Written by: Lennon-McCartney
Recorded: 19, 20 January; 3, 10, 22 February 1967
Producer: George Martin
Engineer: Geoff Emerick
Released: 1 June 1967 (UK), 2 June 1967 (US)
John Lennon: vocals, acoustic guitar, piano
Paul McCartney: vocals, piano, bass
George Harrison: maracas
Ringo Starr: drums, bongos
George Martin: harmonium
Mal Evans: piano, vocals, alarm clock
Erich Gruenberg, Granville Jones, Bill Monro, Jurgen Hess, Hans Geiger, D Bradley, Lionel Bentley, David McCallum, Donald Weekes, Henry Datyner, Sidney Sax, Ernest Scott: violins
John Underwood, Gwynne Edwards, Bernard Davis, John Meek: violas
Francisco Gabarro, Dennis Vigay, Alan Dalziel, Alex Nifosi: cellos
Cyril MacArthur, Gordon Pearce: double basses
John Marston: harp
Basil Tschaikov, Jack Brymer: clarinets
Roger Lord: oboe
N Fawcett, Alfred Waters: bassoons
Clifford Seville, David Sanderman: flutes
Alan Civil, Neil Sanders: French horns
David Mason, Monty Montgomery, Harold Jackson: trumpets
Raymond Brown, Raymond Premru, T Moore: trombones
Michael Barnes: tubas
Tristan Fry: timpani, percussion
Marijke Koger: tambourine
Available on:
Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Anthology 2
Love
The climax of their masterpiece Sgt Pepper, A Day In The Life found The Beatles at the peak of their creative powers, an astonishing artistic statement that saw them fearless, breaking boundaries and enthralling generations of listeners with the timeless quality of their music.
A Day In The Life - that was something. I dug it. It was a good piece of work between Paul and me. I had the 'I read the news today' bit, and it turned Paul on. Now and then we really turn each other on with a bit of song, and he just said 'yeah' - bang, bang, like that. It just sort of happened beautifully.
Rolling Stone
The lyrics
A detached, dispassionate glimpse through the looking glass at the everyday life he was content to let pass him by, A Day In The Life was inspired by a series of disconnected events that entered John Lennon's consciousness: the death of millionaire socialite Tara Browne, his own appearance in Richard Lester's film How I Won The War, and a council survey that found 4,000 holes in the roads of Blackburn, Lancashire.
Just as it sounds: I was reading the paper one day and noticed two stories. One was about the Guinness heir who killed himself in a car. That was the main headline story. He died in London in a car crash. On the next page was a story about four thousand potholes in the streets of Blackburn, Lancashire, that needed to be filled. Paul's contribution was the beautiful little lick in the song, 'I'd love to turn you on,' that he'd had floating around in his head and couldn't use. I thought it was a damn good piece of work.
All We Are Saying, David Sheff
The 17 January 1967 edition of the newspaper reported the coroner's verdict into the death of Tara Browne, an Irish friend of The Beatles who on 18 December 1966 had driven his Lotus Elan at high speed through a red light in South Kensington, London and into a stationary van.
Browne was the great grandson of the brewer Edward Cecil Guinness and the son of Lord and Lady Oranmore and Browne. He was in line to inherit a £1m fortune upon his 25th birthday, but died at the age of 21.
I was writing A Day In The Life with the Daily Mail propped in front of me on the piano. I had it open at their News in Brief, or Far and Near, whatever they call it.
Anthology
In Hunter Davies' authorised biography of The Beatles, John Lennon explained how the words of the song were indirectly inspired by the events.
I didn't copy the accident. Tara didn't blow his mind out. But it was in my mind when I was writing that verse.
The Beatles, Hunter Davies
In his authorised biography Many Years From Now, Paul McCartney suggested that the Browne story featured to a lesser extent.
The verse about the politician blowing his mind out in a car we wrote together. It has been attributed to Tara Browne, the Guinness heir, which I don't believe is the case, certainly as we were writing it, I was not attributing it to Tara in my head. In John's head it might have been. In my head I was imagining a politician bombed out on drugs who'd stopped at some traffic lights and didn't notice that the lights had changed. The 'blew his mind' was purely a drugs reference, nothing to do with a car crash.
Many Years From Now, Barry Miles
Filmed in Spain and Germany in autumn 1966, How I Won The War was John Lennon's only non-Beatles film role. The lyrics of A Day In The Life also allude to the novel on which the film was based, written by Patrick Ryan and first published in 1963.
