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EspañolA DAY IN THE LIFE
"'A Day in the Life'" is a song composed by John Lennon and Paul McCartney and recorded by The Beatles for their album ''Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'' in 1967 (see 1967 in music). The song is actually a merging of two different, but complementary, song fragments originally authored independently by Lennon and McCartney, with McCartney's fragment added to the middle of Lennon's. It featured groundbreaking elements, including impressionistic lyrics, innovative production techniques and a complex arrangement including a cacophonous, partially-improvised orchestral crescendo.
Credits
★ John Lennon - vocals, acoustic guitar, piano (final chord), lyrics
★ Paul McCartney - vocals, piano, bass guitar, lyrics
★ George Harrison - maracas
★ Ringo Starr - drums, bongos, piano (final chord)
★ George Martin - harmonium
★ Mal Evans - alarm clock, piano (final chord)
Inspiration from a newspaper
Lennon started writing the song while reading the ''Daily Mail'' newspaper. Two stories caught his eye; one was about the death of Tara Browne, the heir to the Guinness fortune, and friend of The Beatles, who drove through red lights at the speed of 110 mph in his Lotus Elan and crashed into the back of a parked lorry in Redcliffe Square, South Kensington, London on December 18 1966. He was dead at 21. The other was about a plan to fill 4,000 potholes in the streets of Blackburn, Lancashire.[1]
However, the song did not include a literal description of Browne's fatal accident. Lennon said:[2]
Later, fans eager to locate clues about McCartney's supposed death seized upon this segment of the song as a depiction of his alleged accident.
Lennon also sang about a film in which "the English army had just won the war" in the song. Although Lennon is not known to have explained his exact intention, it is thought to be a reference to Lennon's role in the surrealist comedy film ''How I Won the War'', which saw release in October of that year.
McCartney then added the middle section, which was a short piano piece he had been working on previously, with lyrics about a commuter whose uneventful morning routine leads him to drift off into a reverie. McCartney also contributed the line "I'd love to turn you on," which serves as a chorus to the first section of the song. Lennon explained:
McCartney explained that he wrote the piece as a wistful recollection of his younger years:
McCartney's section of the song was followed by a short wordless vocal chorus which segued back into Lennon's part of the song. On 27 August, 1992, Lennon's original handwritten lyrics to the song were auctioned, eventually selling for US$87,000 (£50,000).
Impromptu work in the studio
"A Day in the Life" is characterised by crescendoes and sudden instrumental changes. The repeated motif at the end is the famous "studio chatter".
The Beatles began recording this new song, at that point titled "In the Life Of. . ." on 19 January 1967, but at the time, Lennon had not yet decided how he would fill in a glaring gap in the song. The two sections of the song were separated by 24 bars. At first, The Beatles were not sure how to fill this transition; at the conclusion of the recording session for the basic tracks this section 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 effect, perhaps an early indication of the bands' desire to have some type of crescendo during this section. The Beatles, particularly Lennon, were enamored of echo effects at this time; Beatles engineer Geoff Emerick recalled: "We'd send a feed from John's vocal mic into a mono tape machine and then tape the output. . . and then feed that back in again. Then we'd turn up the record level until it started to feed back on itself and give a twittery sort of vocal sound."
The 24-bar bridge section ended with the sound of an alarm clock (accidentally) triggered by Evans. The original intent was to edit out the ringing of the alarm clock when The Beatles had filled in the missing section, but because it complemented McCartney's piece very well (particularly because the first line of McCartney's song began "woke up, fell out of bed"), the decision was made to keep the sound. Perhaps it would have remained in any event; Martin later made a cryptic mention that editing it out would have been unfeasible.[3]
Lennon experienced another problem from his unfinished job of composing the song — as he recalled: "And when we came to record the song there was still one word missing from that verse... I knew the line had to go, 'Now they know how many holes it takes to — something — the Albert Hall.' For some reason I couldn't think of the verb. What did the holes do to the Albert Hall? It was [Lennon's friend] Terry Doran who said 'fill' the Albert Hall. And that was it. Then we thought we wanted a growing noise to lead back into the first bit. We wanted to think of a good end and we had to decide what sort of backing and instruments would sound good. Like all our songs, they never become an entity until the very end. They are developed all the time as we go along."[4]
An orchestral "soft upward glissando"
The basic track for the song was refined with remixing and additional parts added at recording sessions on 20 January and 3 February. By now the original name for the song had been abandoned in favour of the eventual final title. However, The Beatles still had no solution in sight to their missing section of the song, when McCartney had the idea of bringing in a full orchestra and having them "freak out" for the 24-bar middle section. Concern arose, however, that classically-trained musicians would not be able to improvise in this manner, so producer George Martin had to write a loose score for the section — an extended, atonal crescendo — for the musicians to follow (though the musicians would still be encouraged to improvise within the defined framework).
