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.
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. 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.
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."
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.
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
Notes
Other websites
The Beatles songs
1967 songs