One Song - The Beatles' "A Day In The Life"

Episode Date: April 2, 2026

How do you end one of the greatest albums of all time? Maybe you need to bring in a 40 person orchestra. This week on One Song, Diallo Riddle and LUXXURY continue their two-part exploration of the Be...atles with one of the greatest album closers of all time, “A Day In The Life.” They dive into the silly hats and carnival novelties that helped create the chaotic orchestral sections of the song, the headlines that inspired John Lennon’s lyrical odyssey, and debate whether or not Sgt. Pepper’s can truly be considered a concept album. Songs Discussed: “A Day In The Life” - The Beatles “Within You Without You” - The Beatles “Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite!” - The Beatles “People Are Strange” - The Doors “Blue Jay Way” - The Beatles “Tomorrow Night” - Elvis Presley “Shook Ones, Pt. II” - Mobb Deep “Hey Joe” - The Jimi Hendrix Experience “Hush” - Deep Purple “2112” - Rush “Sicko Mode” - Travis Scott feat. Drake Diallo & LUXXURY Patreon One Song Spotify Playlist Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript
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Starting point is 00:00:00 Fell out of bed, dragged a comb across my head. Found my way downstairs and drank a cup. And looking up, I noticed I was late. I love the... 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
Starting point is 00:00:23 that all other album closers will forever get compared to, bringing to an end what many considered to be the first. concept album. That's right, Diallo. And 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 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. I'm actor-writer-to-render, and sometimes DJ Diallo. And I'm producer DJ, songwriter and musicologist luxury, aka the guy who whispers,
Starting point is 00:01:15 Interpolation. 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 like you've never heard them before, and if 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.
Starting point is 00:01:35 We have got a Patreon now. That's right. We finally launched it after years of talking about. about it, it's real, and you can find the link in our social media bios. Awesome. So, D'allel, last week we covered Helter Skelter from the 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-part
Starting point is 00:01:53 on the Beatles is that they have some songs that are rocking, and then they have some songs that are like 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, like, is beautiful and love. but it's also like very melancholy inspiring. On the last episode, you mentioned that the white album may not be your favorite, but Sergeant Pepper definitely is. Why is that? And when did you first hear the album?
Starting point is 00:02:21 Oh, man, I first heard the song. I might have been five or six. Like, it's one of the very first, you know, 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, I'm like so many albums from this period, especially the albums today, it feels so cohesive from some. 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?
Starting point is 00:03:03 Just 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. Being for the benefit of Mr. Kite used to scare me as a kid. Yes, but it's a little scary. It's sounded creepy. It's very clowns that are going to get you. Yeah, yeah. Let's play a little bit of that song.
Starting point is 00:03:39 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, in a carnival way. I think there's some carnival sounds in there. Some of the instrumentation, like, is very consciously, like, Karni-esque. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:04:09 And it creeps you out. The circus in 1967 must have been scary 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. I do tend to skip when I'm 64 now, which is the song I used to love as a kid. So your taste changed over time. But overall, it really is in that rare pantheon of albums that just works from front to back,
Starting point is 00:04:33 especially in how it ends with today's song, A Day of 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 664 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?
Starting point is 00:04:57 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.
Starting point is 00:05:11 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 mention it being a concept album, which of course, legendarily it is. Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hard Sala. A band, we start with... It's literally the definition of the concept.
Starting point is 00:05:33 I don't think we want to stop the show. I thought you all like to know. We go into Billy Shears, a little help for 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 and the costumes. That's your thing. You think it's not a concept album. 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 I, we'll talk about it. I think it is a concept album. But besides the first two and the last, and the penultimate song, what else is linked in the storyline? I don't know that a concept album has to be like the whole way through
Starting point is 00:06:08 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,
Starting point is 00:06:24 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 of the studio that couldn't really be replicated.
Starting point is 00:06:41 And they weren't having fun live. They weren't able to hear themselves legendarily. So 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 in 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,
Starting point is 00:07:08 all you're thinking about is the live experience, because 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.
Starting point is 00:07:23 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 emcee, opening and closing the show.
Starting point is 00:07:42 Which kind of sets us up for the whole ladies and gentlemen, Billy Shears, the end of the first song, and then we never used that idea again. I know as a kid, I was always like, wait, who's Billy Shears? Billy Shears. I thought of Sergeant Pepper. Billy Shears is evidently like Ringo Starr's nom de plume. The other three guys never get names,
Starting point is 00:07:58 and we never use that ploy for introducing the other song. So we kind of, I think they 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 by applying this to everything. I think is The Beatles. Yeah. Because even John himself later says, Sergeant Pepper is called the first concept album, but it doesn't go anywhere.