The orchestral part for the song was recorded on 10 February, with McCartney and Martin conducting a 40-piece orchestra. The recording session was completed at a total cost of £367 for the players, considered an extravagance at the time.
Martin later described explaining his improvised score to the puzzled orchestra:
McCartney also recounted explaining to the orchestra how it was to be done, and the amusing result:
McCartney had originally wanted a 90-piece orchestra but this proved unfeasible; the difference was more than made up, however, as the semi-improvised segment was recorded multiple times and eventually four different recordings were overdubbed into a single massive crescendo. For all the chaos of the recording session, the results were a brilliant success; in the final edit of the song the orchestral crescendo is reprised, in even more cacophonous fashion, at the conclusion of the song.
It had been prearranged for this session to be filmed by NEMS Enterprises for use in a planned television special. However, the film was never released in its entirety, although portions of it can be seen in the "A Day in the Life" promotional film, including shots of studio guests like Mick Jagger, Marianne Faithfull, Keith Richards, Donovan, Pattie Boyd and Michael Nesmith.
Reflecting The Beatles' taste for experimentation and ''avant garde'' at this point, the orchestra players (mostly conservative, middle-aged professional musicians) were decked out in formal dress for the film, but also asked to wear or were given a "fancy dress" (costume) piece, leading to different players wearing anything from red noses to fake stick-on nipples. George Martin recalled that the lead violinist performed wearing a gorilla paw, while a bassoon player placed a balloon on the end of his instrument.
The chord
Following the final orchestral crescendo, the song ends with one of the most famous final chords in music history ([1]): John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, George Martin, and Mal Evans, simultaneously playing an E-major chord on three different pianos. The sound of the final chord was manipulated to ring out for as long as possible (nearly a minute) by increasing the sound level to the tape as the vibration faded out. Near the end of the chord the recording levels were turned so high that the sound of papers rustling, a chair squeaking, and someone saying "Shhh!" (as if they are advising the band members or production staff to keep quiet) can all be heard.
The piano chord was a replacement for a failed vocal experiment: on the evening following the orchestra recording session, The Beatles had originally recorded an ending of their voices humming the chord, but, even after multiple overdubs, found that they wanted something with more impact.
Due to the multiple takes required to perfect the orchestral cacophony and the finishing chord, as well as The Beatles' considerable procrastination in composing the song, the total duration of time spent recording "A Day in the Life" was 34 hours, a rather long time for the production of one song by The Beatles and standing in marked contrast to their earliest work: their first album, ''Please Please Me'', was recorded in its entirety in only 10 hours.
The ''Anthology 3'' version of "The End" concludes with a "final chord" intended to bring closure to the CD series. It was actually the final chord of "A Day in the Life" played backwards to the point where it began, then forwards as it plays at the end of ''Sgt. Pepper's''.
After the chord
Immediately following the dying moments of the crashing piano chord is an extremely high-pitched tone - too high-pitched for some, especially old humans to hear but audible to dogs and other animals. The high tone was inserted, as was John Lennon's intention, to irritate the listener's dog. However, the tone was only inserted on the first 5000 copies of the LP (save for the American Capitol Records pressing), but is now available on all copies of the CD.
This noise is interrupted by a loop of incomprehensible Beatles studio chatter, spliced together apparently at random sections would play forward ("Never could be any other way") and others backward ("Will Paul be back as Superman?"). This lasts for two seconds and the final three syllables are on the final groove creating a loop that is repeated 'endlessly'. This noise was placed in the concentric run-out groove of the vinyl LP. If the listener's record player had an auto return mechanism, a short burst of noise would be heard before the needle was lifted and moved back into place. Otherwise, the sound would loop infinitely, leading the listener to wonder if something had gone wrong with the record or the record player.
Rumours of a 'hidden message', audible only when one played the vinyl copy backwards, abounded for many years without substantiation. This was mainly due to the practical difficulties involved with manually spooling the record backwards whilst maintaining a constant speed. All four Beatles denied the obscene backwards message and said it was complete gibberish that they did for laughs.
This combined coda to "A Day in the Life" and the ''Sgt. Pepper'' LP was included in British pressings but not originally in American pressings. The 1987 CD rerelease—in any country—recreates this effect, although, since an infinite loop cannot be created on compact discs, the Beatle chatter is looped eight or nine times before fading slowly out.
