A Day in the Life

A Day in the Life

The Beatles

For “A Day in the Life,” John Lennon wrote the opening and closing sections, while McCartney contributed the bridge. For the climax, they hired an orchestra of 40 musicians, dressed them in tuxedos and funny hats, and told them they had 24 bars to ascend from the lowest note on their instruments to the highest note closest to E major.

The song has often been rated as The Beatles' best, with reviewers calling it “one of the most ambitious, influential, and groundbreaking works in pop music history” and “perhaps one of the most important single tracks in the history of rock music.”

Lennon took his lyrical inspiration from the death of Tara Browne, heir to the Guinness Family fortune, who died in a car crash at the young age of 21 and was a good friend of the band’s members. He also used random newspaper stories; for instance, the “4,000 holes” line was from a real story in The Daily Mail about potholes in Blackburn.

The official music video was uploaded to YouTube on October 28, 2015. It originally appeared in their 1995 Anthology mini-series, but was taken from previously unreleased footage of the original recording sessions.