The Beatles' "A Day In The Life"

then looking up, I noticed that I was late.

I love that. Yeah. It's great. It's so visual. It feels like a real quirky British romp from 1960s.

Let's read today. We're talking about an album closer that all other album closures will forever get compared to bringing to an end what many considered to be the first concept album. That's right, Y'all. This song has influenced artists from a wide array of musical styles, having been covered

by Barry Gibb, the fall, and fish, and it's even influenced the max start-up course. We'd love to turn you on to one song, and that song is part two of our Beatles Two Carter, this is A Day in the Life by The Beatles. I'm actor-rated a writer and sometimes DJD Ella Riddle, and I produce her DJ songwriter and music college's luxury aka The Guy Who Whisper's Interimulation.

And this is One Song. The show where we break down the stems and stories behind iconic songs across genres, telling you why they deserve one more listen.

You will hear these songs that you've never heard them before, and you can watch one song

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Last week, we covered "Heltra Skeletor" and "Beatle Self-Titled Album" aka The White Album. And I should say right off the bat, that one reason we wanted to do a two part 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 it's also very melancholy, inspiring. On the last episode, you mentioned that "The White Album" may not be your favorite, but stars in paper 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, like it's one of the very first, you know, people of the 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 them. 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 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, well, there are some skips on ostensibly a perfect album, but there are a few skips all 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, you saw skips from me as a kid. Yes. It's kind of creepy.

It's very clowns that are going to get you. Yeah. Yeah. Let's play a little bit of that song. It's like clowns ring Mr. Taco for a lot.

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 are like 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 his very consciously, like, carni-esque, yeah. And it creeps you out. The circus in 1967 must have been scary, because they were making songs about it. I will say, look, I love that song. But we like that song now.

Yeah. I never skip it. Yeah. I do tend to skip when I'm 64 now, which is as long as I love as a kid. So your taste 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.

It's like, you might as well just die rather than you'd rather to get to 64. Now we're closer to 64 than we are to see.

Well, you still feed me. Please feed me. When I'm 64. Why are we starving the 64-year-olds, starving the 64-year-olds, they're pretty spray a lot of them, I'm hoping to be a spray one.

“You should not be questioning whether or not he deserves food, come on.”

It's funny you mention it being a concept album, which of course legendarily it is. Sergeant Pepper's lonely heart of the band we learned with definition of the concept. I don't think we want to stop to show, I thought you want to like to know we're going to Billy Shear's 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. 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 and the latter and the penultimate song, what else is linked?

I don't know. I don't know that a concept album has to be the whole way through one story, to me, a concept album is just like, this is a picture of us in time and there is a through line there. I have a pretty loose definition of what a concept album is.

Let's back it up a little bit because like we mentioned in our Heltur Skeltor episode, the Beatles had decided to retire from touring in 1966 to focus on becoming a studio band. 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 of the studio. It couldn't really be replicated.

And they weren't having fun live. They weren't able to give themselves legendarily. They were a major of Asia in 1966, really left the bad taste of them. And because they're working obviously with a legendary George Martin and the Jeff American engineering and legendary Abbey Road Studios at the time called EMI, they have

this opportunity to like follow their muse into deeper production like 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 because I saw 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 come 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 Sergeant Pepper himself being sort of the MC 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 in the second song and then we never used that idea again.

I know, as I said, I was always like, "Wait, who's Billy Shears?" Billy Shears. I thought it started pepper. Billy Shears is evidently like Ringo Stars, Nome De Plume. The other three guys never get names and we never used 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, "Let's, we're belabering the point." You know who it is, I think is the Beatles because even John himself later says, Sergeant Pepper is called the first concept album but it doesn't go anywhere. Yeah.

Oh, my contributions, John speaking, to the album have absolutely nothing to do with this idea of Sergeant Pepper and his band, but it works because we sit at work. I think that's so funny and that says everything and what's funny or is when you think about the fact that there is this crazily terrible BG's movie, the Sergeant Pepper I thought we were going to just completely exploit that.