On ''Anthology II'', in an early, pre-orchestral version of the song, Paul can be heard saying "Y'see, the worst thing about doing this, or doing something like this, is that I think at first people sort of, are a bit suspicious. You know, 'come on, what are you up to?'. But the thing is, it really is just..." before the song fades out.
Canadian progressive rock band Rush also utilised this technique in their 1975 album Fly By Night. At the end of By-Tor and the Snow Dog, there is a series of repeating chimes.
The Who lampooned this effect later in 1967 with their album ''The Who Sell Out''. The album, an ode to pirate radio that included genuine and false advertisements, ended with an infinite loop featuring voices repeating the words "Track Records"—the Who's record label—over and over.
Brand New also lampooned this noise on their 2003 album ''Deja Entendu''. After the ending of the final track, "Play Crack the Sky", you can hear lead singer Jesse Lacey walk to the back of the room, sing the noise in an upwards crescendo and walk out of a door.
Lyrics and alternate versions
Lyrically, the song is actually a fitting together of two entirely different pieces of music, segued together seamlessly to create a powerful and disturbing portrait of a narrator so consumed by the distractions of his everyday life that he is equally unmoved by a tragic car crash, a brutal war film, and a story about potholes, each of which is recounted in the same trivial tone. At the end of the otherwise fairly upbeat ''Sgt. Pepper'' album, this sudden note of profound fatalism is rather startling.
The song has been released in several versions with minor variations. The version on ''Sgt. Pepper'' has its beginning cross-faded with the end of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)". The versions on the LP release of ''The Beatles 1967–1970'' (the "Blue Album") collection and on a 1978 single have a fade-in in the intro, while the 1988 compilation album '' and the CD release of ''The Beatles 1967–1970'' have the song with a clean intro. The Anthology 2 release includes an alternate take of the basic track starting with Lennon's bizarre count-in of "Sugar-plum fairy, sugar-plum fairy", then edited together with an alternate mix of the "Woke up, fell out of bed" section, which ends in McCartney flubbing the vocal line and swearing. The version on The Beatles' ''Love'' features several differences. It includes the "Sugar-Plum Fairy" intro, but omits the high-frequency sound and chatter loop after the final chord. In addition, the stereo split of the opening is transposed, with the guitar introduction being played through the left channel rather than the right. With regard to the vocals, Lennon's originally started on the right and gradually 'moved across' to the left after the first verse, while McCartney's stayed on the right; however, the ''Love'' version places both tracks in the centre of the soundscape.
Controversy
Drug references
The song became notorious for its supposedly numerous references to drugs — on 1 June 1967 (two days before the ''Sgt. Pepper'' LP was released), the BBC announced it was banning "A Day in the Life" from British stations due to the "I'd love to turn you on" line, which according to them, implicitly advocated drug use.
Other verses of the song allegedly referring to drugs include the verses "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."[5]
Lennon and McCartney publicly complained about the ban at a dinner party their manager, Brian Epstein, hosted, to celebrate their new album. Lennon said:
McCartney said about his part of the song:
McCartney later flatly denied the allegations regarding the verse that got his and Lennon's song banned from British Broadcasting Corporation's stations:
However, regarding McCartney's segment of the song, Martin said:
It has been claimed that the BBC's ban has not officially been lifted, but like other former BBC bans it has clearly fallen into abeyance, because the Corporation has played the song quite frequently in recent years. "A Day in the Life" was, tellingly, the last song played by the British offshore pirate station Radio London before it closed down on 14 August 1967 to avoid contravening the Marine Etc. (Broadcasting) Offences Act - pop radio would soon be put into the hands of the BBC, and "Big L" were clearly reflecting a strong feeling at the time that the BBC could never do pop radio in the true, uncensored sense in the way that the much-mourned offshore stations could.[6]
Paul is dead
The song also became an integral part of the "Paul Is Dead" urban legend, with part of the song falling under suspicion as the depiction of a motor accident which proved fatal for McCartney.[7]
9/11 attacks
Controversy about the song remained some 34 years later: In the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks, a list of songs, including "A Day in the Life", circulated on the Internet purportedly from Clear Channel Communications to its affiliates recommending that the listed songs not be played in order to avoid hurting the sensitivities of the American public (it was later revealed that the original list was the work of a few program directors working on their own, and that the list grew and changed as it was circulated). An urban legend was perpetuated that the intent was an officially sanctioned ban on the listed songs, but this has been denied by Clear Channel Communications.[8]
Recognition
The song placed twelfth on CBC's 50 Tracks, the second highest Beatles song on the list, second to "In My Life", and also placed 26th on the ''Rolling Stone'' Magazine's list of the 500 best songs of all time. It was placed first in Q Magazine's list of the 50 greatest British songs of all time, and also came top of ''Mojo'' Magazine's 101 Greatest Beatles Songs, as decided by a panel of musicians and journalists.
