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0:00 coming up next they were the first band to really throw away the rule book uh they were used to writing catching number one hits for everybody but with today's brilliant concept album they shatter the boundaries of song Arrangement and forever changed the art of recorded music and you know during the time that they were creating their Masterpiece they were actually in a race with another Progressive band with a goal to create the greatest record ever ever the pressure was on the race was on and this record that they did was only recorded on a fourt trck machine now the last cut on the groundbreaking record it was a mind-altering composition inspired by the death of a notorious socialite and it may have invented a whole new genre now it had an accidental bridge that started out as its own song and it was only meant to be filler but in this
0:45 song it became a revelation now this song it would have been a Surefire number one hit one of the greatest songs ever but the band never put it out but it was so exceptional it put them in a class all their own and it became the greatest album closer ever see if you agree with me we raised the curtain on this Fantastic Voyage Across The Perils of Stone Cold realism and the fantasy of imagination coming up next I'm professor of [Music] rock hey music junkies professor of rock always here to celebrate the greatest artists and the greatest songs of all time especially today you know if you want the stories of your favorite songs straight from the Legends who created these these compositions make make sure that you subscribe below right now again
1:33 we get it straight from the horse's mouth make sure to click the Bell so you never miss out on our latest also for full interviews and other exclusive content make sure to click on our patreon link that helps us keep this a daily channel so it's time for another edition of number one in our hearts this is where we honor a song that absolutely should have been a number one hit on the Billboard Hot 100 and this one's a no-brainer it changed everything by the greatest band of their time if not all time it began with the title in the life of and it evolved into a day in the life Track by The [Music] Beatles claimed as an avanguard Masterpiece the impetus of this song came from John Lennon's random perusing
2:18 of the British newspaper The Daily Mail uh when he learned of the death of his friend Tera Brown that led to the first line of the song I read the news today oh boy when the greatest first lines ever I news Bo John Lennon and Paul McCartney the co-authors of A Day in the Life they actually knew Tara Brown very well he was the 21-year-old heir of the Guinness Fortune popular Irish stout beer brand Brown was constantly in the tabloids as a notorious socialite labeled as a spoiled rich kid from The Swinging London counterculture of the 60s who you know spent lavishly on wild parties Brown once hired the band The Love and Spoonful over 1,000 to play a private concert just for him his most infamous
3:07 party was the celebration of his 21st birthday held at his parents' Manor in the wicko mountains Brown paid for private jets to fly all 200 of his guests to this party including celebrities like Michael Kane Peter sers MC Jagger Brian Jones and Paul McCartney who ended up not being able to attend because the Beatles were recording at ABY Road it's been widely documented that brown was the person that convinced Paul mccarten he to take LSD for the very first time even though John George and Ringo had been regularly using LSD Sir Paul resisted the baiting of his band maides for a very long time before succumbing to the peer pressure of terara brown on December 17th 1966 Brown was driving on the Streets of London in
3:53 his Lotus Alan sports car with his girlfriend model Suki poder he was reportedly speeding in the exess of 100 Mil an hour this is when he ran a red light and he smashed into a parked truck the injuries from the crash proved fatal and brown was pronounced dead just a few hours after the accident his girlfriend Suki she was not hurt she told authorities that brown sharply turned the wheel so that his side of the car would take the impact of the crash you know in a mad effort to save her life however the official reports stated that brown was driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs test results indicated that he had a pint of alcohol in his system at the time bottom line is um if
4:38 he really wanted to save his girlfriend's life Brown really shouldn't have been behind the wheel now 14 years later in Portugal uh Suki his girlfriend she wasn't so fortunate at the age of 33 poder was killed in another car crash it also took the life of her husband Robert hoe that was in 1981 the news about Brown's death was not surprising to John Lon he knew that he was literally on a collision course Brown told everyone that he wanted to be a race car driver and you know he lived his life on the edge John lenon was friends with brown but he wasn't as close to him as Paul McCartney was when lenon read about Brown's death he thought the whole thing was full of irony at the time of his death the world was Tera Brown's oyster I mean he was just four years from
5:24 inheriting the equivalent of more than $15 million in today's money nobody was he was the so getting back to terara Brown who was the socialite killed in that car wreck the headline in the daily Mel said it all dead a boy who had everything first one of a day and alive to Brown with Lenin calling him a lucky man who made the grade adding though the news was rather sad I just had to laugh well I just John lenon didn't try to duplicate the details of Tera Brown's demise you know that were printed in the newspaper article for a day in the life for example Brown did not blow his mind out as Lon wrote in the song most people