The middle section ("Woke up, fell out of bed") was an unfinished song fragment written by Paul McCartney, its practical earthiness providing a perfect counterpoint to Lennon's languorous daydreaming.
It was another song altogether but it happened to fit. It was just me remembering what it was like to run up the road to catch a bus to school, having a smoke and going into class. It was a reflection of my schooldays. I would have a Woodbine, somebody would speak and I'd go into a dream.
The reference to having a smoke, however, along with the refrain "I'd love to turn you on", led to the song being banned by the BBC.
I had this sequence that fitted, 'Woke up, fell out of bed', and we had to link them. 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?'
Many Years From Now, Barry Miles
The final verse was also taken from the Daily Mail's Far and Near column. "There are 4,000 holes in the road in Blackburn, Lancashire," it read, "or one twenty-sixth of a hole per person, according to a council survey."
There was still one word missing in that verse when we came to record. I knew the line had to go 'Now they know how many holes it takes to... something, the Albert Hall.' It was a nonsense verse really, but for some reason I couldn't think of the verb. What did the holes do to the Albert Hall?It was Terry [Doran, a former car dealer and friend of Brian Epstein's who later became head of Apple Music] who said 'fill' the Albert Hall. And that was it. Perhaps I was looking for that word all the time, but couldn't put my tongue on it. Other people don't necessarily give you a word or a line, they just throw in the word you're looking for anyway.
Anthology
‘A Day In The Life’,… you can almost see it being typed out on paper as the title of a news story;…
Flash! Just out across the headline news! Speaking for the generation of young people growing up and living out their daily lives; the ‘Ah’ sung and final key played, summed it all up! The Beatles transcended their time to become, larger than life, to truly become ‘the history’ of their own time! Like Mozart, List, and Bethoven before them! This Album and this song resurrected them, metamorphized them, and historically hung them musically in the Louve of modern recorded sound, music and lyrical poetic greatness! We still owe them a big debt of gratitude for their creative genius and courage!
I believe their MBE’s we’re well deserved…. Her Majesty was also truely, ‘ahead of her time’..,Yes!
Their greatest achievement.
Their 9th Symphony, really. And the drums. Man, the drums!…thank you, Ringo.
Totally agree. I would call it the greatest in pop music history. Broke every barrier there was to break!!
yea!!
When I watch Anthology and you see George Martin playing the song and you see GM, reflecting back on the actual moment
Its like you can see the words on his forehead, the video in his mind, remembering this great moment
In George Martin’s book, All You Need Is Ears, he writes of his memories of John requesting an expanded sound for A Day In The Life.
Just for fun, here’s an interesting mash-up involving “A Day In the Life” and “Karma Police”. Hopefully it’s okay to post links here…if not, you can remove it. Anyone who doubts that Radiohead was heavily influenced by the Beatles should check this out.
A Day in the Life isn’t just part of Sgt. Pepper’s, it IS Sgt. Pepper’s
Ringo’s drums are just beautiful! In my opinion this is the only song on the album that is really recorded well. I am always in the mood for this one. I will never tire of it. “4,000 holes in Blackburn, lancashire”
If you can find the multitrack version of this, get it! It’s a fascinating listen… especially the vocal track. The cycle-of-fifths chord progression (I think of it as the “dream” part) with Lennon’s “aah ahh ahh” vocals is REALLY spooky when you hear it isolated. The bass and drum track is also very cool.
Hey Coffee Shop, where can one find the “multitrack version” you speak of? I’ve never heard of it…
Did you ever find that “multi track” version? I’d LOVE to hear it.
Here it is: http://www.mediafire.com/?87sa4hvo8dx4k
You need a program called Audacity to open the file. That link has all the songs on The Beatles Rock Band, including the DLC, and I guess someone got the files from the game. It has all the tracks separated and everything, it’s awesome!
Nice you mentioned that part! It has intrigued me because it’s a separate part in the song but I’ve never read anything about it anywhere in books or on the internet, where it came from or who wrote it. Actually my suspicion is that it was an either conscious or subconscious ripp-off of the chord progression to Hey Joe!
Hello Joe! I hate to be boring but shouldn’t Mal Evans be given some form of credit for sounding the alarm clock and counting in the 24 orchestral bars? Both elements greatly add to the song’s atmosphere. Perhaps the term for the count-in could be “backing vocal”?
Fair point. I’ve added vocals for him.
The best song created of all time.
