Truly one of the most ravishing and mindblowing songs ever recorded: epic, beautiful, cinematic. Hearing it for the first time in 1967 was one of the lifechanging events in my life as a young rock and roller. ‘A Day In The Life’ altered my sense of what a rock song could be, it expanded the scope and vision of rock and roll in the way that Walt Whitman enlarged poetry, it opened the field for future artists to experiment on a new scale of creative imagination that was fresh to the form. The extraordinary Pet Sounds had preceded it by a year. But, as groundbreaking as Brian Wilson’s masterpiece was, The Beatles took things to the next level (argue amongst yourselves).

Released both in stereo and mono as a track on Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, here’s the 2009 stereo remaster of ‘A Day In The Life.’

The video is cool too.
 

the best thing about the beatles was yoko ono

These 2009 reissues really knocked me socks off.  I Am The Walrus made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck.  It’s very vivid.

>Hearing it for the first time in 1967 was one of the lifechanging events in my life as a young rock and roller.

I tell you, I heard this song a long long time after you and I was still young. I was driving a Taxi Cab these days and I used to listen to the American Forces Network then, because they were among the only listenable stations in germany.

However: I was 19 or 20 or something, I just was getting sick of all that Electro/Techno-Thing (which was why I listened to AFN) and I had a Nightshift behind me as a Taxi Driver. I think I drove a hooker that day, but probably my mind fools me there. And if it’s not: She called our Taxi-Station to get her away from something and when I arrived, she threw some losely packed Suitcases in the back of the car and shouted „Get me out of here“ and I drove.

We didn’t have to drive very far, she wanted to get to a hotel near the next city, so I dropped her there. Then I picked up and dropped some customers wherever they wanted to go and then nightshift was over. I pointed the steering wheel (can you believe I just misspelled this as “Wheeling steer”? However…), drove on what you guys would call a highway, the sun showed its first orange colors in the sky and in the dawn…

This song started.

Boy. What an experience this was. This was my *first real* encounter with the Beatles, that was when I learned, they are more than that “Yesterday” and “She loves you yeayeayea” and stuff. I drove down that highway with the sun starting to shine in a new morning and then there was that ending. That one Sound, that I will never, ever forget.

At this Moment I learned more about music, than ever before and ever after.

Thanks for bringing up this memory again, Marc. I mean it. Thanx.

“the best thing about the beatles was yoko ono’

ooh, you’re so fucking hip.

Rene,

great story and I love the way you told it, from the heart.

she induced their sonic experimentation and introduced fluxus, cage, art, philosophy, etc

<i>she induced their sonic experimentation and introduced fluxus, cage, art, philosophy, etc </i>

By the time John met Yoko, they’d already recorded and released seven albums, including Revolver.

Yoko’s great. But no. She most certainly did not induce their sonic experimentation.

“she induced their sonic experimentation and introduced fluxus, cage, art, philosophy’”

I think LSD induced sonic experimentation, art and philosophy in The Beatles way before John met Yoko.

Your post really caught the sense of first hearing that particular song, mostly because it just stood out from preconceptions of what was possible within the formats. One other aspect I recall when I first heard it at my young age was that it was unsettling, the nice bits to recall (woke up, got out of bed, dragged a comb….) and the stranger storyline delivered in that newer Lennon voice that contained the first signs of a sneer.

As for the whole Beatles-baiting Yoko meme that seems to come whenever interesting aspects of the Beatles are discussed, yes well really, the Yoko retrospective really cemented her reputation as an artist-leader. In her mind.

Actually that exhibition served as a reminder of just how limited she was, just one of a gang of Fluxus-inspired artists stuck in the 60s tropes forever - not unlike Merseybeat-era groups who kept trying to re-use the same formula actually, only replace Merseybeat with Fluxus. She was precisely the analogy to if the Beatles never moved on from Beatles 65. She never had her Sgt. Pepper let alone Revolver. Lennon gave her that ability to break out of her form for a moment just as she did his. But he had by himself already managed a huge arc in his own albums with the Beatles while she did…. what exactly. The same kinds of disciple films all Fluxus-inspired was doing at the time. Nothing that stood that much out except she was a woman. But there were other woman producing who had voices on their own too. After Lennon died, basically sums up the reality that her real art was combining the banker at heart, with the lifestyle of her art partnership with Lennon. Which in itself I would agree is an artform more contemporary than her silly Fluxus doodles, and more recent BRONZES…. Imagine Lennon thinking about doing a Bronze sculpture. Seriously.

I have championed and defended Yoko multiple times in heated debate over the years. Most recently on my Facebook page. In order to bolster my argument that she produced some very influential and important music, I re-visited her first couple of albums to refresh my memory. While I still found them artistically viable and occasionally exciting, overall my memory of her music outshone the experience of listening to it in the moment.

I can’t defend Yoko’s music, but I still find her 60’s Fluxus pieces to be beautiful and poetic. And even though she was working within an art movement, I also thought her particular work was unique.

I’m glad she endured through all that racist/sexist crap everyone threw at her for decades. She still is an interesting artist. Queen of the avant-garde.

This mix is pretty terrible. Nice and clear but the vocals panning around then randomly turning up hard left or right doesn’t sound very good. Overall the stereo separation is too wide and doesn’t help make it sounds a like a cohesiveness piece of music.

Actually that exhibition served as a reminder of just how limited she was.