A DAY IN THE LIFE
(Lennon-McCartney)
1967
For many, this track represents the pinnacle of achievement for the
Beatles. A collaboration with John writing the opening and ending and Paul
penning the middle section. John's song was inspired by two independent
events that featured in a copy of the Daily Mail newspaper he had found
lying around. The first was the death of his friend Tara Brown, an heir to
the Guinness family fortune. The second was a light hearted report that
there were an estimated 4,000 holes in the road in Blackburn, Lancashire.
There had been a 24 bar gap in the song when the three sections were
linked. Paul suggested to George Martin that an ideal way of closing the
gap would be to have an orchestra building up to crescendo, or as John put
it, "a sound building up from nothing to the end of the world." Martin
hired 40 musicians from the Royal Philharmonic and London Symphony
Orchestras and instructed them to play without a score. They were given the
highest and lowest notes allowed, but within the framework they could play
as they pleased. The song ends with a crashing piano chord that takes 40
seconds before the reverberation fades out.
The lyric "I'd love to turn you on" created a minor controversy. Fearing
that it somehow related to drugs, the BBC banned the song. As John said,
"This was the only one on the album written as a deliberate provocation. A
stick that in your pipe... But what we want is to turn you on to the truth
rather than pot".
G Bm Em C
G Bm Em C Em Am Cmaj7
I read the news today oh boy about a lucky man who made the grade
G Bm Em C F Em Em7
And though the news was rather sad well I just had to laugh
C F Em Cmaj7
I saw the photograph
G Bm Em
He blew his mind out in a car
C Em Am Cmaj7
He didn’t notice that the lights had changed
G Bm Em C F Em
A crowd of people stood and stared they'd seen his face before
Em7 C
Nobody was really sure if he was from the House of Lords
G Bm Em C Em Am Cmaj7
I saw a film today oh boy, the English army had just won the war
G Bm Em C F Em
A crowd of people turned away, but I just had to look
Em7 C
Having read the book
Bm G Am Em
I’d love to turn you on
E
Woke up fell out of bed, dragged a comb across my head
F#m
Found my way downstairs and drank a cup
E F#m
And looking up I noticed I was late
E
Found my coat and grabbed my hat, made the bus in seconds flat
F#m B7
Found my way upstairs and had a smoke
E F#m
And somebody spoke and I went into a dream
C G D A E G Bm D Em7 A
Ah
G Bm Em
I read the news today oh boy
C Em Am Cmaj7
Four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire
G Bm Em C F Em
And though the holes were rather small, they had to count them all
Em7 C
Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall
G Am E
I'd love to turn you on (
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