6:10 would think that meant suicide but he stated that what he had in his mind while writing that first verse was the image of a man on a suicide run he blew his mind out in a I also read into it myself that it could mean because he was high when he was driving and got into a fat car wreck he did in fact blow his mind out in a car now the last line in the first verse nobody was really sure if he was from the House of Lords that one confused Paul McCartney you on what the song was about after John had presented it to him that's because someone from the House of Lords is a member of the UK Parliament and Paul thought the subject of John's TB was a stone politician at
6:56 first now verse two begins with John seeing I saw a film today oh boy the English army had just won the war that's of course a reference to how I won the War the British black comedy that John lenon had acted [Music] in John lennin kicks off his third verse in the day in the life with what is essentially the vocal hook of the song I read the news today oh boy I read the news today oh boy and used an excerpt from a column with the heading far and near in the January 17th edition of the UK Daily Express 4,000 holes and Blackburn Lancer 4000 holes in Blackburn Lan and
7:44 though the holes were rather small they had to count them all Lennon's friend Terry Dolan helped him finish the verse and when John read the verse to him Dolan responded with Phil the Albert Hall John many the verses on a day in the life there were a collection of current event realism from the eye of the beholder Mr John Lennon his musings were affecting they were mysterious and very thought-provoking saw phot you know contrary to a typical Beatles recording the bizarre detour on a day in the life that was delivered by Sir Paul McCartney not by John Lennon
8:33 actually the roles were revers it was Paul who came up with the theurgic induced phase I'd love to turn you on which was indeed a drug [Music] reference McCartney's bridge in a day in the life which I might add the best Bridge ever that was a 180 mind twist that seemingly had nothing to do with the theme of the song sort of like an inexplicable part of a dream that suddenly burst out of your subconscious and it was a harbinger of sorts to the incohesive stylings in McCartney solo hit [Music] [Applause] uncleb the lyrics in the bridge were
9:19 originally intended to be used for another Beetle song um a lot of people don't realize that but Paul and John they decided to use it as filler not filler at all best Bridge ever found my way upstairs and had a smoke somebody spoke and I went into a dream found my way upstairs and had aoke now the mention of having a smoke that was translated by pretty much everybody who listened to it as smoking marijuana and of course the song was subsequently banned for AirPlay by the BBC that ban was later lifted though after author David story chose a day in the life as one of his desert island discs a [Music] when the Beatles were preparing for the recording of Sergeant Pepper lonely
10:05 hearts s ban The Fab Four were tired of doing out live concerts they were bored with the conventional procession of recording an album it was becoming uh also ran for after all I mean Sergeant Pepper would be their eighth studio album and they wanted to throw away the rule book and boy did they ever they Incorporated a variety of sty istic influences that were centered around a concept of a fictional band that was invented by Paul McCartney it would be an alter ego of The Beatles and that would give John Paul George and Ringo the Fab 4 the Liberty to do whatever they wanted to do they were also in a bit of a race to
10:52 create the Next Great Sound The Great Masterpiece of popular music you this is after they heard the beach boy Opus Pet Sounds in fact at this time Brian Wilson was creating dumb angel or what would eventually become smile teenage Symphony to God this was happening at the same time and the two bands were inspiring one another you know you think about it Brian Wilson wrote Pet Sounds after being blown away by Rubber Soul that's a story for another day but let me know in the comments if you'd like me to cover the great rock and roll race and 1967 smile versus Sergeant Pepper one of the most interesting Rock stories I've ever [Music]
11:39 heard now the sessions for Sergeant Pepper they didn't follow the usual trappings of the studio where what was being recorded was private and very secretive Instead The Beatles invited dozens of friends including fellow musicians socialites media reps and childhood Chums you know they all turned into the sessions like it was a a big party the sessions for a day in the life were particularly festive starting with the hiring of 41 piece Orchestra the decision to hire the orchestra that was a mutual one between Paul and John but actually Paul was the instigator the band instructed the orchestral players to show up at the studio dressed in formal attire and then
12:24 they handed out novelty items for them to wear like clown noses and gorilla gloves and party hats proving once again that he can do it all Sir Paul conducted that Orchestra Paul's first directive was for the musicians to start playing their instruments in the lowest key possible and then gradually raising the scale to the highest note Paul's objective was to create a crescendo for the middle of a day in the life with a rising glissando effect with a a thundering climax you know reminiscent of and of the Gods in the Valhalla from the vagian Opera dos [Music]
13:12 Ringold now after Lennon's vibrating I'd love to turn you on the first Bridge begins with a count off 78910 by M Evans he was a Beatles tour manager was followed by the sound of a real alarm clock that rings at the 24th bar alerting The Beatles that it was almost time to resume playing the track and then Paul takes over up Evans who after the breakup of The Beatles became a troubled soul and was shot to death by police after a bizarre incident in [Applause] La at Crescendo and the second and final bridge is even more intense and then the song ends with one of the most revered chords in music history played on multiple keyboards sustaining the drama