Lennon’s dreamful echoed vocals.
McCartney’s excellent middle section and sublime bass and backing vocals
along with George in the ”ahhhh…” section, my favorite along with the orchestra and well, all the whole song.
Oh, and Ringo’s best drumming of all Beatles song, the best drum i’d ever heard.
And of course, Mal Evans and the 24-bar section, and the massive Orchestra playing like crazy.
I have the multitrack tapes from a bootleg, and i remixed the song with the original hum ending and piano chords, and remixed channels.
But i’d to attempt around 51 mixes to get it right.
Yup, 51 mixes.
That’s a record for me.
I never worked on a song so much attemps and it’s hard to mix it correctly and remaster it.
Obviously, i would never compare it with 2009 Remasters. These are unbeatable.
Again, the best song ever created.
Best recorded piece of music in the history of recording. Legendary, colossal, mammoth, mind blowing. Colonel Salt could go on and on.
I always thought the ‘holes’ reference was John being smart with what I deemed to be his typical word play i.e. really refering to how many ‘ass-holes’ it took to fill Albert Hall. The information on this site doesnt really point at my assumption as being correct, but (and poetically), this is my intepretation and I believe Johns subliminally intended. How many ass-holes does it take to fill Albert Hall?
If that was true, it would probably have been “arse-holes” but I’m not sure I’ve ever heard The Beatles ever say “arse-hole” or “ass-hole”.
In the authaurised biography by Hunter Davies it says that it refering to how much cement it would take to fill all the pot holes in that area. it equalled ot enough cement to fill hte albert hall, therefore “how many holes it takes to fill hte albert hall”
It is a play on words, but much more psychedelic. Think of it – a hole can’t fill a space. So the idea of wondering how many holes(how MUCH nothing) it would take to fill a BIG space(the Albert Hall)…that’s the kind of thing you contemplate when you’re on psychedelics. Or being absurd or philosophical. All three describe Lennon, don’t you think?
In the Anthology version Lennon said “just to keeping in my maracas” or something like that. Who played maracas? Was Harrison present? How many acoustic guitars were recorded?
On the Anthology DVD George Martin said that George Harrison played the maracas. I belive I read that Joe is going to do an article on the Antholgy CD’s soon. Stay tuned to the site.
Lennon sang the ”aaaah” part, and there’s very almost inaudible backing vocals of Paul and George saying ”aaah and uuuhh”.
Listen the vocal track tape.
I have it.
There’s no doubt.
100% Lennon’s voice.
I agree. But are you sure there are backing vocals? I can only hear the echo of Lennons voice.
Emerick confirm this: Lennon alone sang this ahhh part.
Absolutely sure. I can send you the vocal track.
I just listened to the vocal track on youtube. Great!!
And I am now 110 percent sure that the “Aaaa” part is sung by – Paul McCartney!
Check out the very last seconds to make sure.
Sorry, EltonJohnLennon, but John didn’t do that one.
It sounds as if John is making some high noises while George is doing some “Uuuhs”.
Oh my God. And you say you are a fan of Paul McCartney? You should know his voice. Paul sings right before that part. You must hear the difference. And don’t say Paul could sing like John.
Paul is on backing vocals – with George.
Well, for someone calling himself after John you don’t seem to know his voice very well.
Paul’s voice is “fuller” than John’s.
The last high “aaah” sounds like John the most, but at the very, very end it is most obviously Paul.
The high “aahs” in the background sound very much like John, on the other hand.
Btw:
Put in your White Album copy.
Play “Why don’t we do it in the road” and the next track “I will”.
You must hear the difference.
Still both Paul.
Very nasty what you said about my CD collection. I have the remastered version of the “White Album”. This “copy”-attack says a lot about your niveau but not about mine.
I’ve listened to the track on youtube. The backing vocals are scarcely audible. It is nearly impossible to hear who sings it. The lead vocals are so dominant. So you can’t say that you identified John’s voice.
You say in the last two seconds it sounds very much like Paul. That’s ridiculous. What about the rest? It is so obviously John.
But, you’re right. This discussion doesn’t make sense. I will never accept that it’s Paul because it’s not true. “A Day in the Life” is John’s song. Paul’s contribution is the very simple middle part.
And with that I’m closing this debate, as it’s become pretty tedious. Please carry on in the forum if you want to.
I hope Joe will let me say that I didn’t mean to “attack” anyone with the word “copy” in any way.
I’m not a native English speaker.