Somebody was like, "Hey, it's a concept album, let's make a concept movie." So they turned it into a film and George Burns is in it and it's one of the most unwatchable pieces of film, Schluck 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 that's so stupid.

That's so stupid. That's so stupid. The original, oh God, it's pretty good, actually. Oh God, is it the first? There's more than one.

There's, oh God, oh God, book two. And oh God, you devil? I think there might be three. That was one movie. I don't know nothing about George Burns.

Oh, it's pretty funny, promise. Jack, Benny, that's my guy. Oh, Vodka. Bob, comedians. George Burns?

I don't know. By the way, George, I agree. In those, by the way, in those movies, George Burns is probably like 64. It was 99. He's just older than the cast of Cocoon, which are all younger than all of us.

That's right. I think Texas. 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, I think I may have crossed the Wilford Brimley line.

He was only whatever age he was 48 in Cocoon, and he knows like he's 80 something. I am older than Wilford Brimley in Cocoon. That's what happened. Who is it? I can't believe an old man in that movie.

People didn't die great. People didn't die great. People didn't die great. They died great. That's why they were so great.

They smoked a cigarette.

“That's why they were so afraid of being unfed at 64, because that's what they did”

to them back then. That was the upper limit that was about as old as you did.

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 linen composition. I can kind of hear that. Much like strawberry feels forever. The song starts off with John on guitar, Paul on piano, Ringo on the Bongas, and George Harrison on Maracas.

This here 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 this here a little bit. George is like, I guess I'm playing Maracas. I gotta say already, I'm on board. There is something I don't think I've ever said this on a never so before. There is something about the way that John rides the rhythm with his lyrics.

It always works. You can only sort of see his face like sort of like a thermatively nodding. It's so good. I'm such a fan of John.

“I'm such 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, like it's coming in. In the life of that's the mic on the piano and quite low, just keep it in my mind. I love this stuff. I can listen to this all day long, studio outtakes and clubs and the real deal.

In the life of, you know, and then you're hearing just a little bit of organ, not sure who that is by the way. And then there's a little piano, which is Paul. Maybe, okay, yeah, I was gonna say who's playing the organ because that note took me straight back to Blue J Way.

Like it sounds like the opening organs on Blue J Way, which is a great song that George sort of pin when he was living in the Hollywood Hills here living on Blue J 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 Lewis in

that every Beatles nerd already knows about and a second one by Walter Everett, which chronicles the first one, the Lewis and book chronicles every day, what they did every day, what they recorded, every like overdub, et cetera. 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 Moroccan, that high pitched shaking sound. He doesn't play.

There's no other George contributions in this song. 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 awesome. I guess we don't know.

We don't know. And also the way what we're listening to was piece 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, but I don't want to get a head off. So we'll talk about that in the 20th of the stem section. But there's already a lot of the song that we know this song structure is there. Yes.

But interestingly, here's what isn't there yet. When we get to the mid part, which later becomes the build up 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 build up and Paul's verse.

“And remember January 19th, they didn't know what would be here yet.”

But can I just say, I like how I love to tell you, oh, like he's moving the microwave. He's moving away from the mic. I like the fact that they're like, this is what I wanted to sound like. They're thinking about this sound. That's a big part of this.

They're a little bit pioneering in the mid 60s. By 67, 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 does 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 in the echo effect. Because we don't really have off the rack, roll in space echoes, 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 PM. Yeah, let me see.

That is so Paul, that's no, no, no. There's an influence there, which we'll talk about in the stems.

He likes that sort of jazzy learnings, 20s music, kind of thing.

“But it's also cheerful like that, but 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's longtime assistant, Mal Evans. Mal Evans, by the way, we talk a lot about him in part one of our beautiful stuparter for those who are too lazy to go back and listen to that.