Cover versions and references
★ The orchestral crescendo (or one quite similar) appears during the ''Yellow Submarine (film)'' as the Submarine departs Liverpool for Pepperland.
★ The final chord of "An American Symphony" that concludes the film, ''Mr. Holland's Opus'', is identical to the final chord of "A Day in the Life." Throughout the film are other various Beatles references, so this is most likely not a coincidence.
★ The Fall covered the song on a NME compiled Beatles cover album, ''Sgt. Pepper Knew My Father''.
★ An element of the chorus was used a year after the release of "A Day in the Life" by Deep Purple for their first single "Hush".
★ Jeff Beck performed an instrumental version of the song, which was released on the George Martin album ''In My Life''.
★ Towards the end of David Bowie's plastic soul song "Young Americans", Bowie's back-up singers, two black females, stop the beat to sing "I heard the news today, oh boy," nearly identical to the famous first line of ''A Day in the Life''.
★ Bowie's "Rock 'n' Roll Suicide", which concludes the album ''The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars'' as "A Day in the Life" concludes ''Sgt. Pepper,'' begins as a slow, solo acoustic piece, then builds in both sonic and emotional intensity, adding backing vocals and instrumentation. After seemingly reaching a final cadence there is a momentary pause, followed by a sustained chord.
★ Phish have covered the song several times throughout their career.
★ The experimental metal/hardcore/punk band Ramallah covered the song in 2005 on their album ''Kill a Celebrity''.
★ The Cat's Miaow have also recorded a version of "A Day in the Life", minus the Paul McCartney parts. This version is available on their ''A Kiss and a Cuddle'' CD.
★ Alternative rock band Mae recorded their own version of the song.
★ The Devo song "Some Things Never Change" from the album ''Total Devo'' pays homage to the song, starting each verse with the a nearly identical "I saw the news today oh boy" and following similar (although not identical) structure.
★ Texas heavy-metal band Galactic Cowboys reference "A Day in the Life" in their song "It's Not Over", which appeared on their 1998 album ''At the End of the Day''. It contains a similarly unnerving ending to the song.
★ Type O Negative have referenced the song on many occasions. Two notable examples include the songs "Stay Out of My Dreams" and "Kill You Tonight (Reprise)", both of which contain a similar piano chord as an outro.
★ The Swedish pop band Sugarplum Fairy has taken its name from the song.
★ The Rutles song "Cheese and Onions" is a homage to the song.
★ Grant Green (jazz guitarist) covers the song on his 1970 album ''Green is Beautiful'' (Blue Note Records).
★ The Libertines' Carl Barat and Pete Doherty covered this song for BBC Radio 2's 40-year-anniversary celebration of Sgt. Pepper, broadcast June 16 2007.
★ The song was also covered by the Bee Gees for the 1978 film ''Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band''.
★ Walrus by Unwritten Law starts with the line "Well I read the news today and the walrus said the lucky man made the grade," referencing the first line of this song.
★ Sting recorded a version of the song on MTV Unplugged.
References
Notes
1. BBC - Radio 2 - Sold On Song - TOP 100 - Day in the Life
2. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band
3. Steve's Beatles Page: A Day in the Life and Applecorps: A Day in the Life.
4. ''Daily Mail'' article, 7 January 1967. Web citation of article.
5. Beatles' song nasty
6. "A Day in the Life" in Context
7. L. John Perkins, ''A Day in the Life''. Bangor, ME: Booklocker, 30 December 2005, ISBN 1-59113-859-0. Google Book Search: Page 82
8. HITS Daily Double: Clear Channels List of Songs with Questionable Lyrics
References
★ Rogers, Joyce A. (1996). Amuse Yourself!. Retrieved Sept. 8, 2004.
★ The Beatles Studio. Retrieved 8 September 2004.
★ Marcos' Beatles Page. Retrieved 8 September 2004.
★ Ottawa Beatles Site. Retrieved 9 September 2004.
★ The Ultimate Beatles Experience. Retrieved 8 September 2004.
★ beatles-discography.com. Retrieved 8 September 2004.
★ Lewisohn, Mark, ''The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions'', Hamlyn, 1998
★ ''The Beatles Anthology, Chronicle'', 2000
External links
★ Alan W. Pollack's analysis of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club (Reprise)" and "A Day in the Life"
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