
How the Beatles Wrote ‘A Day in the Life’ - tintinnabula
https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/05/how-the-beatles-wrote-a-day-in-the-life/527001/?single_page=true
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rurban
There much more stories about how they wrote it. Eg. the story about the
orchestra. They booked the strings for a few days, but only had an idea of the
downgoing glissando. He explained it to them, but they just stared. What does
he mean? Which tones? So he took some empty note sheets, marked the beginning
and the end and then drew a straight line from the top left to the bottom
right, which was not easy because it spanned multiple lines. Now they got it.
And they could play it now easily.

Also the Andy Warhol story. He made a painting of the crashed Lotus, the one
they saw in the newspaper. I saw it live in my hometown's Warhol exhibition.
This was quite a moment. Not even the curator knew about "A Day in the life"
but it was so obvious.

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kej
One of my favorite things about this song is the way it was originally placed
on the record. There's the huge piano chord, then silence, then a high pitched
sound allegedly to mess with people's dogs, and then a second or two of
gibberish speech that endlessly loops around the inner circle of the record.

Digital media plays that gibberish for a few seconds and then fades out, which
is a different experience from the original record which would play it until
you actually stopped the record.

It reminds me of how the move from CRT to LCD televisions broke the NES light
gun, and makes me wonder what other edge cases we're unknowingly changing or
disabling with current technology upgrades.

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matchagaucho
For a more musical deconstruction, check out Scott Freiman's video.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTBB6iQbTsE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTBB6iQbTsE)

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bvm
Hmm, not sure about the very grandiose 'quadruple plagal cadence' over 'circle
of fifths'

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matchagaucho
aka "Hey Joe"

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carlob
It's also worth noting how heavily the whole Sgt. Pepper is influenced by
Freak Out! by Frank Zappa. That record basically singlehandedly started the
psychedelic revolution in rock. If you don't know it go listen to it!

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ZenoArrow
>"Freak Out! by Frank Zappa. That record basically singlehandedly started the
psychedelic revolution in rock."

Zappa did some amazing stuff, but he didn't invent psychedelic rock. Can read
more about the early history here:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid_rock](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid_rock)

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carlob
Not invented, right (but I didn't say exactly that). However in the context of
Sgt. Peppers:

According to David Fricke, the album was a major influence on The Beatles'
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Paul McCartney regarded Sgt. Pepper's
Lonely Hearts Club Band as The Beatles' Freak Out!

from Wikipedia

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ZenoArrow
Okay, but I'd say there were probably multiple major influences. Pet Sounds is
also meant to be a major influence on Sgt. Peppers:

[https://www.quora.com/How-did-The-Beach-Boys-Pet-Sounds-
infl...](https://www.quora.com/How-did-The-Beach-Boys-Pet-Sounds-influence-
Sgt-Peppers-Lonely-Hearts-Club-Band)

~~~
grasshopperpurp
It came out in '67, so it wouldn't have influenced Sgt. Peppers, but I read
that John Lennon had like 10 copies of Beefheart's Safe as Milk (Ry Cooder
played guitar on that one).

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emmelaich
According to Wikipedia Pet Sounds was released in 1966 and Sgt Peppers in
1967.

Not only that that but McCartney and Wilson both know that they were
influences on each other.

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jancsika
Is the major chord heard when a Mac boots up a reference to "A Day in the
Life"?

Also-- there's a complete transcription of the Beatles output published by Hal
Leonard. For the orchestral gliss from "A Day in the Life" there is an
ascending line drawn on a single staff, and the staff is titled "orchestra". I
thought that was pretty funny.

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Graham24
he's right it is not there best album, which is indeed rubber soul or
revolver, however when Lennon sings 'she was just 17, you know what I mean",
I've got a pretty damn good idea what he was on about...

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goatherders
Great article. Great story.

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HeavenBanned
That last E chord never fails to send shivers down my spine.

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sizzzzlerz
Only chord more famous is the one that starts Help!

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lovemenot
Surely you mean A Hard Day's Night?

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droithomme
Hey. So this domain blocks access. I'd like to propose that posts containing
links to all such domains be automatically held back. The reason is that posts
to sites that require paid access are clearly and unquestionably spam, which
is the promotion of paid material. And spam links should not be considered
legitimate posts on any social media site wishing to maintain credibility and
quality of discussion. Thanks for considering this.

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codebam
I'm not being blocked. Are you sure that your ISP isn't blocking the website?

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droithomme
When I click on the link it says I need to purchase a $39.99/year or
$3.99/month subscription to view the article.

(So weird someone is downvoting my posts about this, what possible reason
could there be to do such a thing.)

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acover
One reason: excluding all paid journalism seems dumb.

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droithomme
Ad hominems are fallacies.

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philbarr
I've come to think that quoting latin phrases at people is in itself a logical
fallacy. Is there a latin phrase for that?

