The Beatles' "A Day In The Life"

Fell out of bed, dragged a comb across my head, found my way downstairs and drank a cup, then looking up, I noticed I was late. I love that. It's great. It's so visual. It feels like a real quirky British romp from 1967. Luxury today, we're talking about an album closer that all other album closers will forever get compared to bringing to an end what many consider to be the first concept album. That's right, Zialo. And this song has influenced artists from a wide array of musical styles, having been covered by Barry Gibb, The Fall, and Phish. And it's even influenced the Mac startup chord. We'd love to turn you on to one song, and that song is part two of our Beatles two-parter, This is A Day in the Life by The Beatles. But he was really sure he was from the house of love. before and you can watch one song on youtube while you're there please like and subscribe and if you're looking for even more music facts more conversations and more us yes we have got a patreon now yes we finally launched it after years of talking about it it's real and you can find the link in our social media bios awesome so y'all last week we covered helter skelter yeah beatles self-titled album aka the white album yes and i should say right off the bat that one reason we wanted to do a two-parter on the Beatles is that they have some songs that are rocking, and then they have some songs that are very introspective and can sound almost sad or nostalgic. And I think episode two, part two, is going to be sort of one of those songs that is beautiful and lush, but is also very melancholy inspiring. On the last episode, you mentioned that the White Album may not be your favorite, but Sgt. Pepper definitely is. Why is that, and when did you first hear the album? Oh, man, I first heard this song. I might have been five or six. It's one of the very first pieces of music that I listened to and owned. It's one of my favorite albums from the very beginning. And so now I can always go back to it. I'm like, so many albums from this period, especially albums today, it feels so cohesive from start to finish. It's not singles-driven. Every song contributes to a complete picture. I can put on Within You, Without You, Loud in My Car, no matter what time of year it is, no matter how many times I've heard it, and it still affects me. Can we hear a little bit of Within You, Without You? This is one of my favorite songs of all time. And I will say, when I first heard this album as a kid, there were a few skips for me. Yeah, there are some skips on ostensibly a perfect album, but there are a few skips, I'll agree. What were your skips? What's funny is one of my skips then is one of my favorite songs now. Okay. Being for the benefit of Mr. Kite used to scare me as a kid. Yes, but it's a little scary. It sounded creepy. It's very clowns that are going to get you. Let's play a little bit of that song. It's like clown ringmaster takeover plot. You know, I feel like 1967 might have just been a creepy year because I feel like some of the doors, you know, the doors sort of break big in 67 too some of their songs were like kind of creepy and scary yeah it's some of the carnival way i think there's some carnival sounds in there some of the instrumentation like is very consciously like carny-esque yeah and it creeps you out circus in 1967 must have been scaring kids because they were making songs about it i will say look i love that song but we love that song now yeah i've grown into it yeah i do tend to skip when i'm 64 now which is a song i used to love as a kid yeah so your your tastes change over time but overall it really is in that rare pantheon of albums that just works from front to back especially in how it ends with today's song a day in the life i mean songs just don't get more epic than this one i just have to say like i was listening to the record last night and when we got to when i'm 64 I was thinking back to when I was like six. And 64 sounded really freaking old. It sounded so old. It's like you might as well just die rather than even bother to get to 64. Why are you still singing, old man? And now 64 is not as far. Now we're closer to 64 than we are to six. It is not as far away. And I'm like, hey, that man's got some time. Will you still feed me? Please feed me when I'm 64. Why are we starving the 64-year-olds? Stop starving the 64-year-olds. They're pretty spry, a lot of them. i'm hoping to be a spry one they're in their prime that 64 year old is peaking you should not be questioning whether or not he deserves food come on it's funny you mentioned it being a concept album which of course legendarily it is sergeant pepper's lonely heart's band we start with definition of the concept i don't think we want to stop the show i thought you might like to know we go into billy shears a little help my friends but that's about it until the reprise at the very end in my opinion about how this is a concept album minus the cover art that's your thing you think it's not my take is that musically speaking it's a great journey from beginning to end i'm there for all the transitions and as we just discussed it kind of makes sense as a musical journey but it's not truly a concept album i don't know if we'll talk about it i think it is a concept album besides the first two in the last and the penultimate song what else is linked i don't i don't know i don't know that a concept album has to be like the whole way through you know one story you know to me a concept album is just like this is a picture of us in time and there is a through line there like i have a pretty loose definition of what a concept album is well let's back it up a little bit because like we mentioned in our helter skelter episode the beatles had decided to retire from touring in 1966 to focus on becoming a studio band you know it was sort of like this time in music when everybody from bob dylan to the beach boys who we talked about like everybody was like trying to create things in the studio that couldn't really be replicated. And they weren't having fun live. They weren't able to hear themselves legendarily. Their tour of Asia in 1966 really left a bad taste in their mind. And because they're working, obviously, with the legendary George Martin and the Jeff Emmerich on engineering and the legendary Abbey Road Studios at the time called EMI, they have this opportunity to follow their muse into deeper production land, into making more of an artistic statement in the recording. When you're starting in a band in the late 50s, early 60s, all you're thinking about is the live experience. That's all that is real. And then in their evolution, they're like, live isn't working for us, but these recordings are like, these guys are pioneering new sounds and coming up with new ways to make pop music interesting. Let's double down on that. That's true. And on his return flight from a trip to America, Paul McCartney came up with an idea that would liberate the band from the pressures of having to be the Beatles to create an entire album where each song would be from the perspective of a different band, with Sgt. Pepper himself being sort of the emcee opening and closing the show. Which kind of sets us up for the whole, ladies and gentlemen, Billy Shears, the end of the first song and the second song, and then we never use that idea again. I know, as a kid, I was always like, wait, who's Billy Shears? Billy Shears. I thought it was Sgt. Pepper. Billy Shears is evidently Ringo Starr's nom de plume. The other three guys never get names, and we never use that ploy for introducing the other songs. So we kind of, I think