Don’t you say “Good album, you should get a copy”?
Both Martin’s and Emerick’s books credit John for the original idea of the building-up sound for the 24 bars. Then, they said McCartney suggested an orchestra, and since they don’t get a full orchestra, it was Ringo (yes, amazing) who suggested double-tracking. But then again, John’s ideas were exactly what Martin used for the free-form score.
Also, Emerick confirm that the “I’d love you to turn…” part was there in the first John demo.
But there are more:
Ringo plays bongos and Harrison maracas, and then Martin decided to switch them. But then again, why we can hear Lennon asking for “his maracas” in the anthology version?
I think there is no doubt now that John sang the dream-part after Pauls middle section.
“I’d love to turn you on” was the only contribution from Paul for Johns part. But I think he only tells him the words. Then John put it into the musical structure.
You think wrong, it is definitely Paul.
Sorry, but if you think that’s Paul you do not know his voice. It is so obvious.
Sorry again, but if you think that is NOT Paul you don’t know his voice.
Did you listen to the vocal track on youtube?
It is really obvious.
On the “Love” version it did sound more like John, but I always thought it was Paul, and the vocal track confirmed it.
We could play this game the whole day I guess. I still know I’m right, of course.
Btw, while Geoff Emerick used to be one of my Beatle heroes:
After reading some comments about Emericks words I think it is correct to assume that he cared more about selling his book (by stirring even more conflicts among John and Paul fans) than getting the facts right.
This could indeed go on all day, and it’s a little boring to read a conversation that’s clearly going nowhere. I won’t publish any more comments on this matter unless they bring something genuinely new to the table.
If you want to continue the “It was Paul”/”It was John” debate, feel free to use the forum. You can carry on there to your hearts’ content!
Surely you know, Joe. You can end the debate right now with a definitive answer that it was indeed Paul.
John attributes the “lovely little lick” of “I’d love to turn you on” to Paul in his 1980 Playboy Interview. I’d like to believe John had the melody but lacked the words because then he also had the melody of “Nobody was really sure…Lords…” What context does Emerick mention this demo, to clarify this point?
I think I’ll never forget the experience of singing the “ahhhh” chorus in Paul’s concert. It was raining a lot, and I think everybody raised their arms and sang to the top of our lungs. It was amazing.
“[Paul] explained that he wanted his voice to sound all muzzy, as if he had woken up from a very deep sleep … My way of achieving this was to deliberately remove a lot of the treble from his voice and heavily compress it to make him sound muffled. When the song goes into the dreamy section that John sings, the full fidelity is restored.
“Although the overdubs to the middle section were being done separately from the main body of the song, it had already been edited into the four-track master, which made Richard [Lush]’s job of dropping in and out a bit tricky. Paul’s vocal, for example, was being dropped into the same track that contained John’s lead vocal, and there was a very tight drop-out point between the two–between Paul’s singing “…and I went into a dream” and John’s “ahhh” that starts the next section. Richard was quite paranoid about it–with good reason–and I remember him asking me to get on the talkback mic to explain the situation to Paul and ask him not to deviate from the phrasing that he had used on the guide vocal. I was really impressed when Richard did that–I thought it showed great maturity to be proactive that way. John’s vocal, after all, had such great emotion, and it also had tape echo on it. The thought of having to do it again and re-create the atmosphere was daunting…not to mention what John’s reaction would have been! Someone’s head would have been bitten off, and it most likely would have been mine. But Paul, ever professional, did heed the warning, and he made certain to end the last word distinctly in order to give Richard sufficient time to drop out before John’s vocal came back in. Listening carefully, you can actually hear Paul slightly rush the vocal; he even adds a little “ah” to the end of the word “dream” giving it a very clipped ending.”
Geoff Emerick & Howard Massey, Here There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles (London, 2007), p. 152.
In the book “Recording the Beatles” by Kevin Ryan and Brian Kehew they settle who sings the aaahs in this song. They say it is clearly Paul. From pages 443 to 444: “Though many have understandably attributed this vocal to John Lennon in the past,isolation of the vocal reveals it to be Paul.” By the way, this book is a must read for any fan.
John sings the aaahs according to George Martin’s and Geoff Emerick’s testimonies. Not sure if Kevin Ryan was there during the recording though. Nice try though.
Please visit the forum to continue this discussion. No further comments on this matter will be published on this page.
Can’t hear a harmonium, are you sure it’s there?
