Current Events > So I've been listening to Beatles and what's the appeal to A Day In The Life?

(+) Yeah! (+)

It's a cool song and I like how it's significant enough to be set out of the Sgt. Pepper's theme, but people are literally saying it's the GOAT Beatles song and I'm not sure what's the appeal

The lyrics are fairly self-explanatory and the subject was all just current events
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leverageblargh posted...

When you're listening to A Day In The Life just remember that it's not like listening other Beatles songs

go on
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How else are you going to know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall?
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I like the song. The Beatles have a lot of unusual songs. Most people have a few they don't like.
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I like a bunch of Beatles songs more. It's good though.
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It's a great song but I don't think it should even be ranked in their Top 5 tbqh.
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I feel the same way. I've just never quite gotten it.
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When you're listening to The Beatles, just remember that they're not like other bands. Their music is incredibly artistic, almost to the point where you have to be paying complete attention to them to even remotely understand them. I remember listening to a song on Revolver (though I can't remember what it was), where I thought a song was absolute bollocks during the listen. Then, I closed my eyes for a second, and all of a sudden the song had an entirely new meaning. It was insane the way The Beatles could just become something so different when you take a look into the music.

Another thing you should note about The Beatles is that it's easy to get a headache listening to them. Not because they're a bad band, but because of how many ideas their music is riddled with and how complex they are. Soon enough your head will fill to the brim and the rest will just sound like noise to you. Just turn it off and give it a listen the next day.

If you don't like the music, you'll definitely at least enjoy reading through the lyrics, and picking apart the song itself and all of the artistic values that go into making it the complexity that it is.
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Their best song is I am the walrus
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YookaLaylee posted...

Their best song is I am the walrus

Good song.

I like Blackbird and Eleanor Rigby, but they're both too short. :(

But really quite a few of the songs from Magical Mystery Tour, Abbey Road, Revolver, or Sgt. Pepper's could be argued as top 5 Beatles material, they just have that much good music.

Rubber Soul has a few good ones as well.

If I had to make a list of my top 5 albums of all time, A Night at the Opera by Queen, and 4 Beatles albums would probably make the list...
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Fun trivia. A Day in the Life is a bit of a frankenstein work. John and Paul both had two different, incomplete songs written. They ended up mashing them together to get ADitL.

As for what its so beloved for? Idk. But apparently the closing instrumentation is supposed to be famous.
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It inspired ELO
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It tells the story of how Paul died... I'm pretty sure that's why it's a big deal.

KazumaKiryu posted...

It tells the story of how Paul died... I'm pretty sure that's why it's a big deal.

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To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand A Day in the Life. The appeal is extremely subtle, and without a solid grasp of music most of the lyrics will go over a typical listeners head. Theres also Johns nihilistic outlook, which is deftly woven into his characterisation- his personal inspiration draws heavily from the death of Guinness heir Tara Browne, for instance. The fans understand this stuff; they have the intellectual capacity to truly appreciate the depths of these jokes, to realise that theyre not just funny- they say something deep about (A Day in the) LIFE. As a consequence people who dislike A Day in the Life truly ARE idiots- of course they wouldnt appreciate, for instance, the humour in Johns existential catchphrase I'd love to turn you on, which itself is a cryptic drug reference which resulted in the song initially being banned from broadcast by the BBC. Im smirking right now just imagining one of those addlepated simpletons scratching their heads in confusion as John Lennons genius wit unfolds itself on their iPhones. What fools.. how I pity them.

And yes, by the way, i DO have a Beatles tattoo. And no, you cannot see it. Its for the ladies eyes only- and even then they have to demonstrate that theyre within 5 IQ points of my own (preferably lower) beforehand. Nothin personnel kid
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You actually have to be a dog to understand A Day in the Life. There are sounds people can't hear in it.
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Seriously though, listen to the actual lyrics about the car wreck and a crowd formed to watch because they knew the man, and how he'd love to turn you on...

Then go listen to Revolution 9, and then play it backwards. You will hear the car crash. You will hear the screaming for help. You will hear the crowd father and shriek. Then you will hear the voice repeatedly say turn me on, dead man.

Lol

Great responses

But yeah, I can get the love for their other songs but saying A Day In The Life is GOAT comes off as me not getting rock all that much
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AlisLandale posted...

Fun trivia. A Day in the Life is a bit of a frankenstein work. John and Paul both had two different, incomplete songs written. They ended up mashing them together to get ADitL.

As for what its so beloved for? Idk. But apparently the closing instrumentation is supposed to be famous.

This here. I like it for what it is but in my eyes it can never be great because of what it is. Just two half songs thrown together.
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I'd love to turn you on
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AlisLandale posted...

Fun trivia. A Day in the Life is a bit of a frankenstein work. John and Paul both had two different, incomplete songs written. They ended up mashing them together to get ADitL.

As for what its so beloved for? Idk. But apparently the closing instrumentation is supposed to be famous.

They actually did that quite a lot. "I've Got a Feeling" is another example. The part where John sings "everybody had a hard year" and so on was a completely different song that he never finished, so they worked it into "I've Got a Feeling."

And yeah the closing chord of "A Day In the Life" is the famous part. At the time it was really strange to have a note be sustained for that long. You can hear a chair creaking about a minute into it from someone moving around
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thompsontalker7 posted...

Lol

Great responses

But yeah, I can get the love for their other songs but saying A Day In The Life is GOAT comes off as me not getting rock all that much

idk how to explain it, i guess if you dont get the song by listening to it then you don't get it. a day in the life is just very ambitious and avant garde for a beatles song, it has some lyrics that were very iconic and resonated with a lot of people, the song changes structures a lot, there's that orchestra part at the end, etc.

all of it just blew audiences minds back then. dont forget that the beatles were still a pop group and were wildly famous before sgt peppers, so there is a lot of people listening to this weird (to general 1960s audiences) type of music they had never heard before and having no basis for comparison.
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Never could see any other way.
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I think a common mistake people make with the Beatles is comparing them to stuff that came after and then asking "what's so special about these guys?" But they fail to realize that at the time there was literally nothing like them. Damn near everything they did was fresh and new and had never been done before. They may not seem so impressive now, but you have to think about it in context. Almost every artist since the Beatles owes at least something to them. That's how influential and groundbreaking they were.

Yes I'm a Beatles fanboy
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They brought a bunch of people into the studio when they recorded it. It was one big party. Geoff Emerick wrote a whole chapter on producing that song
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