inspiration for the first two verses was the death of Tara Browne, the 21-year-old heir to the Guinness fortune who had crashed his Lotus Elan on 18 December 1966 in Redcliffe Gardens, Earls Court. Browne had been a friend of Lennon and McCartney. Lennon's verses were adapted from a story in the 17 January 1967 edition of The Daily Mail, which reported the coroner's verdict into Browne's death.
Takes: 7
Here's where the stories diverge. Paul claimed much later that he and John wrote the first two verses together, and that the phrase "he blew his mind out in a car" referred instead to a politician (or, as George Martin remembers it, a policeman) so stoned that he fails to notice the traffic "lights had changed." John always maintained it was inspired by Browne's fatal crash, and that the line about blowing his mind out was simply one he'd already had floating around in his head. It's generally believed that the second verse ("The English Army had just won the war") refers to the movie How I Won The War, John's first and only real acting vehicle, which he'd just completed filming in Spain, and that the third verse ("4,000 holes in Blackburn, Lancashire") was inspired by yet another Daily Mail report about potholes. (John's close friend Terry Doran, the man who co-owned a car dealership with Brian Epstein, literally put the last word in place, offering the suggestion that the holes should "fill" the Albert Hall.)
All agree that Paul contributed the jaunty middle passage of the song, the part which begins "Woke up, got out of bed." A song fragment that McCartney had been fiddling with for some time, it may have been at least partially inspired by the jazz standard "On the Sunny Side of the Street," which opens with the line "Grab your coat and get your hat," a line almost unchanged in Paul's song. The fragment was also part of Paul's attempt to fit in with the "Pepper" concept of childhood, as it was inspired by the bassist's carefree teenage school days.
Though the main part of the song is widely considered John's creation, and the bridge Paul's, few realize that McCartney also did quite a bit of work on the rest of the song's structure. The phrase "I'd love to turn you on," occurring at the end of each verse section, was his, another fragment he hadn't found a song for yet, while the idea to bring in the orchestra was also Paul's, However, although most credit him with the idea of a cacophonous swirl of sound, George Martin has credited both he and John with the idea of building a massive crescendo that sounded "like the end of the world." Finally, because Lennon's song was in the key of C and McCartney's was in E, Paul devised the "dream sequence" of chords which come after the bridge and lead back into the last verse as a way of returning to the home key. (John performs the wordless, echoed vocals there.)
Recording "A Day in the Life" took 34 hours, three times as long as the entire session for their first album, Please Please Me. The basic track was simple enough, begun on January 19, 1967 with John's acoustic guitar, Paul on piano, Ringo on bongos and George on maracas. As a placeholder, associate Mal Evans counted off 24 bars in the middle and at the end of the song, echoed heavily, though the idea of violent orchestration had not occurred to the band yet. John overdubbed his wordless vocals on the "dream sequence," while Paul added more piano. The next day, McCartney recorded his vocals for the bridge; his bass was also overdubbed. Ringo also decided to re-record his drum part and add more tom-tom fills. The February 3rd session was mostly touch-up work -- John and Paul redid their vocals on the bridge, while more bass, drums, and piano were added.
By February 10, the "end of the world" orchestration had been decided upon, and was performed by a 41-piece orchestra outfitted, as per Paul's instructions, in full concert dress. A session recorded on audio and video for a later BBC special, it showed McCartney and Martin working out the proper cacophony, realizing that each part would have to be written out from a certain note to each instrument's highest note in order for it to sound like anything but a total mess. The orchestra was recorded using a primitive technique called "ambisonics," in which microphones are strategically placed in the room to achieve the same effect "surround sound" does today. Though Paul wanted an orchestra more than twice that size, they settled for Martin overdubbing the result not twice but four times, creating the proper effect.
However, the "end of the world" was followed by silence, and that seemed somehow unsatisfactory for a song that now carried the entire weight of the Sgt. Pepper album on its back. On February 10, the band toyed with (and recorded) the idea of everyone humming the same note in one massive overdub; when that failed to produce the proper result, someone -- no one remembers who -- suggested trying the same thing with a piano chord. On February 22, Mal Evans, Paul, John and Ringo hit the same E major chord as hard as possible (sforzando), on three different pianos at once, overdubbed three times and overdubbed once more with Martin striking the same chord on the studio's harmonium. The resulting chord, which took nine takes to get right, also took 40 seconds to decay, assisted by engineers turning up the faders louder and louder as the sound faded out. The Sgt. Pepper masterwork was complete. (On March 1, Paul attempted to add yet another piano part behind the verse which begins "I saw a film today, oh boy," but it was never used.)