Starting point is 00:08:16 All 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 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 Beegee's movie, the Sergeant 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.
Starting point is 00:08:47 I've never sat through the whole thing. I don't think I've ever sat through anything with George Brown. Oh, come on. Oh, God. Oh, you devil. I don't think I've ever seen it. I mean, I know the poster better than. The original O God's pretty good, actually. Oh, God is the first? There's more than one. There's Oh, God. Oh, God, Book 2. An old guy do you devil? I think there might be three. I thought that was one movie. I know nothing about George Burns.
Starting point is 00:09:07 Oh, it's pretty funny premise. Jack Benny, that's my guy. Old vaudeville comedian. Bob Hope sometimes. George Burns, I don't know. By the way, George Burns. I don't know, Gracie. By the way, in those movies, George Burns is probably like 64.
Starting point is 00:09:20 It looks 99. He's just older than the cast of cocoon, which are all younger than all of us. That's right. I think technically... The cast of Cheers was like a bunch of up-and-coming 20-year-old. 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.
Starting point is 00:09:40 He was 48 in Cacoon and he looks like he's 80 something. I am older than Wilford Brimley and Cacoon. I think that's what happens with people. Who is iconically an old man in that movie. People didn't hydrate. People did not drink water. They smoked up. They smoked a cigarette.
Starting point is 00:09:55 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 him go. Let him float away. So a day in the life structurally sounds like a true collaborative effort with both John
Starting point is 00:10:10 and Paul taking the lead vocals in their own parts of the song. But the song started off as basically just a John Lening 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 Bongoes, and George Harrison on Maracas. Let's hear a little bit of the very first take of a day of the day. The Life. I've never heard this before until my man Luxury is going to play it for me right now.
Starting point is 00:10:36 At this point, this song was actually called In the Life of. Let's hear a little bit. George is like, I guess I'm playing Maraca. I got to say, already I'm on board. There is something, and I don't think I've ever said this on an episode before, There's something about the way that John rides the rhythm. Yeah. With his lyrics, it always works.
Starting point is 00:11:04 Like, you can always sort of see his face, like, sort of, like, 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, like, it's caught, you know.
Starting point is 00:11:23 In the life of it. Have the mic on the piano quite low of this. 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.
Starting point is 00:11:44 Maybe, okay, yeah, I was going to 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 pinned when he was listening. 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 Lewison that every Beatles nerd already knows about. And the second one by Walter Everett,
Starting point is 00:12:17 which chronicles, the first one, the Lewisson 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 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. That high-pitched shaking sound. He doesn't play, there's no other George contribution to the song.
Starting point is 00:12:48 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? 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.
Starting point is 00:13:02 It might have been George Martin, who we know later plays the harmonium. Yeah. But I don't want to get ahead of so. 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's structure is there. But interestingly, here's what isn't there yet. When we get to the mid part, which later becomes the buildup and then Paul's section,
Starting point is 00:13:23 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 1 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'd love to turn you all along. Like he's like he's getting the since 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 wanted to sound like.
Starting point is 00:13:58 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 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 and the echo effect, because we don't really have off the rack roll in space echoes and delay
Starting point is 00:14:31 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 like. That is so Paul. That's... 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.
Starting point is 00:15:10 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's long time. Assistant, Mal Evans. Mal Evans, by the way, we talk a lot about him in part one of our Beatles two-parter. 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
Starting point is 00:15:41 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
Starting point is 00:15:58 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 gritted out, not ungritted 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.
Starting point is 00:16:30 That's right. 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 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.
Starting point is 00:16:55 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 a 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.
Starting point is 00:17:21 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 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 a bar of three finger in there. And just to call attention to, we mentioned that Mal Evans did the count off.
Starting point is 00:17:52 He counts from one 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. 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.
Starting point is 00:18:24 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 say? We're going to go chronologically through the song.
Starting point is 00:18:57 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 it, 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.
Starting point is 00:19:21 And George Martin, famously, producer for the Beatles, is there, unlike Helter Skelter. Go back and listen to our Part 1. He was not there for Heltor Skelter, but he was there for a day in the life, along with Jeff Emmerich, an engineer task. 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 track. Yeah. 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.
Starting point is 00:20:10 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 live, 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-in response melodically.
Starting point is 00:20:33 Little Phil 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. You know, 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. 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. That sound effect unusually, they're recorded. with those sound effects on the vocal, because John loved the sound of that delay.