I would say there is, in the final chord on the left channel of the stereo mix.
I am listening to the White Album lately, and while some of the material on it sounds quite “dated”, this song certainly does not!
Has anyone noticed that the “ahh” section sounds suspiciously similar to Billy Joe Royal’s “Hush” (1967)? I think it’s the same melody.
Yeah, I’ve noticed that before! Only I’ve never heard Billy Joe Royal’s version of “Hush”, only Deep Purple’s. (Wasn’t aware that there WAS a Billy Joe Royal version, in fact, with the same “na na na’s”.)
But yeah, it’s the same melody at twice the speed.
Day In The Life was recorded in Jan-Feb 1967 and released at the beginning of June 1967 just before Billy Joe Royal’s US minor hit version of Hush was released.
…September ’67, to be exact. So, either Billy Joe (or Joe South) heard ADITL immediately upon release, liked it, borrowed the “na na na” part for “Hush” and got the whole package written, recorded & released within three months; or the whole thing’s just a coincidence. So, who knows? I’m not going to speculate one way or the other.
If either Joe DID borrow the tune, however, I gotta say it’s pretty clever of them to disguise it by compressing it into two bars instead of the original four – Beatles did exactly the opposite to conceal “Frere Jacques” within “Paperback Writer”
Yes I agree especially since Royal’s version of Hush was a flop in Europe and was only a minor hit (reached #52 in the USA).
Soul singers were singing na na na some time before Hush came out.
‘So, either Billy Joe (or Joe South) heard ADITL immediately upon release, liked it, borrowed the “na na na” part for “Hush” and got the whole package written, recorded & released within three months’.
That doesn’t seem too unlikely, though. Given how popular and widely anticipated Pepper was it would be slightly surprising if a professional US pop songwriter like South *hadn’t* heard it soon or very soon after its release, simultaneously on both sides of the Atlantic, on 1 June. It also wouldn’t be too surprising for a professional songwriter to (maybe unconsciously) try to magpie some interesting bits out of Pepper to make a quick hit. With a fair wind the song could have been written and maybe even demoed in as little as a day, and I assume that something as straightforward as the Billy Joe Royal recording wouldn’t have had to take a ’60s pop studio much longer than that again. That still leaves the time to shop the song around to artists before recording, and then the time to press and distribute the record. But a single month seems to have been enough to get many US and UK pop singles from recording to release.
Conversely none of this rules out the possibility that it *was* a coincidence, of course. I think would have to have been a pretty spooky musical coincidence, but as far as I know there have been a fair number of those, too.
Supporting this line of thinking, Hendrix covered the title track live either the day or the day after Pepper came out.
Is that the same David McCallum that plays on NCIS and The Man From UNCLE? It says on his wiki that he is a classically trained musician.
No, it was his father, David McCallum Sr: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_McCallum_Sr
take a look at mark lewisohn at page 94 about day in the live reduction mixes.paul contribution with a new overdub.tanks
‘A Day in the Life’is arguably the Beatles peak, and unquestionably one of pop music’s most beautiful and creative songs until this very day.
Here, we should realize that any arguments about John vs. Paul are simply irrelevant as the song shows their creative partnership in full flower, not to mention the beautiful drumming of Ringo and the master work of ‘facilitator’George Martin, and the rest of the Beatles team.
Jazz guitarist Wes Montgomery also does a nice version, and Jeff Beck does an interesting take on this song.
Amazing article. Amazing song. It combines every song they did in one in a way…
However, what about the ending? Why doesn’t this article or any discuss the ending!?!?!?
I don’t understand why there was/is such controversy over the “I’d love to turn you on” lyric seeing as the phrase “turn me on” had been used in She’s a Woman all those years earlier?
Well, the idea of pop stars on drugs (and inciting others to use them) wasn’t really on the radar in ’64, the phrase “turning on” (ie. “getting high”) even less so.
The very first sentence of this page is erroneous. “At 5’03”, A Day In The Life was two minutes longer than anything The Beatles had previously released”
Actually, Strawberry Fields Forver clocks in at 4’07, which was recorded and was released only four months prior to A Day In The Life.
Thanks. I’m not sure what I was thinking when I wrote that, but it was clearly nonsense. I’ve taken the timing out now.
Tristan Fry, the drummer from Sky, on the timpani here. I love little things like that.