Composition –
According to Lennon, the inspiration for the first two verses was the death of Tara Browne, the 21-year-old heir to the Guinness fortune who had crashed his Lotus Elan on 18 December 1966 in Redcliffe Gardens, Earls Court. Browne had been a friend of Lennon and McCartney. Lennon's verses were adapted from a story in the 17 January 1967 edition of The Daily Mail, which reported the coroner's verdict into Browne's death.
"I didn't copy the accident," Lennon said. "Tara didn't blow his mind out, but it was in my mind when I was writing that verse. The details of the accident in the song—not noticing traffic lights and a crowd forming at the scene—were similarly part of the fiction."
The second verse contains the line "The English Army had just won the war"; Lennon was making reference to his role in the movie How I Won the War, released on 18 October 1967. In Many Years from Now, McCartney said about the line "I'd love to turn you on", which concludes both verse sections: "This was the time of Tim Leary's 'Turn on, tune in, drop out' and we wrote, 'I'd love to turn you on.' John and I gave each other a knowing look: 'Uh-huh, it's a drug song. You know that, don't you?'."
McCartney provided the middle section of the song, a short piano piece he had been working on independently, with lyrics about a commuter whose uneventful morning routine leads him to drift off into a dream. John said: "I had the bulk of the song and the words, but he contributed this little lick floating around in his head that he couldn't use for anything." McCartney had written the piece as a wistful recollection of his younger years, which included riding the bus to school, smoking, and going to class. This theme matched with the original concept of the album which was going to be about their youth. In fact Penny Lane (street in Liverpool) and "Strawberry Fields Forever" (an orphanage behind Johns' house) were songs first written for the album but were released as an A and B side single as the Beatles were due for 45 RPM release. The orchestral crescendos that link the verses and this section were conducted by McCartney and producer George Martin.
The final verse was inspired by an article in the Daily Mail in January 1967 regarding a substantial number of potholes in Blackburn, a town in Lancashire. However, Lennon had a problem with the words of the final verse, not being able to think of how to connect "Now they know how many holes it takes to" and "the Albert Hall". His friend Terry Doran suggested that they would "fill" the Albert Hall.
Musical structure and recording –
The Beatles began recording the song, with a working title "In the Life of ...", on 19 January 1967, in the innovative and creative studio atmosphere ushered in by the recording of "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Penny Lane" over the preceding weeks. The two sections of the song are separated by a 23-bar bridge. At first, the Beatles were not sure how to fill this transition. Thus, at the conclusion of the recording session for the basic tracks, this section solely consisted of a simple repeated piano chord and the voice of assistant Mal Evans counting the bars. Evans' guide vocal was treated with gradually increasing amounts of echo. The 23-bar bridge section ended with the sound of an alarm clock triggered by Evans. The original intent was to edit out the ringing alarm clock when the missing section was filled in; however it complemented McCartney's piece well; the first line of McCartney's song began "Woke up, fell out of bed", so the decision was made to keep the sound. Martin later said that editing it out would have been unfeasible in any case. The basic track for the song was refined with remixing and additional parts added at recording sessions on 20 January and 3 February. Still, there was no solution for the missing 24-bar middle section of the song, when McCartney had the idea of bringing in a full orchestra to fill the gap. To allay concerns that classically-trained musicians would not be able to improvise the section, producer George Martin wrote a loose score for the section. It was an extended, atonal crescendo that encouraged the musicians to improvise within the defined framework.
Musical structure and recording –
The Beatles began recording the song, with a working title "In the Life of ...", on 19 January 1967, in the innovative and creative studio atmosphere ushered in by the recording of "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Penny Lane" over the preceding weeks. The two sections of the song are separated by a 23-bar bridge. At first, the Beatles were not sure how to fill this transition. Thus, at the conclusion of the recording session for the basic tracks, this section solely consisted of a simple repeated piano chord and the voice of assistant Mal Evans counting the bars. Evans' guide vocal was treated with gradually increasing amounts of echo. The 23-bar bridge section ended with the sound of an alarm clock triggered by Evans. The original intent was to edit out the ringing alarm clock when the missing section was filled in; however it complemented McCartney's piece well; the first line of McCartney's song began "Woke up, fell out of bed", so the decision was made to keep the sound. Martin later said that editing it out would have been unfeasible in any case. The basic track for the song was refined with remixing and additional parts added at recording sessions on 20 January and 3 February. Still, there was no solution for the missing 24-bar middle section of the song, when McCartney had the idea of bringing in a full orchestra to fill the gap. To allay concerns that classically-trained musicians would not be able to improvise the section, producer George Martin wrote a loose score for the section. It was an extended, atonal crescendo that encouraged the musicians to improvise within the defined framework.