He started off as a balancer at the Cavern Club and eventually became the Beatles's assistant and road manager after the Beatles retired from touring. He still assists at 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 it's one of the people to play piano for that famous last note on the song. That's right. You're saying about structure, importantly, and interestingly, in this moment, they actually have the entire song gridded, not ungrated out, I should say.

Like the structure of the song is set by this first recording.

“You 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. That's right. Having 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 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 a lot, if anyone who's ever tried to cover the song, some of the counting is confusing. 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 a kind of thing where you kind of hear Ringo, maybe it's 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 something very interesting. So what I say, there's funky things. There are moments and there's disagreements across the, you know, when you see different

people scoring it, putting it onto sheet music, it wasn't intended, it wasn't written to sheet music. So you're kind of, 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 two four or bar of three here and there.

And just to call attention to, we mentioned that Maal Evans did the count off. He counts from one to twenty four 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, he has his music, but we don't have a lyric and a melody yet or 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 in 1967 studio guys, 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 some.

You can't take it out of the studio anymore, but you can't take it out of the studio anymore, but you can't take it out of the studio anymore, but you can't take it out of the studio anymore. But you can't take it out of the studio anymore, but you can't take it out of the studio anymore. But you can't take it out of the studio anymore, but you can't take it out of the studio anymore. But you can't take it out of the studio anymore, but you can't take it out of the studio anymore.

But you can't take it out of the studio anymore. But you can't take it out of the studio anymore. But you can't take it out of the studio anymore. But you can't take it out of the studio anymore. But you can't take it out of the studio anymore.

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But you can't take it out of the studio anymore, but you can't take it out of the studio anymore. But you can't take it out of the studio anymore, but you can't take it out of the studio anymore. But you can't take it out of the studio anymore, but you can't take it out of the studio anymore. But you can't take it out of the studio anymore, but you can't take it out of the studio anymore. But you can't take it out of the studio anymore, but you can't take it out of the studio anymore.

But you can't take it out of the studio anymore, but you can't take it out of the studio anymore. But you can't take it out of the studio anymore, but you can't take it out of the studio anymore.

We're going to go chronologically through the song we're going to start with John's part.

“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 based to vocals as we usually do, we're going to go structurally from the beginning to the end of the song. 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 produced her for the Beatles is there. Unlike Heltar's Geltar, go back and listen to our part one. He was not there for Heltar's Geltar, but he was there for a day in the life, along with Jeff Emerick on engineer, Tassel with the G's.

He's a G off. He's a G off, and interestingly, importantly, and amazingly, this song is recorded on a four track. Yes. Hold on. 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 and I, 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 Colin response, melodically. Little Philhar, 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. No, there's the 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 John's lines. Oh, it's so good. It's soaked in melancholy, I just, I love everything about that progression.

John agrees with you. He loved that vocal delay, and again, it's new in 1967. It'd be 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 sound. Yeah, he was like, oh my gosh, Elvis, but I'm totally here there. Yeah, yeah. That's really cool. I was thinking like, is this like early dub? Yeah, but like, no, you're totally right.

But that's almost got that like 50s rockability thing. But that's exactly the correct progression because in the 50s, when they're at sound 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, because the band starts as kind of a skiffle, rockabilly,

American inspired rock and roll band. And you don't know the Beatles in 1962, go back and listen to their, they have albums like the Beatles and Humberg. And these are like really good recordings.

If you've never heard of 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, yeah, this is a different sound for them. The rockabilly, they were like, they're talking about their songs, they're songs selections, because they're playing mostly covers, because they've got, yes, they've got to fill four or five, six hours every single night. And they don't have the originals yet. You know, they're the repertoire. So you're absolutely right. They're going back to those like a B-bop

aloeba that the Jerry Lee Lewis, the Elvis, the Carl Perkins. They love all that early American rock and roll band. And let me just take a second and just say this, because I think that a lot of,

“a lot of the youth today don't realize this, because we think of Rock at something that you have to”

stand there and watch your rock gods play. Rocking music used to be dance music. You know, like that's right at the time before E-M or even hip hop. That was what Rock at Roll Bus. That's what Rock at Roll Bus. It was, it was, it was, it was an offshoot from rhythm and blues. Yeah. And you would get up there and rock bands would play a place that's like the cavern or the whisky ago go. Yeah. And they would just play for hours and kids would get up and dance to it.