Does anyone else hear a chair creak at the end when the piano chord is being held out? I know they brought in a bunch of pianos for that last chord, so I’m assuming it’s the creak of a piano bench…
someone else mentioned, but I read in Emerick’s book (and I acknowledge that he misremembers some things) that Ringo and George switched percussion instruments and that Ringo ended up on maracas and George on bongos. I notice you have credited it the other way. Are you confident of which it actually is?
Great song! My favorite Ringo drumming. Best fills. Best sound. Were some of those fills on timpani drums? Or was this just great engineering on Geoff’s part? Paul’s bass on this is just perfect. Was this his Rickenbacker? I think I like that bass better than the Hoffner.(sorry if bad spelling) They finally started recording the piano well by this point in their career. (I don’t like the piano on early tracts like, “Rock & Roll music” or “Long tall Sally”. The “On air live @ BBE vol II” has far superior versions of some of the early tracts & are much more rocking minus the piano. )
It shows some humility on George H’s part. Playing only the marraccas! But the Beatle’s use of percussion was always subtle & perfectly placed i.e-Tamborine used in many tunes. Good discussion except the dispute over who sings the “Ahh” part. How about this argument? John’ voice is echoed. (Heartbreak Hotel). Paul’s is not.
The “Ahh” part is echoed.
By far, Ringo’s best drumming ever, though I must say that albumwise Abbey Road has his best playing overall. But ADITL has Ringo playing at his best! He was very musical and poetic. I don’t think the Beatles could’ve had a better drummer than him. All those comparisons to Buddy Rich or Gene Krupa are just absurd! Apples and oranges. Compare him to some of his contemporary drummers, say Keith Moon or Charlie Watts. I love the Who, but I think Keith would’ve ruined a track like ADITL ( I think he ruined Quadrophenia). Charlie is more technical and ventured out or Rock’n’Roll with his Jazz projects, but Ringo played all the right notes and his sound was unique.
Haley: I’ve never heard it but so many people assumed they did so I finally heard it myself (lol). Also, am I the only one who hears a distant voice yelling “Yeah” just before Mr McCartney stops singing? When he says (or raps) the word “smoke”.
In my opinion this particular song might as well be credited to”Lennon-McCartney-Martin”. It’s very similar to a movie’s editing more than a song (well to me). I wasn’t even born and this is THE song we speculate the most hardly upon, “and you’ll never know the real story” to quote someone else than the Beatles.
i know the school/bus story… so maybe it’s just me… but is the middle eight (that was ‘lying around’) actually a bit of Lovely Rita that fell off?
‘Took her home – nearly made it’ / ‘got up out of bed – dragged a comb etc’
How come the article doesn’t mention the end? Nor do any of the comments… Huh. (You know what I mean by THE end of the song, right?)
Joe, do you have any information of the end part? (The “never could be any other way” and the dog whistle before it.)
Yes, but I didn’t include it in this article as I don’t see the album run-out groove as part of ADITL. I’ve discussed it in this page of the Sgt Pepper album article.
Ah, thanks. Are you sure it’s not part of A Day in the Life, though? Usually the tracking for things like DVDs and whatnot put it as part of it, sort of like the Can You Take Me Back in Cry Baby Cry. But again, thanks for the information.
One of their best, creative and unique songs. I love it so much. The lyrics really stick with you. That’s funny, I just watched We Won The War yesterday. I always cry at the end since it reminds me of how Lennon died
Arguably The Beatles greatest song and certainly one of my favorites. As I said on the Sgt Pepper site when I got my copy of this via the just mentioned album in 1978, I just loved A Day in the Life. Lennons voice just seems to soar through the air and the piano, drums and that orchestra. McCartney comes in with that great cameo. My favorite part of this brilliant song is the return of Lennon after the McCartney piece; with John Lennons voice, incredible. The song is perhaps the high point of the Lennon-McCartney collaboration with George Martin. Either way this song is one of the greatest of all time, a masterpiece. And that ending and its build up-pure genius.
This is the greatest song of all time. You may prefer a song to this one, but facts are facts.
So my uncle lent me the red and blue album compilations, to try and get me into the Beatles. Boy, was he ever successful.
I listened to the red album first, than the blue album. The first track of the blue album, Strawberry Fields Forever blew my mind. It took over as my favourite Beatles song. Penny Lane became #2. I had the lyric booklet so I could read along. Here comes A Day In The Life.
It was nothing special. The use of oh, boy at the end of a bunch of lines screamed filler lyric. Of course John sang nicely and all, but it didn’t stand out from anything else, and surely didn’t beat Strawberry Fields.