they, I liked it in theory, I think they liked it in theory, And then when they got around to it, they're like, we're belaboring the point. You know who agrees with you, I think, is the Beatles. Because even John himself later said, Sgt. Pepper is called the first concept album, but it doesn't go anywhere. All my contributions, John speaking, to the album have absolutely nothing to do with this idea of Sgt. Pepper and his band. But it works because we said it worked. I think that's so funny, and that says everything. And what's funnier is when you think about the fact that there is this crazily terrible Bee Gees movie, the Sgt. Pepper movie. Oh, I thought we were going to just completely avoid that. Somebody was like, hey, it's a concept album. Let's make a concept movie. So they turn it into a film, and George Burns is in it, and it's one of the most unwatchable pieces of film schlock of all time. I've never sat through the whole thing. I don't think I've ever sat through anything with George Burns. Oh, come on. Oh, God. Oh, God, you devil. I don't think I've ever seen it. I mean, like, I know the poster better than – The original Oh, God is pretty good, actually. Oh God is the first? There's more than one. There's Oh God, Oh God Book 2. And Oh God You Devil? I think there might be three. I thought that was one movie. I know nothing about George Burns. Oh, it's a pretty funny premise. Jack Benny, that's my guy. Old vaudeville comedian. Bob Hope sometimes. George Burns, I don't know. Say goodnight, Gracie. Goodnight, Gracie. By the way, in those movies, George Burns is probably like 64. He looks 99. He's just older than the cast of Cocoon, which are all younger than all of us. That's right. The cast of Cheers was like a bunch of up-and-coming 20-year-olds. Oh, my God. I can't believe you mentioned the Wilford Brimley line. I think I may have crossed the Wilford Brimley line. He was only whatever age he was in that movie. He was 48 in Cocoon, and he looks like he's 80-something. I'm older than Wilford Brimley in Cocoon, who is iconically an old man in that movie. People didn't hydrate. People did not drink water. That's why they were so afraid of being unfed at 64. because that's what they did to them back then. 64, that was the upper limit. That was about as old as you could get. Just let them go. Let them float away. So A Day in the Life structurally sounds like a true collaborative effort with both John and Paul taking the lead vocals in their own parts of the song. But the song started off as basically just a John Lennon composition. I can kind of hear that. Much like Strawberry Fields Forever. The song starts off with John on guitar, Paul on piano, Ringo on the bongos, and George Harrison on maracas. Let's hear a little bit of the very first take Of A Day in the Life I've never heard this before Until my man Luxury is going to play it for me right now At this point this song was actually called In the Life of Let's hear it a little bit I read the news today Oh boy George is like I guess I'm playing maraca Without a lucky man Who made the grave I gotta say already I'm on board There is something I don't think I've ever said this on an episode before There's something about the way that John rides the rhythm with his lyrics. It always works. You can always sort of see his face sort of affirmatively nodding. It's so good. It's so good. I'm such a fan of John. I'm such a fan of John. I've been a fan of John since I was freaking five years old. What I love being able to listen to this first take, too, is that wonderfully, especially with that setup where we're hearing just little like, okay, it's... I love this stuff. I could listen to this all day long. Studio outtakes and flubs and the real deal. In the life of, you know, and then you're hearing just a little bit of organ. I'm not sure who that is, by the way. And then there's a little piano, which is Paul. Okay, yeah, I was going to say, who's playing the organ? Because that note, it took me straight back to Blue Jay Way. Like it sounds like the opening organs on Blue Jay Way, which is a great song that George sort of pinned when he was living in the Hollywood Hills here, living on Blue Jay Way. Listen, what's so fun about both of these episodes that we're doing, the Beatles, is we have a lot of documentation. So from, as we mentioned in the last episode, there's an incredible book by Mark Lewison that every Beatles nerd already knows about. And a second one by Walter Everett, which chronicles, the first one, the Lewison book, chronicles every day what they did every day what they recorded every like overdub etc but there's still some mystery in there and there's still something wonderful about listening to the recording and we know that we've got a john is playing acoustic guitar and singing we know that paul is playing piano we know that poor george is relegated to only playing the percussion the maraca maraca that high-pitched shaking sound he doesn't play there's no other george contribution to the song. But he's not playing the organ? Well... I mean, I know we know that Paul's playing the piano. Do we think maybe he's on the organ on this early take? It's also... I guess we don't know. We don't know, and also the way what we're listening to was pieced together. It could have an overdub from something else. I'm not sure who that organ is. I've never seen it documented everywhere. It might have been George Martin, who we know later plays the harmonium. Yeah. But I don't want to get ahead of ourselves. Yeah, yeah. We'll talk about that towards the end of the STEM section. But there's already a lot of the song that we know there. The song structure is there. here's what isn't there yet. When we get to the mid part, which later becomes the buildup and then Paul's section, they leave a big gap in there. So let's listen to what was in the original version of the first recording. This is take one in that section that later has the string buildup and Paul's verse. And remember, January 19th, they didn't know it would be here yet. But can I just say i like how uh i'd love to turn you on like it's like he's he's moving the mic away or he's moving away from the mic i like the fact that they're like this is what i want it to sound like they're thinking about the sound that's a big part of this they're a little bit pioneering in this moment in the mid-60s by by 67 there they've been the beatles with george martin making record productions for long enough that their composition process it's a little bit chicken or the egg where is an idea like that originate. But certainly they're aware of what you can do with recording. They're aware of what you can do with some of the things that are being invented. Like this is an echo. This is tape echo, which is using tape machines to get the delay and the echo effect, because we don't really have off-the-rack, roll-in space echoes and delay pedals that we now take for granted. They're kind of inventing the modern vernacular for a lot of sound effects. And in this case, the heavy, heavy echoes, a big part of the vibe of the song and the feeling of it is in these interesting and brand new recording techniques that they are pioneering. I like how crazy Paul's piano sounds. That is so Paul. There's an influence there, which we'll talk about in the stems. But yes, Paul has a very distinctive, he likes that sort of jazzy 30s, 20s music hall kind of thing. But it's also cheerful. It's very upbeat. What's interesting is that even without Paul's vocal parts, we still have a lot of the same structure as the final version of the song. Even down to the counting off between the