I think that that's something that got lost as Rock got more and more artistic in part due to the popularity and the Beatles and Sergeant Peppers. But that, that element of rock kind of got lost. And it comes back every now and then. But like 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. Yeah.

But there's sort of maybe a false binary there. But DJing and disco tech says a thing. As a phenomenon, there were early disco ticks, texts in the late, you know, maybe post-war era. But discos and DJs and music recorded music as a place to go and dance to isn't really

with the loft and David Mancuso and to disco. But back and listen to our depth. We do matter.

“We did talk a lot about it. Disco text because that's the first 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. It'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. 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 two by Bob D because the drums come in way later than you think and they don't even come in when you think they should. Bob D in the Beatles. There's a connection there that people don't know. They don't acknowledge it. But it's there. Yeah, 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 film and then he sits out.”

He sits back out. Plays another film, sits out, another film. 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 once near. And then you start to hear, this is so Ringo. So distinct of this next space. Really Tom having in this Tom's have a big loud ringing resonant sound. So there's a heaviness to it. It's so wringo and it sounds so good. I'll play that for you.

He's not playing any ride or any high hat. You're you're only getting that crash and then just those heavy heavy Tom's. And here's how that's all interplaying with Paul because the two of them

lock together sounds amazing. Just a snare, no kick. And I love it because Ringo has tuned his

Tom's in a way that reminds me of the way that hip hop has tonal bass. That's like tonal way to

“wait. Great connection. Absolutely. Yeah, you can tune your Tom's. I think it sounds to me. I think”

you're right. I think Ringo tuned his Tom's and if not, perhaps accidentally they were already in key. Yeah. And it just works. It fits together because those Tom's 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. Your 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 all right. We have

John on acoustic guitar and Paul is playing piano. They are big together. This is again 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 here's some bongos in there too. Yeah, for the first time. That's Ringo on the bongos. That's Ringo on the bongos from an

earlier take. A lot of lead. You can hear a lot of lead coming from the probably headphones that performers hearing John singing in the booth next next door or from an earlier take action in the thinking that because this is overdue. Yeah, it sounds like overdue. This is overdue. It's a dare to 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. And this, but this is not one of them. This is a conscious choice that John made. Yeah, the time signature sounds interesting to me because it's, you especially notice it when he does the. Well, I just had to laugh. I saw the photograph. It feels like addition to the end of the 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 one more. Yeah. And what's interesting is that two of those are nine and a half bars. One of them is ten 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. Yeah. The first one is ten. 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. Realers across these 10 or nine and a half or nine bars. There's this constant motion.

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 an important part of what I love about this song. That note kills me. I love it all. I love it. I love his breathing on the word laugh. I love it's so iconic John Lennon. Yeah. Yeah. The echo is so iconically part of his sound to the vocal.

“Wouldn't sound right to just dry or maybe reverbed John Lennon. You need to have that very specific”

to lay 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, 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 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. You think he's going for a chillin sound or what do you think he's going for? No, no, not necessarily. I think I think, I think, literally 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 you a narrative that you fall 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 he started, I think he was either intuitively understanding how the sound of or the recording can make the emotional impact, you know, different. It wasn't 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 like world across the sea in America and the Carl Perkins and the sudden 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 it is a unique way, obviously. Can we hear a little bit more of that verse? He blew his mind out in a car. He didn't know

this that the lights had changed. I wonder why they over that little piano little lick. This is 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 or something's

“missing. Can we hear the rest of that little verse?”