13:59 for more than 40 seconds that famous piano chord played by 20 different parts four by Paul four by John four by Ringo four by Mel Evans and Sir George actually played several keyboards and a harmonium you know since A Day in the Life was the last cut on Sergeant Pepper The Beatles intentionally ended the track with a after the final note lenon told Martin to dub in a high-pitch tone that most humans can't hear but you know makes dogs go Bonkers that inhuman shriek was followed by a loop of unintelligible voices and
14:46 Studio noise before we hear voices say never could see any other way never been this high and what's that they were all spliced together the objective by The Beatles for this wonderfully strange finale was so when fans played out the groove on the lp vinyl it would sound like something went horribly wrong with the recording it was very intentional Sergeant Pepper man what can you say about this thing many of call it the greatest album of all time it's been held as the first art rock album and the first concept album that Lit the path for Blockbuster albums that would follow
15:31 like Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon and of course Tommy by The Who and David boy's rise and fall of Ziggy [Music] Stardust that being said A Day in the Life is the piece of resistance on Sergeant Pepper when a day in the life was finished and it was ready for playback The Beatles were generous about playing their avanguard Masterpiece for all their friends everyone was Blown Away by what they heard I believe the late David Crosby he had the most memorable account of what he heard uh in an interview some years ago of filter magazine cross stated that he was as near as he knew the first human being other than the ban and George Martin and the engineers to hear
16:17 aan the life he admitted that he was high as a kite so high he was hunting green with a rake is what he said the Fab force sat cros down in the studio the surrounded him with massive speakers that Crosby said looked like coffins with wheels on that rolled up on either side of the stool that he was sitting on by the time the song got to Paul's piano chord cros said his brains were on the [Music] floor unquestionably A Day in the Life is a mind-altering landmark recording there's so much going on in this song I hear something different every single time I listen to it the song itself is like serotonin for the brain incredibly
17:02 The Beatles George Martin and Jeff Emer were able to create one of the most Innovative and adventurous compositions with archaic fortrack tape machines flexibility of course was limited since all the sounds that were captured in that recording had to be created in the moment of those four tracks that is a staggering fact it's just hard to comprehend in this computer age of Unlimited Technology that we find ourselves in now Beatles have recorded So Many amazing songs that's why they've been Larger than Life since their International breakthrough in 1962 even though by 1970 they disbanded they went their separate ways Day in the Life ranks is one of the greatest Sound Engineering and artistic
17:48 achievements ever if not the greatest I mean it's mind blown every time I hear this song [Applause] okay I just freak out about the song going back to Tara Brown the light bulb inspiration for the song's conception the Rolling Stones co-leader Keith Richards he was shattered by Brown's death for many years Richards named his second son Tara after terara Brown sadly Tara Richards was born prematurely and died shortly after birth McCartney still owns a piano which he had painted in the same psychedelic pattern that adorned an AC Cobra sports car that terara actually owned he had a big impact on these guys a day in the life actually sparked a conspiracy theory as we all know that it
18:35 was McCartney and not brown who had died in a car crash and a lookalike had taken his place in the band of course contributing to the urban legend Paul is dead it's a subject for another episode many episodes [Music] actually I can still remember my dad opening the gatefold of Sergeant peppers Hearts Clan and you know pointing out several clues that he and his friends were theorizing upon I remember the first time I dad played this song for me never forget it I'll tell you what he said in just a second but I wanted to say that the late Jeff Beck re interpreted this song [Music]
19:20 amazingly there also some other great versions Barry Gibb the fall fish I saw a today [Applause] oh of people turned away Sting has an incredible live recording of the song also a day in the life with its spectacular surround sound exhilaration that also inspired the creation of deep note the audio trademark for the THX film company [Music] okay so the reason A Day in the Life wasn't a number one hit it's simple it
20:08 wasn't released as a single but even if the Beatles had released it it was so far ahead of its time I'm not sure the masses would have embraced it to get it to number one you know actually though now I think about it Sergeant Pepper the album that went to number one and it sold 11 million copies so I actually take that back I think it would have hit number one sorry as for what my dad said right before he put the needle on the vinyl he said you're about to hear a song that will blow your mind out quoting John lenon exactly like David Crosby after the song was over my brain was on the floor seriously just mindblowing I can't
20:54 say enough about this song and you know decades after my dad showed it to me I did the same thing with my eldest son a couple of years back I passed it on with my dad's own introduction word for word you're about to hear a song that's going to blow your mind out the power of music leave us a comment about the Beatles In A Day in the Life this absolutely mind-altering composition Have you shared the song with your kids with their kids and on and on this is a song that needs to be shared what are your thoughts on Sergeant Pepper the race between the Beach Boys and the Beatles let us know in the comments if you like our content we do invite you to be a full-time subscriber by subscribing
21:39 below until next time three courts and the truth my friends [Music]