Takes: 7
Personnel
John Lennon – Lead vocals, acoustic rhythm guitar (1963 Gibson "Super Jumbo" J-200), piano
Paul McCartney – Lead vocals, bass guitar (1964 Rickenbacker 4001S), piano (1905 Steinway Vertegrand "Mrs. Mills")
George Harrison – Maracas
Ringo Starr – Drums (Ludwig), bongos, piano
George Martin – Harmonium (Mannborg)
Mal Evans – Piano, alarm clock
Lionel Bentley, D. Bradley, Henry Datyner, Hans Geiger, Erich Gruenberg, Jurgen Hess, Granville Jones, David McCallum, Bill Monro, Sidney Sax, Ernest Scott, Donald Weekes – Violins
Bernard Davis, Gwynne Edwards, John Meek,John Underwood, Alan Delziel, Francisco Gabarro, Alex Nifosi, Dennis Vigay – Violas
Cyril MacArther, Gordon Pearce – Bass violins
Raymond Brown, T. Moore, Raymond Premru – Trombones
Harold Jackson, David Mason, Monty Montgomery – Trumpets
Alan Civil, Neil Sanders – French horns
Jack Brymer, Basil Tschaikov – Clarinets
N. Fawcett, Alfred Waters, David Sandeman, Clifford Seville – Bassoons
Roger Lord – Oboe
Michael Barnes – Tuba
John Marston – Harp
Tristan Fry – Timpani
Marijke Koger – Tambourine
Orchestra –
The orchestral part was recorded on 10 February 1967, with McCartney and Martin conducting a 40-piece orchestra. The recording session was completed at a total cost of £367 for the players, an extravagance at the time. Martin later described explaining his improvised score to the puzzled orchestra:
George Harrison – Maracas
Ringo Starr – Drums (Ludwig), bongos, piano
George Martin – Harmonium (Mannborg)
Mal Evans – Piano, alarm clock
Lionel Bentley, D. Bradley, Henry Datyner, Hans Geiger, Erich Gruenberg, Jurgen Hess, Granville Jones, David McCallum, Bill Monro, Sidney Sax, Ernest Scott, Donald Weekes – Violins
Bernard Davis, Gwynne Edwards, John Meek,John Underwood, Alan Delziel, Francisco Gabarro, Alex Nifosi, Dennis Vigay – Violas
Cyril MacArther, Gordon Pearce – Bass violins
Raymond Brown, T. Moore, Raymond Premru – Trombones
Harold Jackson, David Mason, Monty Montgomery – Trumpets
Alan Civil, Neil Sanders – French horns
Jack Brymer, Basil Tschaikov – Clarinets
N. Fawcett, Alfred Waters, David Sandeman, Clifford Seville – Bassoons
Roger Lord – Oboe
Michael Barnes – Tuba
John Marston – Harp
Tristan Fry – Timpani
Marijke Koger – Tambourine
Orchestra –
The orchestral part was recorded on 10 February 1967, with McCartney and Martin conducting a 40-piece orchestra. The recording session was completed at a total cost of £367 for the players, an extravagance at the time. Martin later described explaining his improvised score to the puzzled orchestra:
"What I did there was to write... the lowest possible note for each of the instruments in the orchestra. At the end of the twenty-four bars, I wrote the highest note... near a chord of E major. Then I put a squiggly line right through the twenty-four bars, with reference points to tell them roughly what note they should have reached during each bar... Of course, they all looked at me as though I were completely mad."
McCartney noted that the strings were able to keep themselves in the designated time, while the trumpets were "much wilder". McCartney had originally wanted a 90-piece orchestra, but this proved impossible; the difference was made up, as the semi-improvised segment was recorded multiple times and eventually four different recordings were overdubbed into a single massive crescendo. The results were successful; in the final edit of the song, the orchestral bridge is reprised after the final verse. It was arranged for the orchestral session to be filmed by NEMS Enterprises for use in a planned television special. The film was never released in its entirety, although portions of it can be seen in the "A Day in the Life" promotional film, which includes shots of studio guests Mick Jagger, Marianne Faithfull, Keith Richards, Brian Jones, Donovan, Pattie Boyd, and Michael Nesmith. Reflecting the Beatles' taste for experimentation and the avant garde at this point in their careers, the orchestra players were asked to wear or were given a costume piece on top of their formal dress. This resulted in different players wearing anything from fake noses to fake stick-on nipples. Martin recalled that the lead violinist performed wearing a gorilla paw, while a bassoon player placed a balloon on the end of his instrument.