two different sections of the song provided by the band longtime assistant Mal Evans Mal Evans by the way we talk a lot about him in part one of our Beatles two For those who are too lazy to go back and listen to that episode. He started off as a bouncer at the Cavern Club and eventually became the Beatles' assistant and road manager. After the Beatles retired from touring, he still assisted them in the studio, helping them with recording, but also just kind of like running errands. And here he provides the counting. He provides the alarm clock, which we're going to say a little bit about. And is one of the people to play piano for that famous last note on the song. That's right. And just backing up to what you're saying about structure, importantly and interestingly, in this moment, they actually have the entire song gridded, not ungridded out, I should say. Like the structure of the song is set by this first recording. They have to decide. That's why they have this 24-count placeholder. It's technically more like 12 bars because the count is like one. two. And that is there to provide, to create the structure for what would then be inserted. But interestingly, they don't have the drums laid down yet. I mean, I'm not hearing the bongo, but evidently it's in there. The maracas are providing the timekeeping for the entire song, kind of like a metronome. Ordinarily, you'd put down the rhythm section first to kind of lock in the groove. You get the drums, maybe the drums and the bass, but the drums and the bass haven't even been recorded yet. They're recorded after the fact. And one last thing I'll say about the song is as, you know, a lot of, if anyone who's ever tried to cover the song, some of the counting is confusing. Like you can be surprised by the fact that we just went into the next section or the next bar. And I think you can kind of hear that in some of the musicianship. It's a kind of flubbing that doesn't matter. It's the kind of thing where you kind of hear Ringo maybe hits the crash a little later than expected, but that's because the way they've had to structure the song in advance of knowing what the song would be and in advance of laying down the drums and bass, which are generally the first thing you'd lay down. Absolutely. I can't wait to talk about time signature because I feel like as much as I know this song, I feel like the time signature is doing some very funky things. There are moments and there's disagreements across when you see different people scoring it, putting it onto sheet music. It wasn't intended. It wasn't written to sheet music. So there's some guesswork and there's some like, it's just not exactly perfect. So you kind of have to guess what might be a bar of 2, 4 or a bar of 3 here and there. And just to call attention to it, we mentioned that Mal Evans did the count off. He counts from 1 to 24. And then at the end of it, in order to indicate when they come back the next day to record the still uncreated Paul section. Paul doesn't have, he has his music, but we don't have a lyric and a melody yet for what becomes Paul's verse. So to mark that, he has an alarm clock, which he sets and we hear the sound of the alarm bell. It's a 1967 studio, guys. It's like the alarm clock was the only way they knew when everybody was going to come back in. But then when they bounce it down, that gets baked in. You can't take it out of the bounce down. So interestingly, that sets up as when we get to the Paul stuff later, that ends up potentially having an influence on what gets sung. All right. Well, we're going to take a quick break. But when we get back, we'll hear John Lennon's rip from the headline vocals, isolated. We'll talk about the craziness at the orchestral recording session. Stick around. We'll break it down. All right, welcome back to One Song Luxury. I know this is a complex song with a lot of parts. Where do we want to start? We're going to go chronologically through the song. I love it. We're going to start with John's part. Okay. And then in the middle, there's going to be the orchestra, and then there's going to be Paul's part, and then there's going to be the end. So instead of drums, bass, to vocals, as we usually do, we're going to go structurally from the beginning to the end of the song. Yeah. So the song was recorded across eight sessions between January and February 1967 at EMI London, now known as Abbey Road. It wasn't known as that yet. And George Martin, famously producer for the Beatles, is there, unlike Helter Skelter. Go back and listen to our part one. He was not there for Helter Skelter, but he was there for A Day in the Life, along with Jeff Emmerich, an engineer. Spelled with a G. He's a G-off. He's a G-off. and interestingly importantly and amazingly this song is recorded on a four track yeah this entire this entire epic recording with all of its parts and sections is on four track technology four track tape you can buy a four track for 50 bucks on ebay right now but in 1967 there were eight tracks they got to it the next year but for this album in its entirety incredibly sergeant pepper only recorded to four tracks of tape which is amazing because i suppose in many ways it demonstrates the adage that like when you have limitations sometimes it can be advantageous and sometimes when you have too much like digital everything you can take months trying to complete something that you know isn't as good as sergeant pepper you ain't lying brother all right let's start with paul mccartney who is playing the bass on this song and you're going to hear me go back and forth between him and john's vocal because that's what's going on they're doing a little call and response melodically. Little fill here. And then the vocal. And I just love how there's the interplay between, it's almost a conversation that Paul and John are having. And all this really iconic, very simple melodic fills, just a couple of notes, in the gaps between John's lines really has this feeling of a dialogue between the two of them. It's so good. It's soaked in melancholy. I love everything about that progression. John agrees with you. He loved that vocal delay. And again, it's new in 1967. That sound effect, unusually, they're recording with those sound effects on the vocal. Because John loved the sound of that delay. And maybe into his ears, because we know he's a big fan of 50s rock and roll, it has a little bit of that Sun Studios Elvis vibe to it. Yeah, yeah. That's really cool. I was thinking, is this early dub? But no, you're totally right. It's almost got that 50s rockabilly thing going. But that's exactly the correct progression, because in the 50s, when they're at Sun Studios, they don't have delay effects yet. The delay is an almost accident of the recording. So by the time we get to John, he's probably thinking, I like that. Maybe he's explicitly thinking, I like that because Elvis. Tell me, darling, will it last tomorrow night? We'll leave Because Rockabilly. Because the band starts as kind of a skiffle, Rockabilly, American-inspired rock and roll band. If you don't know the Beatles in 1962, go back and listen to their... They have albums like The Beatles in Hamburg, and these are really good recordings if you've never heard them. I lucked out. I got them when I was a kid, and I didn't really place them on the timeline at the time. I was like, oh, this is a different sound for them. The Rockabilly. Yeah. You're talking about their set. Their song selections, because they're playing mostly covers, because they've got to fill four, five, six hours every single night. And they don't have the originals yet, the repertoire. So