Starting point is 00:21:15 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. I can totally hear that. Yeah. That's really cool. I was not, I was thinking, like,
Starting point is 00:21:26 is this like early dub? Yeah. But like, no, you're totally right. But that's almost got that like 50s rockabilly thing. 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.
Starting point is 00:21:42 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? We'll leave. 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,
Starting point is 00:22:06 go back and listen to their, they have albums like, The Beatles in Hamburg, and these are like really good recording. 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.
Starting point is 00:22:22 You're talking about their set. They're song selections because they're playing mostly covers because they've got to fill four or five, six hours every single night. And they don't have the originals yet, you know, the repertoire. So you're absolutely right. They're going back to those like the B. Boppa Luba, the Jerry Lee Lewis, the Elvis, the Carl Perkins. they love all that early American rock and roll stuff.
Starting point is 00:22:43 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 rock gods play. Rock and music used to be dance music. You know what the time before EDM or even hip-hop. That was what rock and roll was. That's what rock and roll was.
Starting point is 00:23:02 It was an offshoot from rhythm and blues, and you would get up there and rock bands would play at places like the cavern or the whiskey at go-go. 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 Sergeant Peppers. But that element of rock kind of got lost. And it comes back every now and then.
Starting point is 00:23:27 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. But there's sort of maybe a false binary there. But DJing and discothex as a thing, as a phenomenon, there were early disco texts in the late, you know, 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 what it really takes off.
Starting point is 00:23:58 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 disco text 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 and 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.
Starting point is 00:24:39 The killers and a hundred dollar billers. The villains. For real, you get to have no feelings. 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.
Starting point is 00:25:00 He plays a fill, and then he sits out. And he sits back out. Plays another Phil, sits out another Phil. So let's listen to those fills, and then I'll add back in some of the other elements. It's so iconic. Big long crash. Here comes another one. And it gives one snare. And then you start to hear, this is so Ringo, so distinctive, 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 wringo, and it sounds so good. I'll play that for you. Like, he's not playing any ride or any high hat. You're only getting that crash. And then just those heavy, heavy tombs. And here's how that's all interplaying with Paul, because The two of them locked together, it sounds amazing. Just a snare, no kick. And I love it because Ringo has tuned his tombs in a way that reminds me of the way that hip hop has tonal bass.
Starting point is 00:26:17 That's a total 808. Great connection, absolutely. Yeah, you can tune your tombs. I think it sounds to me, I think you're right. I think Ringo tuned his tombs. And if not, perhaps accidentally they were already in key. Yeah. And it just works.
Starting point is 00:26:28 It fits together because those tombs 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. You're 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.
Starting point is 00:26:47 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.
Starting point is 00:26:56 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, for the first time. That's Ringo on the Bongos.
Starting point is 00:27:15 That's Ringo on the Bongoes from an earlier take. A lot of bleed. You can hear a lot of bleed coming in from the probably headphones, the performers hearing John singing in the booth next door, or from an earlier take, actually, I'm to think of it, because this is overdubbed a day or two later. Yeah, I'm going to say, it sounds like overdubs. This is overdubs a day or two later.
Starting point is 00:27:41 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 a John has four verses in the song. There's three before the orchestral buildup in Paul,
Starting point is 00:28:20 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 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. 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-cord cycle, roughly. I counted roughly 18 chords across these 10 or 9-and-a-half or 9 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. today, oh boy, about a lucky man who made the great. That note kills me. I love it all. I love his breathing on the word laugh. I love,
Starting point is 00:29:27 oh boy. It's so iconic John Lennon. Yeah. Yeah. The echo is so iconically part of his sound too. The vocal, it 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, 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.
Starting point is 00:30:09 You think he's going for a Dylan sound, or what do you think he's going for? No, well, not necessarily. I think, 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, you know, 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.
Starting point is 00:30:38 But he started, I think he was either intuitively understanding how the sound. of 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 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,
Starting point is 00:31:22 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 little lick is his looks like. 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? 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
Starting point is 00:32:12 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 though it was decades later, it still feels like immediate.
Starting point is 00:32:33 It still feels like, oh, he's talking about something. You know? Yeah. I felt the same way when I would buy like Tupac albums in the middle. 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
Starting point is 00:33:01 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 a car. Like, that can be interpreted many ways. Like, you know, literally suicide, but it could also be like... Drugs.
Starting point is 00:33:20 Drugs, exactly. John continues. On the next page was the story about 4,000 holes in Blackburn, Lancashire. You know, it's fun is that he had the rhythm, because that's the little trill, the little... He's going between the... It's a half-step B to see... Dun-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na.
