Song Lyric Sunday: I Read The News Today

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Today’s subject for Song Lyric Sunday, as set out by Jim in his post Album Closer, is to play a song that made a great closing track to an album. My choice is a pretty obvious one, and I suspect that others may well play it too: after all, it is one of the most written and talked about songs in the fifty six years since it was first released. I usually give you more than one song in these posts, but not today: this one stands head and shoulders above anything else, and for me any other song would pale in its shadow. If my title hasn’t already given you a big clue to the song, here it is:

Did I say that it was well known? That video has more than 154m views on YouTube, so I guess it is. And in case you need them, here are its lyrics:

I read the news today, oh boy
About a lucky man who made the grade
And though the news was rather sad
Well, I just had to laugh
I saw the photograph

He blew his mind out in a car
He didn’t notice that the lights had changed
A crowd of people stood and stared
They’d seen his face before
Nobody was really sure if he was from the House of Lords

I saw a film today, oh boy
The English Army had just won the war
A crowd of people turned away
But I just had to look
Having read the book
I’d love to turn you on

Woke up, 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
Found my coat and grabbed my hat
Made the bus in seconds flat
Found my way upstairs and had a smoke
And somebody spoke and I went into a dream

I read the news today, oh boy
Four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire
And though the holes were rather small
They had to count them all
Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall
I’d love to turn you on

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: John Lennon / Paul McCartney

A Day in the Life lyrics © Kanjian Music, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

A Day In The Life is, of course, the closing track to The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album, which was released in May 1967. As I said, it has been much discussed, and rather than regurgitate loads of it here, if you’d like to read more about it I recommend this Wikipedia article, which you will see is the source of my header image. That comes from a sheet music version: I wonder how many tried and failed miserably to get even close to the original! One thing that does intrigue me is that the inspiration for the song largely came from an article in the Daily Mail, that well known provider of accurate, unbiased news reporting. Even back then they were, apparently, given to making up their own stories and taking them into the realms of the unknown: they asserted that the UK’s roads contained more than 2m holes on the basis of the Blackburn figure and may have been right, but who knows? The song was banned by the BBC for supposed drug references in the lyrics, which the band denied, though they did use that to join the campaign to legalise marijuana, so maybe tongues were firmly in cheeks? The ban was eventually lifted seven years later, by which time no one needed the BBC to play it anyway, as we were all familiar with it!

Much has also been said about the Lennon/McCartney songwriting partnership, and that songs can actually be easily identified as having been written by one of them independently of the other. Both of them have given the other credit for involvement in the process, though, and this is a typical example of that: it is John’s song, but he credits Paul with adding to his original draft, by including the middle section. It was very much a team effort, as the Wikipedia article describes, especially around the way some of the sound effects were achieved.

I’ll give you one (edited) extract from Wikipedia, as it explains the background to what you see in the video: The Beatles hosted the recording of the orchestral session as a 1960s-style ‘happening,’ with guests including Mick Jagger, Marianne Faithfull, Keith Richards, Brian Jones, Donovan, Pattie Boyd, Michael Nesmith, and members of the psychedelic design collective the Fool. It was filmed for use in a projected television special that never materialised. Reflecting the Beatles’ taste for experimentation and the avant garde, the orchestra players were asked to wear formal dress and then given a costume piece as a contrast with this attire. This resulted in different players wearing anything from fake noses to fake stick-on nipples. George Martin recalled that the lead violinist performed wearing a gorilla paw, while a bassoon player placed a balloon on the end of his instrument. A little bit of additional trivia for you: one of the violinists was a chap called David McCallum, who was the father of the recently deceased actor of the same name (think Ilya Kuryakin or Dr Donald ‘Ducky’ Mallard).

That’s enough waffle from me. Just enjoy the genius of the best closing track to an album that there has ever been.

See you again for Tuesday Tunes 😊

55 thoughts on “Song Lyric Sunday: I Read The News Today”

  1. I certainly didn’t know all that about the recording session. I am always think It was such a short time span between a Hard Day’s Night, film and songs and this album. Also in my young life , by this time I was in Australia and my friends and I were obsessed with Australian pop stars, our favourite being long forgotten!

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    • They were just three years apart, and the band had come a long way in that time.

      I guess you knew of the Easybeats before we did, then. Not much Australian music made its way here back then, apart from he who shall be nameless – can you guess who I mean, yet?

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      • Rolf Harris? His name was eradicated in Perth, where he came from! When we had to clear out my uncle’s house fifteen years ago, amongst the many books was ‘Rolf Harris on Art’ – smiling face on the cover. What to do with it, we thought can’t take it to the charity shop. I found it the other day when looking for something else, buried at the bottom of a box under other stuff… still don’t know what to do with it!

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    • Yes, I think they’ll do well for themselves!

      This was the one that immediately sprang to mind for me. If you’d like to see what others have chosen, the link in my post to Jim’s will give you all the pingbacks. A mixed bunch!

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  5. A true classic Clive. What an extraordinary band they were.
    I have to admit that I found this song very scary when I first heard it and often lifted the needle to avoid listening to it as a 12 or 13 year old!

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  10. Great choice, Clive. John Lennon and Paul McCartney scanned the Daily Mail for Jan 17th. 1967 and their eye caught the following short article, “There are 4000 holes in the road in Blackburn Lancashire, one twenty-sixth of a hole per person, according to a council survey. If Blackburn is typical then there are over two million holes in Britain’s roads and 300,000 in London.” And though the holes were rather small, they had to count them all, now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall. Thanks for joining in with this fantastic song today.

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      • Not a fan of that one? It’s not one of my favorites, but I do like it because I’m a sucker for Paul’s love songs and this one is such a sad one. Even though he was left in a pool of tears he keeps going back to her in his mind. 😦

        What amazes me is when I think about the Beatles and their genius and the fact that John and Paul were both born not only so close together, but in the same city. Then add in George and (I suppose to be fair!) Ringo and what are the odds of something like that happening?

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      • Nope. It’s not my kind of thing at all, and I’d probably say the same about many of his love songs tbh!

        It wasn’t just The Beatles: there were loads of bands coming out of Liverpool at that time. Must have been something in the water 😊

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  14. This is an amazing song. It’s a bit prophetic seeing what happened to John years later, dyeing a violent death. And it certainly hit the news. We are coming up to the anniversary of that sad event too.

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  17. I am going to offer you two great album-closing songs, one hardly anyone knows because it is by a Csnadian band, the other by an Englush group but few people I know sppreciate it, that are very personal to me. But no one has ever written out the complete lyrics of either one for various reasons. Both were released in 1968. Both changed my life. They are a bit long, but worth playing to the end…

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