Then, the orchestral section. It was scary to me.
WAIT!
Let me snap out of this. Let’s skip ahead to the good part.
“What’s your favourite song by The Beatles” I eagerly asked uncle Jeff.
“A Day In the Life” he responds without hesitation.
“Oh.” I said. It sounded familiar.
I look up a list of the top 100 Beatles songs and find rolling stone magazine’s. A Day In The Life is #1.
I buy the Sgt. Pepper album. I wait until the end. A Day In the Life comes on. I hear the lyrics. I listen to the lyrics. I love it.
I search A Day In The Life on Google. I read. I learn.
Sgt. Pepper is the greatest, most important, influental album ever made. A Day In The Life is everything that Sgt. Pepper is. It’s Lennon and McCartney. It’s a perfect entering of the drumming. It’s maracas. It’s the epic climax of 40 musicians in party hats. It’s ah-ah-ah-ah. It’s an e chord… It never could be any other way. Now I understand.
I was listening to a video on the making of Sgt. Pepper and for the rhythm track of A Day In The Life, John says something to the effect of, “Drop the mic lower on the piano to keep with MY maracas…”. With this info I would assume that would leave George to do the acoustic part. What do you think Joe?
That recording is on Anthology 2. It’s difficult to make out precisely what he’s saying, but it sounds to me like he’s holding the acoustic guitar and strumming it in between comments. I’m not convinced he’s on maracas, but I may be wrong.
When the alarm clock rings, you can hear – if you listen closely – Paul coming in with the next line too soon .. He gets as far as saying “wo….” and stops,…in other words he missed his cue. Don’t know if anyone else has noticed/commented on this, but it’s there.
There’s some “noise” on the tape, someone talking, but it’s definitely not Paul going into his vocal part. While he was fine with leaving mistakes on the actual record many times this is not the case here.
What you’re hearing there is Paul counting himself in. It’s ‘one’, not ‘wo-‘. The reasone for it is simple: the vocals don’t come in one 1, but ins the ‘and’ between 4 ‘and’ 1. The word ‘up’ falls on the count of 1, which is probably why Paul counted himself in.
Lennon´s melody has the feeling of sadness, by several times using the same note, and finishing the verse, on the same note it started with. A feeling of standing still.
The orchestra crescendo-moving up resembles that in Wagner´s Entry of the Gods in Das Rheingold. But Lennon never listened to Wagner, but they had the same temperament.
In his book All You Need Is Ears 1979, George Martin sais that this crescendo and so on, was Lennon´s idea. Lennon had told him: “I´d like to hear a tremendous build – up from nothing up to something absolutely like the end of the world …I´d like to use a symphony orchestra for it…”.
But McCartney wanted the credit of it. In an interview with Mark Lewisohn 1988, he sais “…I ended up conducting part of it. In fact I did a lot of work on A Day In The Life crescendo, because I was getting interested in avant garde things”. But McCartney never said who´s idea it was, but in litterature McCartney usually gets the credit of that bit, and that was McCartney´s purpose.
How sad to see people are still discrediting Paul, in a way doing the same thing they accuse HIM of: taking away his acchievements. And funny how they always seem to know his personal motives…
George Martin did NOT say the crescendo was John’s idea, your quote proves it. He often said that John was very vage in his ideas, while McCartney was a lot more specific and innovative in personally finding a solution, the crescendo being a perfect example for that.
It’s also fact that McCartney was the one interested in “avant garde things” while Lennon at that time was stuck in his suburb house in front of the TV. So of course Paul was more involved in the actual work on the actual thing.
George Martin says in his book “Summer of love” that all Beatles, “with Paul as the forerunner”, came to him with the idea of using a symphony orchestra. Paul had “talked to John, telling him he wanted to build in an avant garde-style passage. Paul wanted a spiraling, uprising sound, and he imagined that all the instruments would start on their lowest note and go to their highest in their own tempo”.
George Martin continues: “When I started writing the partiture, I realized John had not thought of the orchestra part the slightest bit.” (btw: I have the German version, so the actual english words should differ to some point)
So John had the idea of the “end of the world-sound”, Paul made the very specific suggestion, George Martin did the final arrangement.
This is the only song ever made that is perfect. There’s nothing to say. Listen.
I believe that “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” is also perfect.