Starting point is 00:33:35 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 didn't have the verb yet. And his friend, Terry Durand said, fill the Albert Hall.
Starting point is 00:33:49 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, they never say, and a day in the life. But it would have made the song better than they had. Might have made the song better.
Starting point is 00:34:04 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 Love to Turn You On part. And then we get into the placeholder section, right? So just one little note about that line.
Starting point is 00:34:32 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. 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 like interpretation, which probably wasn't
Starting point is 00:35:03 inaccurate. You know, it's got a lot of going on. I think I had actually heard somewhere where the second John heard that line, he was just like, yeah, that 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 contributing. Of the times, yeah, right? 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.
Starting point is 00:35:30 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. Yeah. So it's interesting to think about it from the perspective of what the timing was.
Starting point is 00:35:47 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 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.
Starting point is 00:36:13 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 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. Everyone was wearing funny hats and carnival novelties. I just fell around laughing.
Starting point is 00:37:00 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 Monkeys, 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 baldheads, false eyes, and fake cigars. All that sort of 60s costume-y stuff is so creepy to me.
Starting point is 00:37:27 Everything is scary. Yeah, it's all really... It reaches peak scary in the like 70s. When the footage is grainy, 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.
Starting point is 00:37:43 That the players got less than 10 pounds each. But a lifetime of stories to impress their grandchildren with them, I'm sure. 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 an E for Pulse section.
Starting point is 00:38:12 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 rank, from the Royal Philharmonic and the London Symphony Orchestra.
Starting point is 00:38:37 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.
Starting point is 00:38:59 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 V and C.
Starting point is 00:39:20 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. 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.
Starting point is 00:39:38 Lectury, 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 that. It's just jazzy. It's freaking happy. It's freaking happy.
Starting point is 00:40:02 And, you know, I think this is one of those times when, like, we just had to point it out that, like, 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, draught the 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, the tension.
Starting point is 00:40:27 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. Yeah, it might be too heavy with just the John bit too
Starting point is 00:40:43 in half time. Yeah, 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.
Starting point is 00:40:56 We just get this like basically 16 bars before we go into the next section. And by the right amount. I do love this part. I mean, like 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 downstairs and drank a cup.
Starting point is 00:41:16 And 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.
Starting point is 00:41:30 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 breaths. Let's listen to the breaths again. Find my coat and grab my hat. And the coat in the hat, this all is very evocative. That's like a 30s coated hat. It's a 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.
Starting point is 00:42:10 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, 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, called Sunny Side of the Seventh. street, which he may know. This is a Dorothy Field's lyric, and let's listen to the opening lyrics. Grab your coat and get your hat.
Starting point is 00:42:39 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, 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. 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
Starting point is 00:43:09 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.
Starting point is 00:43:32 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 ayes? Yeah, what we just listened to, that lead note, the speculation, people don't know for sure. It's been speculated for years.
Starting point is 00:43:52 There's a long-going discussion who it is. To my ear, it has a little bit of like 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. Like, it feels to me, no matter who's singing it, that the appeal to the casual listeners that, like, oh, John's back. Here's another question.
Starting point is 00:44:14 Okay. And it may be your answer to it relates to who the lyric is singing that part. My answer is 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. Or is real life Paul's part and the dream? And I went into a dream because we're going back to John is...
Starting point is 00:44:32 That's how I always read it. 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. So you think the dreamer, John Linden himself. John is the dreamer and Paul is the real life.
Starting point is 00:44:49 John is vocalizing the dream. No, it's 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... That's John. Can I tell the internet? Listen, I know nothing.
Starting point is 00:45:04 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 Jean. Totally. Sounds like his timbre. Sounds like his vocal style.
Starting point is 00:45:16 Like, it just sounds like him. Totally. 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.
Starting point is 00:45:44 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- Chicken goes down awfully easy. That's exactly how they thought of it. That's how my music teacher used to teach that stuff. So let's listen to those chords, and then we'll talk about it. C. And then it kind of cycles again.
Starting point is 00:46:27 And it's sort of off because it's five chords instead of sort of our usual bore. 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 G. 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.
Starting point is 00:47:02 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 back to. get us there. So listen, this is chord changes. We've talked about this many times on the show. Like, core 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.
Starting point is 00:47:42 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 second, It's the same five chords, relatively speaking. It's going from the six, three, seven, four, one.
Starting point is 00:48:24 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.
Starting point is 00:48:54 Now go back to Hush. When you did quadruple time, that's when I heard. If you do quadruple time, so the chords are changed, 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.