you're absolutely right. They're going back to those, like the Bebop, the Jerry Lee Lewis, the Elvis, the Carl Perkins. They love all that early American rock and roll stuff. And let me just take a second and just say this, because I think that a lot of the youth today don't realize this. because we think of rock as something that you have to stand there and watch your gods play. Rock and music used to be dance music. You know what I mean? Like the time before EDM or even hip hop. That was what rock and roll was. That's what rock and roll was. It was an offshoot from Rhythm and Blues. Yeah. And you would get up there and rock bands would play at places like the Cavern or the Whiskey A Go-Go. Yeah. And they would just play for hours and kids would get up and dance to it. And I think that that's something that got lost as rock got more and more artistic, in part due to the popularity of the Beatles and Sgt. Peppers. But that element of rock kind of got lost. And it comes back every now and then. But the idea that you dance to rock music. No, but that's 100% right because now we take for granted if you want to go dancing, you go to a DJ night. Or maybe you go to a show and it is a band and you happen to be dancing. But there's sort of maybe a false binary there. But DJing and discotheques as a thing, as a phenomenon, there were early discotheques in the late, maybe post-war era. But discos and DJs and recorded music as a place to go and dance to isn't really until the early 70s, late 70s. Yeah, that's when it really takes off. That's when it really takes off. That's a whole other episode with The Loft and David Mancuso into disco. Go back and listen to our Daft Punk two-parter. We did talk a lot about discotheques because that's a French term that got shortened to disco. But to your point, in the 60s, when you are talking about bands, that is an avenue for dancing. That's a way to get together with members of the preferred gender and interacting with them in a sweaty club and maybe hopefully getting a phone number or two. I love that laugh. I've never heard that laugh. That is a special laugh. You may never hear it again. This song is a lot like Shook Ones Part 2 by Mobb D because the drums come in way later than you think, and they don't even come in when you think they should. mob deep in the beatles there's a connection there that people don't know they don't acknowledge it but it's there you're absolutely right it takes ringo about 45 seconds to come in and when he does he's also doing a kind of light interplay he plays a fill then he sits out he sits back out plays another fill sits out another fill so let's listen to those fills and then I'll add back in some of the other elements. So iconic. Big, long crash. Here comes another one. And it gives you one snare. And then you start to hear, this is so Ringo, so distinct of this next bit. It's really Tom heavy. And those Toms have a big, loud, ringing, resonant sound. So there's a heaviness to it. It's so Ringo, and it sounds so good. I'll play that for you. Like, he's not playing any ride or any hi-hat, you know? You're only getting that crash and then just those heavy, heavy toms. And here's how that's all interplaying with Paul because the two of them lock together. It sounds amazing. just a snare no kick and i love it because ringo has tuned his toms in a way that reminds me of the way that hip-hop has tonal bass that's a total 808 great connection absolutely yeah you can tune your toms i think it sounds to me i think you're right i think ringo tuned his toms and if not perhaps accidentally they were already in key. And it just works. It fits together because those toms are so loud and so wide and broad, like I was saying, so resonant that it has a tonal quality, very close to an 808 kick. Great connection. I know we have just four tracks. So what's happening on this track? I think you told me that there is an acoustic guitar and a piano on one of the tracks. That's right. We have John on acoustic guitar and Paul is playing piano. And they are baked together. This is, again, this is four tracks. It's 1967. And so we will be hearing them together. Let's listen, and then we'll talk a little bit more about it. Oh, and you can hear some of George's maracas. Again, George Harrison, no electric guitar on this track. He's just playing percussion, and you can hear it here. Oh, and I hear some bongos in there, too. Yeah, that's Ringo on the bongos. That's Ringo on the bongos from an earlier take. A lot of bleed. You can hear a lot of bleed coming in from the probably headphones of the performers hearing John singing in the booth next door, or from an earlier take, actually, time to think of it, because this is overdubbed a day or two later. Yeah, I was going to say, this sounds like overdubbed. This is overdubbed a day or two later. You're right about that. What I just played is a perfect example of how there are a couple of things. One is, I mentioned the structure of the song. There are some moments where the count is a little bit like wobbly. Yes. Right? But this is not one of them. This is a conscious choice that John made. Yeah, the time signature sounds interesting to me, because you especially notice it when he does the, well, I just had to laugh. I saw the photograph. It feels like an addition to the end of each line in the verse. So you're absolutely right to point out that across, John has four verses in the song. There's three before the orchestral buildup in Paul, and then we come back again for one more. And what's interesting is that two of those are nine and a half bars, one of them is 10 bars, and one of them is nine bars. So you can never really be sure when we're about to go to the next thing, because it's surprising every single time. The first one is 10, then it's nine, and then we get nine and a half twice in a row. But the second time, you're like, is this going to be another nine and a half or not it's so well done it's so smart it's so smart and it's a 18 chord cycle roughly i counted roughly 18 really across across these 10 or nine and a half or nine bars there's this constant motion it's melody it's harmony and it's surprising so that combination is really satisfying as a listener because you're always a little bit off guard i'd really love to hear john's vocals isolated i mean like there's such a important part of what i love about this song that note kills me i love it all i love i love his breathing on the word laugh i love oh boy like it's so iconic john lennon yeah yeah the echo is so iconically part of his sound too the vocal wouldn't sound right to get dry or maybe reverbed john lennon you need to have that very specific delay that echo sound and you know they always say like you know early paul is like clearly in his little richard bag you know a little bit and uh you know george has something entirely different going on i did always feel like john is like in some weird way like the voice of the beatles like it's it's so uniquely the beatles in its own way by the same token i really am hearing all the american recording influences though especially with his vocal isolated when we just talked about, the echo connection. You think he's going for a Dylan sound, or what do you think he's going for? No, well, not necessarily. I think lyrically speaking, Dylan was clearly a big influence. The kind of unlocked the gates to being like, you don't have to write about anything that's a narrative that you follow from beginning to end. That was huge for everybody in this time period. Dylan gave everybody permission to be a little bit more artistic, obscure, random even with some of