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 realize the lights had changed. There's so much going on here. Yeah. And yet it still feels like, even though it was 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 buy like two pop 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, it is final interview with Playboy. He says, quote, "I was reading the paper one day and I noticed two stories. One was about the Guinnessaire,

who killed himself in a car." And that kind of goes towards the whole idea of like, blues, mine out in the car. And 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, it's fun is that he had the rhythm, because that's the little trail, the little, he's going between the, it's a half-step B to see,

done, and, and, and, and, 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, no, the verb yet. And his friend Terry Durand 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 would say, "And, uh, Danny, you know, life." But it would have made this song better,

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 the Paul's contribution, isn't it? Yeah, this is the, I'd love to turn you on part. 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 it 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 light by the Beatles as a result of that, like,

“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 like it made it feel relevant. It felt like it was something that, you know, they were considered. The times, yeah, from the, from the subculture and bringing it to the, 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. Yeah. 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. Yeah. So it's interesting to think about it from the perspective of what the timing was. Like, 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 a 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 build up. And on February 10, 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 full evening dress. Like, I left the studio at one point and came back to find one of the musicians wearing a clowns nose. And the leader of the violence, wear a guerrillas paw on his bowhand. Everyone's 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 Munkies, Marianne Faithful, and out of it of mellow yellow fame, all in attendance, many of them wearing novelties like upside down glasses, plastic stick on nipples, imitation balled heads, fall sides, and fix the guards. All that started a 60's costume. You stuff is so creepy to me. Like, all that like everything is scary. Yeah, it's all really. It really is peak scary in the like 70's when you have the footage is

grainy. Yeah, the worst. Yeah, it's very horror movie. And by the way, fun fact, 367 pounds, 10 shillings was the total cost of the orchestra. Wow. That the players got less than 10 pounds each. But a lifetime of stories to impress their grandchildren. Yeah, I'm sure their agents don't feel that way. Yeah. 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-nager to E-nager.

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-nager during John section. And we're about to be in E for a pause section.”

Now, why didn't they transpose one to the other? Unclear to me. I suppose they just, 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. Yeah. From the royal Phil harmonic 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 Mowls count off

that 1 to 24. And I never noticed before how there's a rhythmic pulse done as we're going through it. We are hearing. The strings are keeping time. Yeah. Yeah. And in the beginning, you can hear the strings

between the music, the strings start by mimicking nine, which is a great transition to then the crazy build. It's done. 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 buildup, we come to Paul's section of a day in the life. Lecture, can you start us off with the instrumentation there?

It's so musical. It's all that I was listening. It's like literally I never noticed

it's still now. It's literally swinging. Like there's a swing to it at the rest of the song. It's just freaking jazzy. It's freaking happy. I think this is one of the times when we just had to put it out. The John part is very sad and full of melancholy. And then here comes Paul with this really chipper. Hey, I woke up. Chipped out a bed. I drank some coffee, grabbed the comb, comb across my head. It's just like a tale of two cities. But if you're writing a script

“sometimes you need like some release, you know, the tension. And that's what made this partnership”

so good. Is that like, it's a contrast. 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 be Paul clearly. Yeah, my

piece of heavy with just the John bit too in half time. Yeah, because now we're in double time. We're double time or jazzy. It's a little more upbeat even though they're both technically in major keys. We're now an e-major, but yeah, it's got a completely different feel to it. And there's just enough of it that doesn't feel like fluff. We just get this like basically 16 bars before we go into the next section. And by the way, I just write them out. I do love this part. I mean, I'm being flipping,

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 down stairs and drank a cup.

“They're looking up. I know it just now was late. I love it. It's great. It's so visual. It feels like a”

real quirky British rom from 19. 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, right? So the whole thing is so visual. You can picture the entire thing. You can see the big red, you know, bus going down the street. And yeah, then we've got these breath. Let's listen to the breaths again.