Due to the multiple takes required to perfect the orchestral cacophony and the final chord, as well as their considerable procrastination in composing the song, the total duration of time spent recording "A Day in the Life" was 34 hours. In contrast, the Beatles' earliest work, their first album Please Please Me, was recorded in its entirety in only 10 hours.
Final chord –
Following the final orchestral crescendo, the song ends with one of the most famous final chords in music history. Lennon, McCartney, Starr, and Evans shared three different pianos, with Martin on the harmonium, and all played an E-major chord simultaneously. The final chord was made to ring out for over forty seconds by increasing the recording sound level as the vibration faded out. Towards the end of the chord the recording level was so high that listeners can hear the sounds of the studio, including rustling papers and a squeaking chair.
Final chord –
Following the final orchestral crescendo, the song ends with one of the most famous final chords in music history. Lennon, McCartney, Starr, and Evans shared three different pianos, with Martin on the harmonium, and all played an E-major chord simultaneously. The final chord was made to ring out for over forty seconds by increasing the recording sound level as the vibration faded out. Towards the end of the chord the recording level was so high that listeners can hear the sounds of the studio, including rustling papers and a squeaking chair.
The piano chord was a replacement for a failed vocal experiment: on the evening following the orchestra recording session, the four Beatles had recorded an ending of their voices humming the chord, but after multiple overdubs they wanted something with more impact. This final E chord represents a VI to the song's tonic G major, although Pedler argues that the preceding chord changes (from F ("them all") to Em ("Now they know") Em7 ("takes to fill") C ("love to turn you") and B ("on")) followed by the chromatic ascent, shift our sense of the tonic from G to E; creating a different feeling to the usual emotional uplift associated with a VI modulation.
Variations –
Variations –
On the Sgt. Pepper album, the start of "A Day in the Life" is cross-faded with the applause at the end of the previous track "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)". On The Beatles 1967–1970 LP, "A Day in the Life" fades in through the Sgt. Pepper cross-fade, but on the CD version of 1967–1970, the song starts cleanly, without any fade or cross-fade.
Lennon and McCartney denied that there were drug references and publicly complained about the ban at a dinner party at the home of their manager, Brian Epstein, celebrating their album. Lennon said that the song was simply about "a crash and its victim", and called the line in question "the most innocent of phrases." McCartney later said "This was the only one in the album written as a deliberate provocation. A stick-that-in-your-pipe ... But what we want is to turn you on to the truth rather than pot." However, George Martin later commented that he had always suspected that the line "found my way upstairs and had a smoke" was a drug reference, recalling how the Beatles would "disappear and have a little puff", presumably of marijuana, but not in front of him. "When [Martin] was doing his TV program on Pepper", McCartney recalled later, "he asked me, 'Do you know what caused Pepper?' I said, 'In one word, George, drugs. Pot.' And George said, 'No, no. But you weren't on it all the time.' 'Yes, we were.' Sgt. Pepper was a drug album."
Different methods have been used to separate the opening fade-in of the acoustic guitar from the applause fade-out that ends the reprise of the title track. On the original vinyl Beatles 1967-1970 compilation, the song removes the fade-in and starts a few bars late; 1978 Australian single versions take out the first four beats; the Japanese single pressing omits the acoustic guitar opening entirely and starts with Paul's piano. The version used on 1988's Imagine: John Lennon soundtrack rescues the fade-in from the original master tapes and starts cold with John's acoustic. It's this version that is now used on the CD version of Beatles 1967-1970.
When the orchestra musicians arrived for their performance, Paul had a nearby costume shop bring in several hats and accessories for them to wear, in order to lighten the mood somewhat; George Martin remembers the lead violinist wearing a gorilla paw, for example. When the orchestra finished their first take, they broke out into spontaneous applause. (Alan Civil, who'd played French Horn on "For No One," also played on this track.)
Other guests at the orchestral recording session were more famous: Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were there, along with Marianne Faithfull; Donovan attended, as did George's wife Patti and the Monkees' Michael Nesmith. David Crosby claims to have attended one of the sessions as well.
In one of the more contentious anomalies in Beatles history, an alarm clock is heard going off at 2:19, just before Paul "wakes up and gets out of bed." For years fans assumed this was a sound effect placed there to augment the lyrics, but Mal Evans actually set the clock off after 24 bars of music as a joke, to mark the end of the yet-to-be-determined improvisation that led into the bridge. Rumors that it was somehow timed to go off are not only ridiculous but physically impossible, as alarm clocks do not run on musical time. The effect was done during recording of the basic track and therefore could not be edited out; the Beatles recognized it as a happy coincidence.
At a New York City concert in 2009, Paul performed "A Day in the Life" for the one and only time, substituting John's "Give Peace a Chance" for the third verse.