the lyrics. I think John famously had a real interest in sound, and that was happening for all the Beatles in this moment. But I think he was either intuitively understanding how the sound of the recording can make the emotional impact different It wasn purely a snapshot of a song which is what recording had been for many years This is what the song is This is what we sound like live Now with the additional of these compositional techniques in the recording studio he was really attracted to the melancholy that adding this vocal effect can add. And I wonder if there isn't some nostalgia for him for that 50s rock and roll thing. I really do feel John Lennon's connection to this world across the sea in America and the Carl Perkins and the Sun Recording Studios and skiffle music and just rockabilly. And for whatever reason, as we're listening, I'm hearing a lot of that come through, but in his own unique way, obviously. Can we hear a little bit more of that verse? He blew his mind out in a car. He didn't notice that the lights had changed. I wonder why that little piano lick looks like it was added, appended to that empty part of that fourth track, like an overdub almost. Interesting. I guess Paul was like, I really need to have a little lick in there. Something's missing. Can we hear the rest of that little verse? Didn't see his face before. Nobody was really sure if he was from the house of law. Yeah, I mean, like these lyrics, you know, even as a kid, I knew something was going on. I always like music when it feels immediate or that it's like really about something that's happening now. Obviously, I was listening to this like decades after it had been released. But at the same time, he blew his mind out in a car. He didn't notice the lights had changed. Like there's so much going on here. Yeah. And yet it still feels like even those decades later, it still feels like immediate. It still feels like, oh, he's talking about something. You know, I felt the same way when I would when I would buy like Tupac albums in the mid 90s. Like, even though he had songs on there that were clearly for the radio, you also got the sense that there was just this world of stuff happening around this dude. I mean, according to John, these lyrics were pretty literal. He was indeed reading the news and, you know, basically reciting stories ripped from the headlines. And as he tells it in his final interview with Playboy, he says, quote, I was reading the paper one day. And I noticed two stories. One was about the Guinness air who killed himself in a car. And that kind of goes towards the whole idea of like blew his mind out in the car. Like that can be interpreted many ways. Like, you know, literally suicide, but it could also be like drugs. Drugs. Exactly. John continues on the next page was a story about 4,000 holes in Blackburn, Lancashire. You know, what's fun is that he had the rhythm because that's the little trill. The little he's going between the half step B to C. but he didn't know he knew that he wanted to talk about the holes but he didn't know what the verb was so he was wondering what did the holes do to the albert hall like that was a question he had to know the verb yet and his friend terry duran said fill the albert hall john fill the albert hall so this is one of those songs and it's actually relatively rare in the beatles catalog where the title isn't actually a lyric like we never they never say and a day in the life But it would have made the song better if they had. It might have made the song better. They could have improved the song. They left it on the table there. There really isn't a chorus, per se. The closest thing to the chorus, I would say, is this next line we're going to hear. This is Paul's contribution, isn't it? Yeah. This is the I'd love to turn you on part. I'd love to turn you on. And then we get into the placeholder section, right? So just one little note about that line. John says, quote, I had the bulk of the song in the words, but Paul contributed that little lick floating around in his head that he couldn't use for anything. I thought it was a damn good piece of work. And so the I love to turn you on, this is John crediting Paul for coming up with that line. But it's also the line that got the song banned. The BBC refused to play. Because they thought it was drug related. Because they thought it was drug related. So when this song comes out, until 1972, the BBC never played A Day in the Life by the Beatles as a result of that interpretation, which probably wasn't inaccurate. Absolutely. I think I had actually heard somewhere where the second John heard that line, he was just like, yeah, that's... It kind of goes to my point about it made it feel relevant. It felt like it was something that they were contributing. Of the times, yeah. Yeah, from the subculture and bringing it to the mainstream. That's a great point, because this is early 67. we're about to have the summer of love, as it were. And in this moment, there is a rising sense of counterculture being the new hip thing. And the Beatles are feeling like, well, we want to make sure we're still part of this youth culture. They genuinely were living that life, but they were also millionaires. So they had kind of one foot in each camp. So it's interesting to think about it from the perspective of what the timing was. This is January, February 1967, and they're like, hippies are becoming cool. Let's make sure we're cool. Let's have a little hippie turn-on, tune-in, drop-out type of line in there. The very first version of the song featured a placeholder to connect the first part of the song to the middle unfinished section that would later feature Paul's vocals. And some of that placeholder still remains on the song. It was Paul who decided this section should feature an orchestral buildup. And on February 10th, 1967, the Beatles gathered 40 musicians to record this. Now it wouldn't be a Beatles recording session without a little bit of chaos in the mix. According to producer George Martin, this recording session was treated like a big event. He said, quote, the Beatles asked me and the musicians to wear a full evening dress. Like, I left the studio at one point and came back to find one of the musicians wearing a clown's nose and the leader of the violins wearing a gorilla's paw on his bow hand. When everyone was wearing funny hats and carnival novelties, I just fell around laughing. Beyond the orchestral musicians, the Beatles also invited their friends and peers with Mick Jagger and Keith Richards from the Rolling Stones, Michael Nesmith of the Monkees, Marianne Faithful, and Donovan of Mellow Yellow fame, all in attendance, many of them wearing novelties like upside-down glasses, plastic stick-on nipples, imitation bald heads, false eyes, and fake cigars. All that sort of 60s costumey stuff is so creepy to me. Everything is scary. Yeah. It's all really... It was peak scary in the 70s when the footage is grainy. Yeah. The worst. Yeah. It's a very horror movie. And by the way, fun fact, 367 pounds, 10 shillings was the total cost of the orchestra. Wow. The players got less than 10 pounds each. But a lifetime of stories to impress their grandchildren. Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure their agents don't feel that way. And it's worth mentioning, like, what is the function of what's going on here? It's literally because we're trying to get from G major to E major. So this entire thing is set up to kind of erase from your brain that we've been in a different key, or we've been in G major during John's section, and we're about to be in E for Paul's section. Now, why didn't they transpose one to the other? Unclear to me. I suppose it sounded better to them in those two. But we have this period of time and this crazy mind-erasing sound process that's going on here. And what's fun is that George Martin instructed everyone in the orchestra, all 40 or maybe 41 musicians, 39 plus a percussionist, I think, from the Royal Philharmonic and the London Symphony Orchestra. Their instructions were basically start from the lowest note and quietly, and then crescendo gradually to the highest and loudest note. And one thing I had never noticed before is how they're all listening to Mal's count off, that 1 to 24. And I never noticed before how there's a rhythmic pulse. As we're going through it, we are hearing. The strings are keeping time. Yeah, and in the beginning, you can hear the strings are mimicking the trill, the I'd love to turn you on. he's singing I'd love to turn that trill between the B and C. The strings start by mimicking that which is a great transition to then the crazy build it's da-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na. I believe that was the fourth take of the orchestra climb where they got it exactly right. That's the one they ended up using. After that orchestral build-up we come to Paul's section of A Day in the Life. Lexary, can you start us off with the instrumentation there? It's so musical. It's like literally, I never noticed until now, it's literally swinging. Like there's a swing to it that the rest of the song does It's just jazzy. It's freaking happy. And you know, I think this is one of those times when we just have to point it out that the John part is very sad and full of melancholy and then here comes paul with like this really chipper hey i woke up jumped out of bed i drank some coffee grabbed the comb comb across my head like it's just it's like a tale of two cities but if you're writing a script sometimes you need like some release you know of the tension and that's what made this partnership so good is that like it's a contrast if this if the song was just the paul part i wouldn't listen to it I'd be like, what happy bullshit is this? I'm never going to meet Paul, clearly. Might be too heavy with just the John bit, too, in halftime. Because now we're in double time. We're in double time. We're jazzy. It's a little more upbeat, even though they're both technically in major keys. We're now in E major. But yeah, it's got a completely different feel to it. And there's just enough of it that it doesn't feel like fluff. We just get this basically 16 bars before we go into the next section. And by the way... Just the right amount. I do love this part. I mean, I'm being flippant. but I do love this part. Let's hear a little bit of Mr. Sir Paul singing. Fell out of bed, dragged a comb across my head, found my way downstairs and drank a cup. Then looking up, I noticed I was late. I love that. Yeah, it's great. It's so visual. It feels like a real quirky British romp from 1967. It's very on the nose. It's so on the nose. Just like we had the alarm clock, woke up, got out of bed, on the nose, maybe retroactively. We're pretty sure that that lyric hadn't been written yet. But it makes it kind of perfectly cinematic. So the whole thing is so visual. You can picture the entire thing. You can see the big red bus going down the street. And yeah, then we've got these breaths. Let's listen to the breaths again. Find my coat and grab my hat. And the coat and the hat, this all is very evocative. That's like a 30s coated hat. It's the 40s, it's a pre-war Well, listen, they famously said it was when Kennedy didn't wear a hat, any kind of fedora or bowler. That the modern era began. That was when men were no longer. So this is only four years after the Kennedy assassination. So maybe in England the idea that you would leave the house without your hat was still a little bit not done. Well, there's one more influence I want to point out. There's a song from 1930, which is only 38 years earlier, by the way, called Sunny Side of the Street, which you may know. This is a Dorothy Fields lyric, and let's listen to the opening lyrics. Grab your coat and get your hat. Leave your worries on the doorstep. Just direct your feet. Paul was definitely channeling a little bit of the vibe, if not literally the lyrics, with that upbeat, bouncy, 30s, swinging kind of vibe. And literally the opening line opens, it opens with grab your coat, get your hat. We're doing coats and hats and jazzy rhythms right here for the Paul section, which is very appropriate. The other thing that I think is really funny about this verse is that he said, I found my way upstairs and had a smoke because you didn't have to go outside the building back then to enjoy a cigarette. You do it inside, yeah. He went to his job and then started smoking. And then we come to one of my favorite parts in the entire song. He says, somebody spoke and I went into a dream. Can we hear a little bit of that? So incredible, yes. Magical. Listen. And you hear a second voice in there. There's definitely one and maybe two other voices in there. I thought all these years that John was singing the lead there. Oh, definitely John. Well, it's not definitely John because it's speculated. Through the ahs? Yeah, what we just listened to, that lead note. The speculation, people don't know for sure. It's been speculated for years. There's a long-going discussion who it is. To my ear, it has a little bit of the vocal timbre of John Lennon. Well, I'll tell you, I think the effect is you go out of Paul and then back into John. It feels to me, no matter who's singing it, that the appeal to the casual listener is that, like, oh, John's back. Here's another question. And maybe your answer to it relates to who's singing that part. My answers mean nothing. Who's having the dream in the song? Is John having the dream and it's Paul in the dream? and then we come back to John and that's real life? Or is real life Paul's part and the dream? And I went into a dream because we're going back to John. That's how I always read it. The real life is... I fell into a dream. Actually, I always thought it was the Beatles' dream because it's like I went into a dream and then who better to sing about a dream than the guy who is the dreamer, you know. So you think the dreamer... John is the dreamer and Paul is the real life? John is vocalizing the dream. No, it's still Paul's story, but John is there to dream, to vocalize the dream. I think we agree. I think what we're saying is— That's John. Can I tell the internet? Listen, I know nothing, but that is John. It sounds like John to me, too. I'm team John. I'm team John. Listen, all these years, to my ears, that sounds like John. Totally. It sounds like his timbre. It sounds like his vocal style. It just sounds like him. But then there's an article in Sound on Sound where Giles Martin, who's George Martin's son, has access to like beyond like all of the archival footage. And he talks about he thinks it's probably Paul in that part. And like he's got access to more data. Listen, you Nepo, baby. You're wrong. It's John. That is definitely John. It is him vocalizing the dream. Fight me, Giles. Fight me. I'm just going to pick fights with all the living people connected to the Beatles because I clearly don't want to ever meet any of them. All right, so really fun kind of thing going on here. Those chords in that dream transition, the chords are C, G, D, A, E, and it's a real journey. In fact, the Walter... Chicken goes down awfully easy. That's exactly how they thought of it. That's how my music teacher used to teach us that stuff. So let's