Famicote. Grab my head. And the code in the hot, this all is very evocative. That's like a 30's code it had. It's a 40's. It's a pre-war code. Well, listen, they famously said it was when Kennedy didn't wear a hat. Any kind of fedora or or or boulder. That was when men were no longer. So this is only four years after they could be assassination. So maybe in England, yeah, here that you would leave the house without your hat was still a little bit, you know, not done.

Right. Well, there's one more influence I want to point out. So there's a song from 1930, which is only 38 years earlier, by the way. It's called Sunnyside of the Street, which you may know. This is a Dorothy Fields lyric. And let's listen to the opening lyrics. Just direct your feet. All was definitely channeling a little bit of the vibe. If not literally the lyrics with that upbeat bouncy 30's swing in kind of vibe. Yeah. 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 thing 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. He went to his job and then started smoking. And then we come to one of my favorite parts of

“the entire song. He says, somebody spoke and I went into a dream. Can we hear a little bit of that?”

Incredible. Yes. Magical. Listen, and you're 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. Do the eyes? 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 like the vocal Tamber of John Lenin. Well, I'll tell you, I think the

effect is you go out of Paul and then back into John. Like it feels to me no matter who's singing it. Yeah. That the appeal to the casual listeners that life. Oh, John's back. Here's another question.

I answer to me 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. Yeah. Or is real life

“Paul's part and the dream and I went into a dream because we're going back to John is that's how I always”

read it out. The real life is 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 itself? John is the dreamer and Paul is the real life. John is vocalizing the dream. Okay. Still Paul's story, but John is there to dream to vocalize the dream. I think, well, I think we agree. I think what we're saying is John, can I tell the internet? Listen, I know nothing, but that is John. It sounds like John's to me too. I'm team John. I'm team John. Listen,

all these years to my ears, that sounds like John, sounds like his tambre sound, like his vocal style,

like it just sounds like him. But then there's an article in Sound on Sound where Giles Martin,

whose 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 listening to that more dating. Listen, you're not Pope, 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 wall can goes down awfully easy. That's exactly how they

“thought of it. That's how that's how I use it. So let's listen to those chords and then we'll talk about it.”

And then it kind of cycles again. And it's sort of off because it's five chords instead of rid of our usual bore that like cycles even more dreamy because that's happening. Right. But what's interesting is that the night before they recorded this on top of the pops, 18th of January, 1967, Jimmy Hendrix played Hay 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, E, I hear.

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 back to get back to John's 4th verse. And they need some sort of transition to do it. So 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 also pointed this out before, but check this out. So that little section. Yeah. It's the same 5 chords relatively speaking. It's going from the 6, 3, 7, 4, 1. Listen now to the Beatles doing it. It's quite 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. Mm-hmm. It sounds like this. Yeah, I hear it. Now go back to that quadruple time. That's when I hear 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.

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-lirical like 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 like faster and in a different key that like both songs can live as independent songs. Nobody needs to own anything. This isn't a situation where like, man, what a rip off. I know I no longer need to listen to a day in the life by the Beatles anymore because deep purple wrote the song called "Hush." Yeah. They're both equally, you know, 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 regular 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. 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 monkeys in 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 like at the time they recorded the orchestra were 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 end enough just to end on that note. We got to end it. We need something else. That was pin ultimate

“feeling. We need ultimate. We need ultimate C. 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 second. So we won't be hearing the entire thing, but we'll give you a little taste.

So this is 4 pianos playing E major at the same time. Here we go. And as it's fading out, engineered Jeff Emmerick is pushing up the fader 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 3 pianos and simultaneously hitting E major. Right. That's it. And they overdebted 3 times. Yeah. So you're the hard thing to do to get everybody

hit it at the exact same moment. Yeah, they had it. Well, it was take 9. They did 8 times not quite right. And on the 9th time they used it overdebted that 3 times. And then George Martin added a harmonium. So somewhere in the mix, there's a little bit of a, be more of an organe accordion he sound. I couldn't personally hear it. But I 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 like conclude the song. For 12 days, they're living with finalness. And it just that the humming was like, uh, doesn't quite, maybe it's a little too funny, too. It's a little bit, it was a little bit not quite what they were looking for. I want to put out. You just said it was concept art. And this is a concept album.