The fade-out of the final chord lasts so long, and required the faders to be turned up so high, that a squeaking chair and rustling papers can be heard in the background at 4:51.
1963 – Gaumont State Cinema, West Hampstead, London. Ballroom. 1-hour show.
1965 – UK single release: "Ticket To Ride"/"Yes It Is".
– UK single release: 'Blood Red River', first of the Silkie.
– Brian and Cilla return from the US.
Following "A Day in the Life" on the Sgt. Pepper album (as first released on LP in the UK and years later worldwide on CD) is a high frequency 15 kilohertz tone and some randomly spliced Beatles studio chatter. The frequency is best understood as what we know as a dog whistle as the frequency is picked up by a dog's ear and was part of their humor. They joked about picturing barking dogs should they be present when the album would finish. Recorded two months after the mono and stereo masters for "A Day in the Life" had been finalized, the studio chatter (titled in the session notes "Edit for LP End") was added to the run-out groove of the initial British pressing. There are even a few variations of the chatter with the best known one is them saying during the laughter and chatter "wouldn't have it any other way." The Anthology 2 album includes an early, pre-orchestral version of the song and Anthology 3 includes a version of "The End" that concludes by having the last note fade into the final chord of "A Day in the Life" (reversed, then played forwards). The Love version has the song starting with Lennon's intro of "sugar plum fairy", with the strings being more prominent during the crescendos.
Supposed drug references –
The song became controversial for its supposed references to drugs. The BBC announced that it would not broadcast "A Day in the Life" due to the line "I'd love to turn you on", which, according to the corporation, advocated drug use. Other lyrics allegedly referring to drugs include "found my way upstairs and had a smoke / somebody spoke and I went into a dream". A spokesman for the BBC stated, "We have listened to this song over and over again. And we have decided that it appears to go just a little too far, and could encourage a permissive attitude to drug-taking."
Supposed drug references –
The song became controversial for its supposed references to drugs. The BBC announced that it would not broadcast "A Day in the Life" due to the line "I'd love to turn you on", which, according to the corporation, advocated drug use. Other lyrics allegedly referring to drugs include "found my way upstairs and had a smoke / somebody spoke and I went into a dream". A spokesman for the BBC stated, "We have listened to this song over and over again. And we have decided that it appears to go just a little too far, and could encourage a permissive attitude to drug-taking."
Lennon and McCartney denied that there were drug references and publicly complained about the ban at a dinner party at the home of their manager, Brian Epstein, celebrating their album. Lennon said that the song was simply about "a crash and its victim", and called the line in question "the most innocent of phrases." McCartney later said "This was the only one in the album written as a deliberate provocation. A stick-that-in-your-pipe ... But what we want is to turn you on to the truth rather than pot." However, George Martin later commented that he had always suspected that the line "found my way upstairs and had a smoke" was a drug reference, recalling how the Beatles would "disappear and have a little puff", presumably of marijuana, but not in front of him. "When [Martin] was doing his TV program on Pepper", McCartney recalled later, "he asked me, 'Do you know what caused Pepper?' I said, 'In one word, George, drugs. Pot.' And George said, 'No, no. But you weren't on it all the time.' 'Yes, we were.' Sgt. Pepper was a drug album."
When Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was released in South Asia, Malaysia and Hong Kong, "A Day in the Life" "With a Little Help from My Friends" and "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" were excluded because of supposed drug references.
Recognition and reception –
"A Day in the Life" became one of the Beatles' most influential songs. Paul Grushkin in his book Rockin' Down the Highway: The Cars and People That Made Rock Roll, called the song "one of the most ambitious, influential, and groundbreaking works in pop music history". In "From Craft to Art: Formal Structure in the Music of The Beatles", the song is described thus: ""A Day in the Life" is perhaps one of the most important single tracks in the history of rock music; clocking in at only four minutes and forty-five seconds, it must surely be among the shortest epic pieces in rock". Richard Goldstein of The New York Timescalled the song "a deadly earnest excursion in emotive music with a chilling lyric ... [that] stands as one of the most important Lennon-McCartney compositions ... an historic Pop event".
Recognition and reception –
"A Day in the Life" became one of the Beatles' most influential songs. Paul Grushkin in his book Rockin' Down the Highway: The Cars and People That Made Rock Roll, called the song "one of the most ambitious, influential, and groundbreaking works in pop music history". In "From Craft to Art: Formal Structure in the Music of The Beatles", the song is described thus: ""A Day in the Life" is perhaps one of the most important single tracks in the history of rock music; clocking in at only four minutes and forty-five seconds, it must surely be among the shortest epic pieces in rock". Richard Goldstein of The New York Timescalled the song "a deadly earnest excursion in emotive music with a chilling lyric ... [that] stands as one of the most important Lennon-McCartney compositions ... an historic Pop event".