Starting point is 00:49:22 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, you know, singing. 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.
Starting point is 00:49:49 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 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
Starting point is 00:50:16 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?
Starting point is 00:50:32 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.
Starting point is 00:50:46 So right now they're looking for a way to complete the song. Three, four. Oh, um, um, um, uh, eight,
Starting point is 00:50:57 check 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 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 partygoers for that last note.
Starting point is 00:51:16 But I love the fact that, like, 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 got to end it. We need something else. That was penultimate feeling. We need ultimate. 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.
Starting point is 00:51:44 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 53.5 seconds. So we won't be hearing the entire thing, but we'll give you a little taste.
Starting point is 00:52:03 So this is four pianos playing E major at the same time. Here we go. And as it's fading out, engineer Jeff Emerick is pushing up the fader gradually, the volume. So you can start to hear silent things get loud. Uh-huh. 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.
Starting point is 00:52:33 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. They had it. Well, it was take nine. They did it eight times not quite right. And on the ninth time, they used it, overdub that three times.
Starting point is 00:52:46 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 really take very simple things and really make them work.
Starting point is 00:53:08 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 fineness and it just, that the humming was like, eh, 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 into that?
Starting point is 00:53:29 Did I walk right into that? God, walked right into it. Listen, how about this is a concept? Who win? Team concept. Team concept wins. Oh, man, I ruined everything. I ruined my career.
Starting point is 00:53:43 My career is ruined. No, no, no, my friend. 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 minute's a sooner.
Starting point is 00:53:57 It's a great concept album. All right, luxury, 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, too. So Diallo, what do you think the legacy of a day in the life is? I think it's just an
Starting point is 00:54:23 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 like making sure the character in the first song is there the whole way through. But I think as it's typical... Sticks. Kilroy was here. Great concept album.
Starting point is 00:54:49 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 Game of Thrones, even though 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 simultaneously there was an intent to do something with some structure, with some integrity, to make it like a movie within an album.
Starting point is 00:55:17 They have the costumes, they have the characters, they have the cover art, they have the first, second and penultimate song with Sergeant Pepper into Little Help for My Friends, a bunch of other songs, and then Sergeant Pepper reprise. We have three songs that kind of connect. And 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 visuals.
Starting point is 00:55:42 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 Prague rock seemingly. Yeah. Seems to always be doing metal in Prague.
Starting point is 00:56:03 There's lots of 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, are of Siri. Super good. And corny.
Starting point is 00:56:29 I got to say, I think Prague rock is definitely a blind spot for me. Oh, so good. So we'll get to that. I know some people have asked for a Rush episode. We'll do it. Some people like to ask for the Colts She's Hell Sanctuary. We see you one of these days. great song, great request.
Starting point is 00:56:44 Coming soon, maybe. Keep listening. I'll tell you what was a concept album, Diggle Plant's first album. Because on that first album, they keep with the insect motif, the entire album. Right.
Starting point is 00:56:57 Which they kind of throw out when they get to blowout 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, but we're having a good time
Starting point is 00:57:07 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.
Starting point is 00:57:21 What's funny is I would actually argue that Digable Planet's second album, blowout comb, has more sonic elements that kind of go through the album. Like you'll hear a theme, da, da, da, da, like the horns, that comes and goes throughout the span of your listening experience. To me, that makes it more cohesive as an album.
Starting point is 00:57:39 And thematically, we have the sort of 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. Yeah. Just because something exists over here.
Starting point is 00:57:50 Like Midnight Marauders has the recurring, like, you're listening to Midnight Marauders. It has that thing throughout. That gives it some cohesiveness, but it doesn't make it a concept album. Yeah. But to your point, because the 70s is so concept album written, you can almost say,
Starting point is 00:58:05 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 rockin song, but this one is the Beatles at their most orchestral and throwing so many things.
Starting point is 00:58:36 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 sycomode. 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 Sculpture. 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,
Starting point is 00:59:05 between the Beach Boys and the Beatles. The Beach Boys with good vibrations were starting to break the mold for like songs. 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 Sergeant 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
Starting point is 00:59:40 point with SICO 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.
Starting point is 01:00:12 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 in 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 going to take it. They're going to take it. Speaking of closers, we need to close out this episode.
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Starting point is 01:01:21 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 10 p.m. till midnight, luxury. And I'm actor-writer director and sometimes DJ Diyahlero. This is one song. We will see you next time. This episode was produced by Casey Simonson, mixing and engineering by Eric Hicks.

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