listen to those chords and then we'll talk about it. C. G D A E And then it kind of cycles again And it's sort of off because it's five chords instead of our usual four. So that cycles even more dreamy because that's happening. But what's interesting is that the night before they recorded this, on Top of the Pops, 18th of January, 1967, Jimmy Hendrix played Hey Joe on Top of the Pops, which McCartney, a song that McCartney loved. And it also has those exact same chords, untransposed. I didn't realize that. C, G, D, A, E. Ah, here. Yeah. So that might have been an idea just for a way to get back to, because remember, now that we're in E, we need to get back to G. And these chords are going to get us there. So listen, this is chord changes. We've talked about this many times on the show. Like chord changes are fair game. Like, you know, the fact of there being a great transition, which either was consciously or coincidentally the same as this song that had been on TV the night before. Because at this point, they really are looking functionally to get back to this other section of the song. They've already locked in that we're about to get back to John's fourth verse, and they need some sort of transition to do it. So it could just be a coincidence. It could not be. The other thing, though, is that as I was listening, preparing for the show, I kept thinking about these chord changes and that melody, and it was driving me crazy. There's a song that came out in 1968 that's been in the recesses of my brain for years, but I never noticed until right now that it is identical. Here it is. This is Deep Purple Hush, and I'll show you how the connection is there, because you may not even notice the first time. I went on the internet. Nobody else had pointed this out before, but check this out. So that little section, it's the same five chords, relatively speaking. It's going from the 6, 3, 7, 4, 1. Listen now to the Beatles doing it. A year earlier. A year earlier they did it, but it sounded like this. I'll speed that up. If I do that double time, it sounds like this. And if I speed it up one more time, so it's quadruple time, it sounds like this. Yeah, I hear it. Now go back to Hush. When you did quadruple time, that's when I heard it. If you do quadruple time, so the chords are changing four times as fast as original. And we go back to the Deep Purple song, Hush, from 1968. I do have to pitch it up two whole steps, but now listen to it. It's all five chords, and it's the same melody. Here's the Beatles again. Look, it's insane because how sped up and how changed it is. But like it is those are the same chords and it's the same melody line. And as we always say on this podcast, nobody owns chord transitions. Not only that, but like, look, it's the chords and it's the melody and it's even the vocables. They're non-lyrical, like, you know, you know, singing. Yeah. What I would say is that the fact that 60 years on is I don't know if I'm the first person in human history to make this connection, but the difference is enough. it's sufficient that it's faster and in a different key, that both songs can live as independent songs. Nobody needs to own anything. This isn't a situation where, man, what a ripoff. I no longer need to listen to A Day in the Life by the Beatles anymore, because Deep Purple wrote this song called Hush. They're both equally songs that can live on their own, in spite of having these really dramatically similar moments as these do. After the orchestra had wrapped and left the studio, the Beatles went in with a few of their guests to record the final part of the song, which at that time was quite different to what ended up on the record. Luxury, can you play us the first version of the song's final note? That's right. And again, let's remember that this song has been completed and it ends with nothing. At this point in the song, we have everything leading up to John's verse and then the last crescendo. It's the same crescendo we heard before. And that's where the song ends. So right now they're looking for a way to complete the song. Three, four. Oh. Eight. Take nine. They did that a bunch of times before they got it right. And it's not clear who's actually in that group. We're pretty sure Paul is playing piano. He may also be singing. And maybe it's like Michael Nesmith from the Monkees and Donovan, who knows, from the party. This is on February 10th. It's right after the orchestra. So it could be some of the party goers for that last note. But I love the fact that at the time they recorded the orchestra, we're like, okay, now we have the link to Paul's section, and we have the end. And then after they heard it, I suppose they went, but it doesn't feel endy enough just to end on that note. We've got to end it. We need something else. We need this penultimate feeling. We need ultimacy. So they come up with that idea. They have for a few days, it looks like 12 days they were living with, that's the end of the song. because it wasn't until February 22nd that the idea came to add a piano chord. So they go into the studio February 22nd. It's a Wednesday and they have this idea to have one just giant final E major chord. It's 53 and a half seconds. So we won't be hearing the entire thing, but we'll give you a little taste. So this is four pianos playing E major at the same time. Here we go. And as it's fading out, engineer Jeff Emmerich is pushing up the faders gradually, the volume, so you can start to hear silent things get loud. So that sound that you heard, we've been told, is Mal Evans, Paul, John, and Ringo sharing three pianos and simultaneously hitting E major. Right, that's right. And they overdubbed it three times. Yeah, that's a hard thing to do to get everybody hit it at the exact same moment. Yeah, well, it was take nine. They did it eight times, not quite right. And on the ninth time, they used it, overdubbed that three times, and then George Martin added a harmonium. So somewhere in the mix, there's a little bit of a, it'd be more of an organ-y, accordion-y sound. I couldn't personally hear it, but I'm told that it is there, according to the documentation. You know, it's just one more example of something very simple really working out in favor of this band. I mean, like, they just, they really take very simple things and really make them work. But it's also concept art. It's like we need something final to conclude the song. For 12 Days, they're living with finalness, and the humming was like, eh. It doesn't quite—maybe it's a little too funny, too. It was a little bit not quite what they were looking for. I want to point out, you just said it was concept art, and this is a concept album. This is definitely—oh, what? Did I walk right into that? I just want to say you just walked right into it, buddy. Did I walk right into that? God. Walked right into it. Listen, how about this is a concept— We win! Team concept. Team concept wins. Oh, man, I ruined everything. I ruined my career. My career is ruined. No, no, no, my friend. You just proved me right. What a concept, though. Let's end with a minute-long note. It's a minute long. Yes. The song is actually over a whole minute sooner. It's a great concept in a concept album. All right, Lexi, now that we've heard the song, tell us how the splits break down. Well, no real surprises here. As on many, many, many, if not most Beatles songs, we have John Winston Lennon, 50%. and Paul James McCartney, 50%. 