A Day In The Life of Beatles Epicness

After recording Strawberry Fields Forever and Penny Lane, the Abbey Road studios were bursting with innovative ideas. As stated above, this song derived from two separate pieces, one by Lennon and the other by McCartney. They left a 24-bar space in the middle, not knowing at the time what to fill it with. Anyway, they were immerse in an avant garde atmosphere and they knew somehow something big was about to unfold.

The main part belongs to John, who was allegedly inspired by a report in the Daily Mail about an accident suffered by their friend Tara Browne. Lennon stated "I didn't copy the accident. Tara didn't blow his mind out, but it was in my mind when I was writing that verse. The details of the accident in the song-not noticing traffic lights and a crowd forming at the scene-were similarly part of the fiction." There's also the line at the end about potholes in Blackburn, only a genius like Lennon would write about them filling the Albert Hall! Actually it was his friend Terry Doran who came out with the elusive verb that would link those two apparently incompatible thoughts.

On the other hand, Paul McCartney's contribution was a short piano piece he couldn't use for anything, which told about his times in Liverpool as a lad, when he would ride a bus, in seconds flat. His line "found my way upstairs and had a smoke / somebody spoke and I went into a dream" along with "I'd love to turn you on" resulted in the song being banned by the BBC. Even though Lennon and McCartney denied any drug references, Paul admitted lately that it was a deliberate provocation. He explained though that they wanted to turn people on to the truth rather than any drug.

After the basic track was mixed, The Beatles faced an empty 24-bar segment. McCartney came up with the extravagant idea of an orchestra of 90 musicians to fill in the gap, another example of how they were constantly pushing the boundaries of rock and making history by the record. Even though they had to cope with a 40-piece combo, it resulted in a total cost of £367 for the players, a good deal of money at the time.