Video will appear as you scroll through the story
The Beatles · S8 E4
A Day in the Life
Two fragments, a 40-piece orchestra, and a final piano chord that rings for 43 seconds. The song that closes Sgt. Pepper and closes an era of innocence
February 10, 1967. Forty orchestral musicians in evening wear, fake noses, and novelty costumes sit in Abbey Road's Studio One and receive a single instruction from George Martin: start on your lowest note and end, 24 bars later, on your highest.
"Lady Madonna" (The Beatles, 1968). The promotional film was actually shot during the recording of a different song entirely ("Hey Bulldog"), but it's the closest you'll ever get to watching the Beatles work in the studio where "A Day in the Life" was born. After the orchestral ambition of Sgt. Pepper, this stripped-back boogie-woogie piano riff was their way of saying: we can still just be a rock band when we want to.
Lady Madonna, The Beatles (1968)
Paul's piano riff borrows from Humphrey Lyttelton's "Bad Penny Blues," a 1950s British jazz record produced by George Martin years before he ever met the Beatles. The vocal effect on the verses was achieved by cupping hands around the microphone and singing close, giving it that muffled, megaphone quality. The saxophone arrangement was scored for four session players, and it gives the whole track a loose, honking energy that sounds nothing like Sgt. Pepper. This is the Beatles reminding everyone they started as a rock and roll band.
Sources
Lewisohn, Mark. "The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions." Hamlyn, 1988.
MacDonald, Ian. "Revolution in the Head." Chicago Review Press, 2005.
John's Newspaper
On January 17, 1967, John Lennon sits at his piano in Kenwood, his Weybridge home, with the Daily Mail open beside him. He reads about the inquest into the death of Tara Browne, a 21-year-old heir to the Guinness fortune who crashed his Lotus Elan in Redcliffe Gardens, Earl's Court, the previous December. He reads about 4,000 holes counted in the roads of Blackburn, Lancashire. Both stories make it into the song, almost word for word.
Sources
Lewisohn, Mark. "The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions." Hamlyn, 1988.
MacDonald, Ian. "Revolution in the Head." Chicago Review Press, 2005.
“I was reading the paper one day and noticed two stories. One was about the Guinness heir who killed himself in a car. On the next page was a story about four thousand potholes in Blackburn, Lancashire. I just thought: there's a song in that.”
— John Lennon
TAP TO REVEAL: What were the orchestral musicians actually told to do?
Paul's Fragment
Paul's contribution arrives separately. He has a fragment about a mundane morning routine: waking up, falling out of bed, dragging a comb across his head, catching the bus. It's completely different in tone from John's dreamlike verses. Martin connects the two with the orchestral crescendo, and suddenly the gap between John's cosmic observations and Paul's kitchen-sink realism becomes the whole point of the song.
Sources
Miles, Barry. "Many Years From Now." Secker & Warburg, 1997.
The Beatles. "The Beatles Anthology." Chronicle Books, 2000.
A Day in the Life
Good Morning Good Morning, The Beatles (1967)
John wrote this after hearing a Kellogg's cornflakes television commercial and thought: that's a song title. The track is a burst of chaotic energy powered by a brass section from Sounds Incorporated and one of Ringo's most ferocious drum performances. The animal sounds at the end were sequenced so that each successive animal could theoretically devour the one before it, ending with a chicken cluck that morphs into the guitar chord opening the Sgt. Pepper Reprise. From there, the album careens straight into "A Day in the Life": this is the runway that leads to the final crash landing.
Good Morning Good Morning, The Beatles (1967)
"Nothing to do to save his life, call his wife in." Lennon considered this one of his throwaway songs, but the restless energy of the lyric perfectly captures the suburban boredom and television stupor he was feeling in Weybridge. The time signature shifts constantly between 5/4, 3/4, and 4/4, and most listeners never consciously notice because the brass arrangement and Ringo's drums bully everything forward so relentlessly that your ear just hangs on for the ride.
How many orchestral musicians were in the studio for the 'A Day in the Life' crescendo?
June 25, 1967. The first global satellite television broadcast in history reaches 400 million people in 25 countries. The Beatles sit in Abbey Road surrounded by flowers and balloons, and perform a brand new song live to the entire planet.
0 XP earned this session