50-50. Yeah. The two members of the Beatles. The fab two. So Diallo, what do you think the legacy of A Day in the Life is? I think it's just an amazing closing to a freaking phenomenal album. Yeah. A great concept album. And I think that it's just, I would argue that it is definitely a concept album. And there are other concept albums that take the idea of concept album even further. by making sure the character in the first song is there the whole way through. But I think, as is typical... Sticks, Kilroy was here, great concept album. But I think, as is commonly the case, the first or the relative first in a genre of things is not fully formed. It's weird to hold the Sopranos up to Game of Thrones, even though Game of Thrones is clearly influenced by the Sopranos in terms of you're rooting for the anti-hero. Listen, both things can be true. I think there's simultaneously, there was an intent to do something with some structure, with some integrity to make it like a movie within an album. They have the costumes, they have the characters, they have the cover art, they have the first, second and penultimate song with Sgt. Pepper into Little Help For My Friends, a bunch of other songs, and then Sgt. Pepper reprise. we have three songs that kind of connect but i mean that's about it i would say as far as the concept actually holding together sure but the perception of concept is very strong because of the visual yes and i also would argue that again the first of its kind typically doesn't have all the things that come to be associated with that kind because it's the first and people are figuring it out and later on we have the who we have tommy and then we have almost all of prog Brock, seemingly, seems to always be doing. Metal and prog. There's lots of... The concept records become, to your point, kind of more of a normalized thing. They almost become an industry standard in the 70s. Well, they definitely become a cliche in the 70s, right? By the time we get to, like, Rush 2112. Great record, by the way. We are the priests of the temple of syrinx. We are the priests of the temple of syrinx. There you go. Super good. And corny. I got to say, I think prog rock is definitely a blind spot for me. Oh, so good. So we'll get into that. I know some people have asked for a rush episode. We'll do it. Some people like to ask for the cult She's Hell Sanctuary. We see you one of these days. Great song, great request. Coming soon, maybe. Keep listening. I'll tell you what was a concept album. Diggle Plants' first album. Because on that first album, they keep with the insect motif the entire album. Right. Which they kind of throw out when they get to Blow Out Come. They're not talking about Ladybug as much. They call her Miss Mecca. So this is interesting and so not relevant to the Beatles. We're having a good time all the time, as they say in Spinal Tap. Because I would argue that... So here's two different things that are going on. You're saying because they have the motif of the characters, that's enough of a through line. And I don't disagree with that. I think you can do it a lot of different ways. What's funny is I would actually argue that Diggable Planet's second album, Blow Out Come, has more sonic elements that kind of go through the album. Like you'll hear a theme, dun, da, da, dun, dun, like the horns, da, da, that comes and goes throughout the span of your listening experience. To me, that makes it more cohesive as an album. And thematically, we have the 70s Black Power thing. But not every cohesive album is a concept album. I think we can agree, correct? Well, that's always the case, yeah. Just because something exists over here. Like Midnight Marauders has the recurring, like you're listening to midnight marauders it has that thing that gives it some cohesiveness but it doesn't make it i don't know if it's a concept album yeah but to your point because the 70s is so concept album ridden you can almost say uh i think part of the legacy of sergeant peppers is that it really did make the concept album a thing to other musicians who then took that idea of a concept album further and took that idea of cohesion further right but speaking specifically of a day in the life i think one of the reasons we wanted to do this one after helter skelter is because helter skelter is a rocking song but this one is the beatles at their most orchestral and throwing so many things they're literally they're literally dozens of people on this record and it's lush and it's epic and it goes in unexpected directions it changes mid song sort of like sicko mode, you know, like it's just one of those songs that just goes in so many different directions. It really is a nice counterbalance to Helter Skelter. Yeah, they're breaking the rules. And look, they're also influenced. In 1967, this is a year after we have, you know, there's a friendly rivalry in a sense, right, between the Beach Boys and the Beatles. The Beach Boys with Good Vibrations were starting to break the mold for like song structure. And we're starting to break the mold for like instrumentation. And the Beatles are building on that. And so in the same way we wouldn't have prog rock cliches of concept albums without Sgt. Pepper, in the same way we wouldn't have like, you know, this leads to Bohemian Rhapsody. We have like these epic songs with multiple orchestral sections and tempo changes and song within a song kind of feeling. This is in the mid to late 60s between the Beach Boys and this song by the Beatles. That's starting to become a thing that we now take for granted, to your point with Sicko Mode, that we can have multiple songs within the span of a single song. I think the other legacy of this record and this song is that the idea of just creating something that can't really be replicated on the stage. You know, this is one of those, you know, the Beatles, they heard pet sounds and they were like, wow, there's some stuff going on there that you couldn't really replicate live. Let's do some stuff like that. And I think that's the other part of the legacy that this will have for generations to come. By the way, the entirety of recording this song a day in the life took 34 hours. They took 34 hours just on this one song. By contrast, their debut record, Please Please Me, the entire thing was recorded in 15 hours and 45 minutes. So they've come a long way to your point about just using recording technology and experimentation. When you give the Beatles infinite studio time, they're going to take it. They're going to take it. Speaking of closers, we need to close out this episode. As always, you can find us on Instagram and TikTok. You can find me on Instagram at Diallo, D-I-A-L-L-O, and on TikTok at Diallo Riddle. And you can find me on Instagram at L-U-X-X-U-R-Y and on TikTok at LuxuryXX. And you can follow our podcast on Instagram and TikTok at OneSongPodcast. You can also watch full episodes of OneSong on YouTube. Just search for OneSongPodcast. We'd love it if you'd like and subscribe. Also, be sure to check out the OneSong Spotify playlist for all the songs we discuss in our episodes. You can find the link in our episode description. By the way, we've got a Patreon now. If you're looking for more music facts, More conversations And just more us You can find the link In our social media bios And if you made it this far You're officially part Of the One Song Nation Give us some love Give us five stars Leave a review Send the episode To a fellow music fan Really helps keep The show thriving Luxury help me in this thing I'm producer DJ Songwriter musicologist And KCRW DJ Every Friday from 10pm Till midnight Luxury And I'm actor Writer director And sometimes DJ Diallo Rowe And this is One Song We will see you next time This episode was produced by Casey Simonson. Mixing and engineering by Eric Hicks.