To Michael
Read again page 209 in George Martin´s book All You Need Is Love from 1979!!: “…I asked John for his ideas … he said: `What I´d like to hear is a tremendous build – up from nothing up to something absolutely like the end of the world. I´d like it to be from extreme quitness to extreme loudness … I´d like to use a symphony orchestra for it. Tell you what, George, you book a symphony orchestra, and we´ll get them in a studio and tell them what to do. (But obviously, it was McCartney who contacted the symphony orchestra, and instructed it).
Then 1994, 15 years after, George Martin tells another story! It´s something strange with the relationship between Martin and McCartney. They were always more close than Martin and Lennon. And Martin is, or was, not always correct in his comments. In the summer 1966 (at that time Lennon had composed most of their hits) a pop orchestra from Scandinavia had met George Martin, and Martin told them that McCartney wrote almost all music!! I am anxious about these things because Beatles are music history, and this history is often distorted. And I never believe a word of what McCartney is saying about credits. McCartney´s wish to always hold up himself was the reason why The Beatles split.
Lennon was very disappointed that George Martin always said to the public that they composed Please Please Me “together” — see the book Lennon Letters – when it was Lennon alone.
It´s a myth that “McCartney was more interested in avant garde, while Lennon was stuck in his suburb house”. What avant garde music has McCartney created? Who was the first to compose a song with only one chord; Tomorrow Never Knows? Who did I Am The Walrus? Who did Glass Onion? Who did Revolution 9?
Must you ruin every comment section with your petty tripe? Paul said this and Paul said that and I don’t believe him, and George Martin liked Paul better..and the Beatles split up because of Paul’s this and that, and “Yesterday” and on and on. It’s a pity you can’t enjoy The Beatles and their wonderful music without obsessing over who wrote what and who said they wrote this or that. No real Beatles fan carries on like you do on this subject!
I’ve briefly skimmed over the article and the comments, not sure if anyone’s addressed this but I read that the orchestral crescendo in the song was supposed to reflect everything in John’s life up to that point. Most notably, his deteriorating mental state from excessive LSD use as well as the state of his marriage. He was losing it, and that crescendo in the song is a direct reflection of his mental state. I either read this in the anthology or Schaffner’s “Beatles Forever”. Is this accurate?
I remember distinctively in the Beatles Book publication of a photo of John Lennon holding maracas in his hands. I’m not sure what song was being recorded at Abbey Road but it was definitely during the Pepper sessions. This eas easy to tell by the clothing. I would assume now that this would be the photo to A Day In The Life Has anyone else ever seen this photo?
Strange how Sgt. Pepper’s Reprise is not the last song that book-ends the album. A Day in the life takes us outside the “Sgt. Pepper” grouping and into something else. It is so haunting – almost chilling in it’s non-emotional recanting of the car crash. PID people see this as the first “solid” reference to how Paul met his demise. – the names being changed to protect the innocent. ( although a careful listen to “…nobody was really sure he was from the house of Lords” – sounds a lot like …”house of Paul”). The arrangement and poetry of this song is perfect. Lennon’s genius clearly shines through.
Best way to end Sgt. Pepper
This entry seems really short for such an amazing song – I’m left wanting more! No info on the backwards bit at the end?
u forgot to add Ringo on the ending piano chord
I was eight years old when Sgt. Pepper came out, and already an avid Beatles fan. A Day in the Life was played regularly on FM radio that summer, and oh how it blew my young mind. I recall how amazed I was at the injection of Paul’s little tune into the larger one. “You can do that?” I thought – “Isn’t that against the rules?” Which, in effect, it was, until the Beatles came along…
I was a little older than you, eleven years old. The mono album belonged to my oldest brother. I hadn’t heard any of the songs until the album was played in the boys’ bedroom. Every song was fantastic to my ears. I had already taken a liking to John Lennon’s voice, and all his songs on side one were wonderful. What could be better than what I heard on side one? Then I heard “A Day In The Life.” I thought I had just heard the best song ever recorded. I knew the Beatles were good, but this song alone lifted them above and beyond all the other groups and singers. I still loved the Yeah, Yeah, Yeah of a few years earlier, but now I could look forward and not backward. The Beatles album Sgt Peppers, including the packaging, changed what I expected from musicians. Only the Beatles satisfied me. Today, at sixty one years old, the Beatles catalogue is still entertaining me, and I never tire of A Day In The Life.
I dare say you’ve seen the new BBC letter:
https://www.beatlesbible.com/forum/the-songs/a-day-in-the-life/page-4/#p260773
Worth working into the article?