The song appears on many top songs lists. It placed twelfth on CBC's 50 Tracks, the second highest Beatles song on the list after "In My Life".[38] It placed first in Q Magazine's list of the 50 greatest British songs of all time, and was at the top of Mojo Magazine's 101 Greatest Beatles' Songs, as decided by a panel of musicians and journalists. "A Day in the Life" was also nominated for a Grammy in 1967 for Best Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist Or Instrumentalist. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked "A Day in the Life" at number 28 on the magazine's list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time", and in 2010, the magazine deemed it to be the Beatles' greatest song. It is listed at number 5 in Pitchfork Media's The 200 Greatest Songs of the 1960s.
In April 1967, McCartney played a tape of the song to Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, in Los Angeles. The song deeply affected Wilson, who was suffering growing emotional problems. Soon after, Wilson abandoned his work on the Beach Boys' album Smile, and would not return to complete it until 2003. Van Dyke Parks later said, "Brian had a nervous collapse. What broke his heart was Sgt. Pepper."
Aftermath –
On 27 August 1992 Lennon's handwritten lyrics were sold by the estate of Mal Evans in an auction at Sotheby's London for $100,000 (£56,600). The lyrics were put up for sale again in March 2006 by Bonhams in New York. Sealed bids were opened on March 7, 2006 and offers started at about $2 million. The lyric sheet was auctioned again by Sotheby's in June 2010. It was purchased by an anonymous American buyer who paid $1,200,000 (£810,000).
Aftermath –
On 27 August 1992 Lennon's handwritten lyrics were sold by the estate of Mal Evans in an auction at Sotheby's London for $100,000 (£56,600). The lyrics were put up for sale again in March 2006 by Bonhams in New York. Sealed bids were opened on March 7, 2006 and offers started at about $2 million. The lyric sheet was auctioned again by Sotheby's in June 2010. It was purchased by an anonymous American buyer who paid $1,200,000 (£810,000).
The song has been recorded by many other artists, notably by Jeff Beck on the 2008 album Performing This Week: Live at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club which was also used in the film Across the Universe and won the 2010 Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance.
McCartney has been performing this song in a majority of his live shows since his 2008 tour, with his latest performance being after the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on 13 November 2011. It is played in a medley with "Give Peace a Chance". The Beatles' friend and contemporary Bob Dylan references the song's opening lyrics in his 2012 tribute to John Lennon, "Roll On John".
With Sgt. Pepper, the Beatles created an album of psychedelic visions; coming at the end, "A Day in the Life" sounds like the whole world falling apart. Lennon sings about death and dread in his most spectral vocal, treated with what he called his "Elvis echo" — a voice, as producer George Martin said in 1992, "which sends shivers down the spine."
Lennon took his lyrical inspiration from the newspapers and his own life: The "lucky man who made the grade" was supposedly Tara Browne, a 21-year-old London aristocrat killed in a December 1966 car wreck, and the film in which "the English army had just won the war" probably referred to Lennon's own recent acting role in How I Won the War. Lennon really did find a Daily Mail story about 4,000 potholes in the roads of Blackburn, Lancashire.
Lennon wrote the basic song, but he felt it needed something different for the middle section. McCartney had a brief song fragment handy, the part that begins "Woke up, fell out of bed." "He was a bit shy about it because I think he thought, 'It's already a good song,'" Lennon said. But McCartney also came up with the idea to have classical musicians deliver what Martin called an "orchestral orgasm." The February 10th session became a festive occasion, with guests like Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Marianne Faithfull and Donovan. The studio was full of balloons; the formally attired orchestra members were given party hats, rubber noses and gorilla paws to wear. Martin and McCartney both conducted the musicians, having them play from the lowest note on their instruments to the highest.
Two weeks later, the Beatles added the last touch: the piano crash that hangs in the air for 53 seconds. Martin had every spare piano in the building hauled down to the Beatles' studio, where Lennon, McCartney, Ringo Starr, Martin and roadie Mal Evans played the same E-major chord, as engineer Geoff Emerick turned up the faders to catch every last trace. By the end, the levels were up so high that you can hear Starr's shoe squeak.
