A Day in the Life
"A Day in the Life" is a song by the English rock group The Beatles. It is the last song on the group's 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. It is a very famous song.
| "A Day in the Life" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Song by The Beatles | ||||
| from Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" | ||||
| Released | 1 June 1967 | |||
| Recorded | 19 and 20 January and 3 and 10 February 1967, EMI Studios, London | |||
| Genre | Art rock, progressive rock,[1] baroque pop, psychedelic rock[2] | |||
| Length | 5:03 | |||
| Label | Parlophone, Capitol, EMI | |||
| Songwriter(s) | Lennon/McCartney | |||
| Producer(s) | George Martin | |||
| Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band track listing | ||||
| ||||
Inspiration
Many people think that the first verse was written about the death of Tara Browne, the 21-year-old heir to the Guinness fortune and close friend of Lennon and McCartney, who had crashed his Lotus Elan on 18 December 1966 when a Volkswagen pulled out of a side street into his path in Redcliffe Gardens, Earls Court.[3] In many interviews, Lennon said this was the verse's main inspiration. However, George Martin thinks that it is a drug reference (as is the line "I'd love to turn you on" and other passages from the song) and while writing the lyrics Lennon and McCartney were imagining a stoned politician who had stopped at a set of traffic lights.[4]
The description of the accident in "A Day in the Life" was not a literal description of Browne's fatal accident. Lennon said, "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 details of the accident in the song — not noticing traffic lights and a crowd forming at the scene — were similarly part of the fiction."[5]
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, he 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.[6]
Personnel
- John Lennon – lead vocals, acoustic guitar, maracas, piano (final chord)
- Paul McCartney – piano, lead vocals, bass guitar
- George Harrison – maracas
- Ringo Starr – drums, congas, piano (final chord)
- George Martin – harmonium (final chord) and producer
- Mal Evans – alarm clock, counting, piano (final chord)
- Geoff Emerick – engineering and mixing
- Orchestrated by George Martin, John Lennon and Paul McCartney
- Conducted by George Martin and Paul McCartney
- John Marston – harp
- Erich Gruenberg, Granville Jones, Bill Monro, Jurgen Hess,
Hans Geiger, D. Bradley, Lionel Bentley, David McCallum, Donald Weekes, Henry Datyner,
Sidney Sax, Ernest Scott – violin - John Underwood, Gwynne Edwards, Bernard Davis, John Meek – viola
- Francisco Gabarro, Dennis Vigay, Alan Delziel, Alex Nifosi – cello
- Cyril Mac Arther, Gordon Pearce – double bass
- Roger Lord – oboe
- Basil Tschaikov, Jack Brymer – clarinet
- N. Fawcett, Alfred Waters – bassoon
- Clifford Seville, David Sandeman – flute
- Alan Civil, Neil Sanders – french horn
- David Mason, Monty Montgomery, Harold Jackson – trumpet
- Raymond Brown, Raymond Premru, T. Moore – trombone
- Michael Barnes – tuba
- Tristan Fry – timpani[7]
A Day In The Life Media
In his lyrics, Lennon mentions the Royal Albert Hall, a symbol of Victorian-era London and a concert venue usually associated with classical music performances.
The song's orchestral segments reflect the influence of avant-garde composers such as Karlheinz Stockhausen (left, at an awards ceremony in Amsterdam in October 1969).
A grand piano in EMI's Studio Two, where the closing piano chord was recorded on 22 February 1967
Notes
- ↑ Bill Martin, Listening to the future: the time of progressive rock, 1968–1978, (Open Court Publishing, 1998), ISBN 0-8126-9368-X, p.39.
- ↑ J. DeRogatis, Turn On Your Mind: Four Decades of Great Psychedelic Rock (Milwaukie, Michigan: Hal Leonard, 2003), ISBN 0-634-05548-8, p. 48.
- ↑ "Sold On Song — TOP 100 - Day in the Life". BBC Radio 2. Retrieved 31 December 2006.
- ↑ Martin, George (1994). Summer Of Love: The Making Of Sgt Pepper. London: Macmillan Ltd. p. 50. ISBN 0-333-60398-2.
- ↑ Davies, Hunter (1968). The Beatles. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Book Co. p. 357. ISBN 0-070-154-570.
- ↑ Bona, Anda Mitchell-Dala. "The Origins of "A Day in the Life"". Archived from the original on 19 April 2008. Retrieved 14 April 2008.
- ↑ Bona, Anna Mitchell-Dala. "The Musicians and Arrangers". Archived from the original on 16 June 2008. Retrieved 5 April 2008.
Other websites
- "A Day in the Life". Second Hand Songs. 2010. Retrieved 20 March 2010.