This is definitely. Oh, what? Did I walk right there? You just walked right there? I walked right into that. I walked right into it. Listen, how about this is a cool team. Team concept. Team concept wins. Oh, man. I ruined everything. I ruined my career. My career is really, no, my friend. You just, you just proved me right. What a concept, though. Like, let's end with a minute long note. It's a minute long. Yes. The song is actually over a whole

great concept. They're the concept album. All right. Actually, 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, Lenin, 50% and Paul James McCartney, 50%, 50, 50. Yeah. The two members of the Beatles. Do you? The fab tube. So, Diela, what do you think the

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. Yeah. I like making sure the character of the first song is there the whole

“way through. Oh, yeah. I think as it's typical, sticks. Kilroy was here. Great concept album.”

But I think as it's commonly the case, the first or the relative first in a genre of things, is not fully formed. It's weird to hold it up to like, it's weird to hold the sopranos up to a game of thrones, even though a game of thrones is clearly influenced by the sopranos in terms of like 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, are they have the first second and penultimate song with sergeant pepper into little help with my friends, a bunch of other songs, and then sergeant pepper reprise. Right. 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 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 were figuring it out. And later on, we have the who, we have Tommy, and then we have almost all of Prague rock seemingly

as it seems to always be doing in metal and Prague. There's lots of the concept records become

cheerpoint kind of more of a normal thing. They almost become an industry standard. Well, they definitely become a cliche in the 70s. Right. By the time we get to like rush 2112, great record, by the way. And we don't know the prees of the temple are sea rinks.

“Wow. Super good. And corny. I got to say, I think Prague rock is definitely a blind spot for me.”

Oh, so we're doing a rap. I know some people have asked for a rap because we'll do it. Some people like to ask for it. The cult she sells 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, a Diggle plants first album. Because on that first album, they keep with the, with the insect motifs. The entire album. Right. Which they kind of throw out when they get to blow out

come. They're not talking about, you know, ladybug is 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 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 a lot of different ways. What's funny is I would actually argue that

Digible planet second album, blowout comb, has more sonic elements that kind of go through the

album. Like you'll hear a theme. Duh, duh, duh, like the horns, 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, but not every, but these black power things. But not every cohesive album is a concept

“out. I think we can agree. Correct. Well, that's always the case. Yeah. Yeah. Just because something”

exists. So I mean, my marauders has the recurring, like, you're listening to midnight marauders. It has that thing for you. They give some cohesiveness, but it doesn't make any sense. I don't know if it's a concept out of it. Yeah. But to your point, because the 70s is just so concept album written, you're almost saying, 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 Heltra Skeletra is because Heltra Skeletra is a rock and song. But this one is the Beatles at their most orchestral. And throwing so many, 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 Sikamo, you know,

like it's just one of those songs. It just goes in so many different directions. It really is a nice counterbalance to Heltra Skeletra. 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. Yeah. The Beach Boys with good vibrations, we're 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 with that sergeant pepper. In the same way, we wouldn't have like,

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 Sikamo 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 this stage.

You know, this is one of those, you know, the the Beatles, they, 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. Yeah. 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 like just using recording technology and experimentation. When you give the Beatles infinite studio time, they're gonna take it. They're gonna 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 @dialo.”

D-I-A-A-L-O. And on TikTok @dialo. And you can find me on Instagram @L-U-X-X-U-R-Y and on TikTok @Lectree-X-X. And you can follow our podcast on Instagram and TikTok @WinsongPakass. You can also watch full episodes of "Winsong" on YouTube. Just search for "WinsongPakass." We love it if you like it. Also, be sure to check out the "Winsong Spotify" playlist for all the songs we discuss in our episodes. You can find a link in our episode description. By the way, we've got a Patreon now.

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