In April, two months before Sgt. Pepper came out, McCartney visited San Francisco, carrying a tape with an unfinished version of "A Day in the Life." He gave it to members of the Jefferson Airplane, and the tape ended up at a local free-form rock station, KMPX, which put it into rotation, blowing minds all over the Haight-Ashbury community. The BBC banned the song for the druggy line "I'd love to turn you on." They weren't so far off base: "When [Martin] was doing his TV program on Pepper," McCartney recalled later, "he asked me, 'Do you know what caused Pepper?' I said, 'In one word, George, drugs. Pot.' And George said, 'No, no. But you weren't on it all the time.' 'Yes, we were.' Sgt. Pepper was a drug album."
In truth, the song was far too intense musically and emotionally for regular radio play. It wasn't really until the Eighties, after Lennon's murder, that "A Day in the Life" became recognized as the band's masterwork. In this song, as in so many other ways, the Beatles were way ahead of everyone else.
Trivia –
"A Day in the Life" was banned by the BBC, ironically, for containing the phrase "I'd love to turn you on," a very specific allusion to drugs by the band. Ironically, the "smoke" Paul mentions in the dream sequence refers to legal Woodbine brand cigarettes, which he smoked back in his student days.
From Rolling Stone –
"A Day in the Life" is the sound of the Beatles on a historic roll. "It was a peak," John Lennon told Rolling Stone in 1970, recalling the Sgt. Pepper period. It's also the ultimate Lennon-McCartney collaboration: "Paul and I were definitely working together, especially on 'A Day in the Life,'" said Lennon.
After their August 29th, 1966, concert in San Francisco, the Beatles left live performing for good. Rumors of tension within the group spread as the Beatles released no new music for months. "People in the media sensed that there was too much of a lull," Paul McCartney said later, "which created a vacuum, so they could bitch about us now. They'd say, 'Oh, they've dried up,' but we knew we hadn't."
"A Day in the Life" is the sound of the Beatles on a historic roll. "It was a peak," John Lennon told Rolling Stone in 1970, recalling the Sgt. Pepper period. It's also the ultimate Lennon-McCartney collaboration: "Paul and I were definitely working together, especially on 'A Day in the Life,'" said Lennon.
After their August 29th, 1966, concert in San Francisco, the Beatles left live performing for good. Rumors of tension within the group spread as the Beatles released no new music for months. "People in the media sensed that there was too much of a lull," Paul McCartney said later, "which created a vacuum, so they could bitch about us now. They'd say, 'Oh, they've dried up,' but we knew we hadn't."
With Sgt. Pepper, the Beatles created an album of psychedelic visions; coming at the end, "A Day in the Life" sounds like the whole world falling apart. Lennon sings about death and dread in his most spectral vocal, treated with what he called his "Elvis echo" — a voice, as producer George Martin said in 1992, "which sends shivers down the spine."
Lennon took his lyrical inspiration from the newspapers and his own life: The "lucky man who made the grade" was supposedly Tara Browne, a 21-year-old London aristocrat killed in a December 1966 car wreck, and the film in which "the English army had just won the war" probably referred to Lennon's own recent acting role in How I Won the War. Lennon really did find a Daily Mail story about 4,000 potholes in the roads of Blackburn, Lancashire.
Lennon wrote the basic song, but he felt it needed something different for the middle section. McCartney had a brief song fragment handy, the part that begins "Woke up, fell out of bed." "He was a bit shy about it because I think he thought, 'It's already a good song,'" Lennon said. But McCartney also came up with the idea to have classical musicians deliver what Martin called an "orchestral orgasm." The February 10th session became a festive occasion, with guests like Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Marianne Faithfull and Donovan. The studio was full of balloons; the formally attired orchestra members were given party hats, rubber noses and gorilla paws to wear. Martin and McCartney both conducted the musicians, having them play from the lowest note on their instruments to the highest.
Two weeks later, the Beatles added the last touch: the piano crash that hangs in the air for 53 seconds. Martin had every spare piano in the building hauled down to the Beatles' studio, where Lennon, McCartney, Ringo Starr, Martin and roadie Mal Evans played the same E-major chord, as engineer Geoff Emerick turned up the faders to catch every last trace. By the end, the levels were up so high that you can hear Starr's shoe squeak.
In April, two months before Sgt. Pepper came out, McCartney visited San Francisco, carrying a tape with an unfinished version of "A Day in the Life." He gave it to members of the Jefferson Airplane, and the tape ended up at a local free-form rock station, KMPX, which put it into rotation, blowing minds all over the Haight-Ashbury community. The BBC banned the song for the druggy line "I'd love to turn you on." They weren't so far off base: "When [Martin] was doing his TV program on Pepper," McCartney recalled later, "he asked me, 'Do you know what caused Pepper?' I said, 'In one word, George, drugs. Pot.' And George said, 'No, no. But you weren't on it all the time.' 'Yes, we were.' Sgt. Pepper was a drug album."
