A Day In The Life | Page 10 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

Well, where to start…

Couldn’t describe my feelings any better!

First, many singers don’t always sound the same, so just because there’s a detectable difference between the Sexy Sadie stuff and A Day In The Life doesn’t mean it can’t be John in the latter.

Interesting logic and not what I said – how about “If John’s voice (the high nasal falsetto) on “Sexy Sadie ” sounds EXACTLY the same as the high nasal falsetto on ADITL, that makes it HIGHLY probable that it’s done by the same singer!”

Second, I re-listened to the isolated voices of A Day In The Life . Even if that is assorted Beatles (even all 4) doing different renditions of the ahhhs — and to me it’s impossible to count definitively, though possibly I can discern 3 –

Can’t help you any more there – for me it’s very easy, and I even pointed each one out to you. I guess you missed the low aaah, although I pointed out to you where to find it.

So keep trying!

the dominant ahhhs have a nasal twang quality that to me sounds like John, whereas I’ve never heard that twang from Paul. I say that as a Paul fan, having heard virtually everything he’s done, often dozens of times (if not hundreds).  If that is Paul, it’s unique and never replicated elsewhere.  Paul by the way has quite a lot of variety in his voice and I can’t think of any other instance where one of his many “voices” is only found on one recording uniquely and never anywhere else. So this would be DOUBLY unique in that regard, compounding the unlikeliness.

Personally I don’t think it’s very nasal at all – and DEFINITELY not if compared to the high falsettos!
The way he bends the notes and especially the little voice-break, if it wasn’t intentional, at the end, which sounds a lot like what he does on “I Want To Tell You ” are definite tells it’s Paul.
The intro to “Lovely Rita ” is very similar in the way he sings.

It also remains a fact that this part is too high for John to sing – there’s not a single song where he does that voice.

Third, I’m not quite sure what you mean by “cut” in your sentence “… no cut between the “dream” and the “aaah”, so he [Paul] MUST be doing the “aaah”.”  It seems completely immaterial how much time elapses between the end of the “dream” and the first “ahhh”, since a second singer could easily chime in at any point he wants — whether on top of the “dream” or a split-second later (as it is) or 2 seconds later or 20 seconds later.  And the same singer could also do it any of these ways — even on top of himself by tracking over.

Well, this is another “where to start” part…

If there is a lead singer who’s recording his lead vocals, he sings into his microphone – I guess we agree that Paul is the lead singer of the “Woke up” part. So if there is no “cut” (I’m really surprised you don’t know that term, which is familiar in music AND movies…) at the end of one part it means that there IS NO END and the part CONTINUES!
You can CLEARLY hear the “cut” at the end of Paul’s aaaahs, after his voice breaks. In contrast, after the “dream” you only hear Paul take a breath and start the aaah.
So this is NOT “immaterial” but ESSENTIAL. It also proves Emerick’s whole story is completely made-up.
That John does his part at the same time in the background is just a bonus…

Which brings us to

Fourth, Dismissing tracking over because you feel it can’t be or because you’re sure it wasn’t and heard somewhere it wasn’t, isn’t adequate proof it wasn’t.  But even if it is several Beatles, that doesn’t really prove the dominant one isn’t John but is Paul, but that detail seems to constitute a part of your argument.

Dude, I’m not a studio-technician from that time, so I won’t pretend to be able to provide the exact technical evidence. At least I know what a “cut” is…
It remains a naked fact that there’s one audible lead and three inaudible background voices – making it highly improbable that anyone took the effort to record those especially.
It’s also a fact that the voices are on the same track, and they ALL weren’t there before, so it’s at least highly probable that they were recorded at the same time, February 3rd.

 

Fifth, I’d like to see that Paul quote; though at the end of the day, Paul’s memory seems spotty, to be kind.

Yeah, I know it’s a favourite sport among the John-fans, not just in this place but anywhere else on the internet, to make ridiculous claims about how many false stories Paul loves to tell to make himself look good and rewrite history…

And while I agree that he REALLY got OLD in the last years and surely does remember less every day I’m glad that most of the times there’s someone pointing out that John made lots of false statements of his own – and in the end they only disagreed about two or three songs, that’s what counts.
Most of these people have never actually read “Many years from now” – I highly recommend it!

In this case he was FINALLY answering the question “Who did the “aaaahs” on ADITL” in a reddit AMA and sadly wasn’t helpful in his answer, since he said “I seem to remember we all did it. But I’m definitely in there somewhere”.

The only helpful part of this was that he confirmed there are actually four voices – which is clearly audible if you pay attention.

So, since this is my last answer to you, I give you a few more quotes from people who didn’t just listen to some albums but to the actual tapes. In case of John C. Winn, that’s a guy who over 20 years not just listened to every different mix ever made of any Beatles song, pointing out the smallest differences in the stereo-picture etc. and transcribed every single interview they ever gave – this guy KNOWS what he’s talking about and even corrected Lewisohn on many instances.

Kevin Ryan and Brian Kehew (from the book “Recording the Beatles”, p. 444): “Though many have understandably attributed this vocal to John Lennon in the past [personally I will never understand it], isolation of the vocal reveals it to be Paul. As the part progresses, his voice takes on a more nasal tone [I disagree, but good for you!]; this, in combination with an application of Repeat Echo similar to that already applied to John’s, does much to give an impression of it being Lennon.”

John C. Winn (from the book “That magic feeling – The Beatles’ recorded legacy, p. 86): “Paul then corrected his vocal blunder by taping a new vocal on track 2, also adding some soaring “aahs” over the circle-of-fifths segment that linked back to the final verse”.

And of course Sam Okell, who did the freaking Sgt. Pepper ‘s REMIX: “Paul’s main vocal track is in stereo, because we gave it some spread with the Waves S1 Stereo Imaging plug-in, so it has a different sound than John’s lead. We also split off two little bits to be able to pan them left and right. His fourth vocal track is the ‘aaah’ section, and below it is an ‘Aah delay’ aux track.” “Inside Sgt. Pepper ‘s”: Sound On Sound. SOS Publications Group. 26 October 2021

So, take it or leave it, that’s it from me.

If you want to start quoting Emerick now, please google “Ken Scott vs. Emerick” yourself.

All the best, bye!