In truth, the song was far too intense musically and emotionally for regular radio play. It wasn't really until the Eighties, after Lennon's murder, that "A Day in the Life" became recognized as the band's masterwork. In this song, as in so many other ways, the Beatles were way ahead of everyone else.
Trivia –
"A Day in the Life" was banned by the BBC, ironically, for containing the phrase "I'd love to turn you on," a very specific allusion to drugs by the band. Ironically, the "smoke" Paul mentions in the dream sequence refers to legal Woodbine brand cigarettes, which he smoked back in his student days.
Different methods have been used to separate the opening fade-in of the acoustic guitar from the applause fade-out that ends the reprise of the title track. On the original vinyl Beatles 1967-1970 compilation, the song removes the fade-in and starts a few bars late; 1978 Australian single versions take out the first four beats; the Japanese single pressing omits the acoustic guitar opening entirely and starts with Paul's piano. The version used on 1988's Imagine: John Lennon soundtrack rescues the fade-in from the original master tapes and starts cold with John's acoustic. It's this version that is now used on the CD version of Beatles 1967-1970.
When the orchestra musicians arrived for their performance, Paul had a nearby costume shop bring in several hats and accessories for them to wear, in order to lighten the mood somewhat; George Martin remembers the lead violinist wearing a gorilla paw, for example. When the orchestra finished their first take, they broke out into spontaneous applause. (Alan Civil, who'd played French Horn on "For No One," also played on this track.)
Other guests at the orchestral recording session were more famous: Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were there, along with Marianne Faithfull; Donovan attended, as did George's wife Patti and the Monkees' Michael Nesmith. David Crosby claims to have attended one of the sessions as well.
In one of the more contentious anomalies in Beatles history, an alarm clock is heard going off at 2:19, just before Paul "wakes up and gets out of bed." For years fans assumed this was a sound effect placed there to augment the lyrics, but Mal Evans actually set the clock off after 24 bars of music as a joke, to mark the end of the yet-to-be-determined improvisation that led into the bridge. Rumors that it was somehow timed to go off are not only ridiculous but physically impossible, as alarm clocks do not run on musical time. The effect was done during recording of the basic track and therefore could not be edited out; the Beatles recognized it as a happy coincidence.
At a New York City concert in 2009, Paul performed "A Day in the Life" for the one and only time, substituting John's "Give Peace a Chance" for the third verse.
The fade-out of the final chord lasts so long, and required the faders to be turned up so high, that a squeaking chair and rustling papers can be heard in the background at 4:51.
"A Day in the Life" forms an important chunk of the "Paul is Dead" mythos. Not only does it supposedly describe the car crash that Paul "died" in, but the actual victim, Tara Browne, was a friend of Paul's as well, and it was while riding with him on December 26, 1965 thatPaul was injured in the moped crash that chipped his front tooth and cut his lip, leaving a scar that PID enthusiasts point to as "proof" that Paul was switched with a double for Sgt. Pepper. In fact, some Beatles fans maintain that Paul was replaced with a surgically-altered Browne!
Today in Beatles History (From The Internet Beatles Album) April 9
Today in Beatles History (From The Internet Beatles Album) April 9
1963 – Gaumont State Cinema, West Hampstead, London. Ballroom. 1-hour show.
Wembley TV Studios, Wembley, Middlesex. Live appearance on Associated-Rediffusion's 'Tuesday Rendezvous'.
1964 – Thames tow-path, Kew, Surrey. Shooting for 'A Hard Day's Night': Ringo walking along the riverbank.
1965 – UK single release: "Ticket To Ride"/"Yes It Is".
– UK single release: 'Blood Red River', first of the Silkie.
– Brian and Cilla return from the US.
1966 – Epstein and Lionel Bart go together to see a package tour bill headed by the Walker Brothers, at the Granada Cinema, East Ham, London.
1968 – Francie Schwarz cuts her hair like Mia Farrow. She receivesa note from Paul, and meets him at Apple. Paul and Francie havetheir first walk together.
1969 – Twickenham, Middlesex. Photographic session with 3 photographers. Locations: 1) Madingley Club; 2) aboard the boat "Fritz Otto Maria Anna", across the River Thames; 3) an island in the middle of River Thames.
– Ringo shoots scenes for 'The Magic Christian' at the Boathouse, the Embankment, Putney, London.
– Ringo shoots scenes for 'The Magic Christian' at the Boathouse, the Embankment, Putney, London.
1982 – Santa Barbara Sound studio, Santa Barbara, USA. Joe Walsh, Jim Nipar and Joe Vitale meet to work on As Far As We Can Go. Recording of piano demo.
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