And everybody spoke and I went into a dream.

“A Day in the Life” is one of Lennon and McCartney’s best collaborations- making it The Beatles’ best song. It was the final song on Sgt. Peppers. By this time, both were very experimental with their lyrics so understanding (let alone interpreting) their songs is difficult. Lennon sings the verses; Paul the bridge.

The verses are made up of rather nonsensical takes on the news. He sings in a dreamy voice. During this part of the song the narrator is dreaming. As we hear the orchestra ascend, the narrator is drifting into consciousness where his is awoken by his alarm clock!

Here, Paul starts singing the bridge. He is very precise with his description of his activity as he gets ready for work and runs to catch the bus. This is a depiction of the narrator’s life. It is rather uneventful, like an average day in the life of any man or woman. He goes back into a dream and then we hear his dream voice again (Lennon’s voice).

The narrator begins to dream about bizarre things that he may have seen or heard throughout the day and it is all scrambled into a weird dream. Then it is almost time for the next day and we get the famous ascending chord again that ends the song right before the next morning—where we would go through the routine again.

Lennon obviously has the best part of the song here as the verse sounds much better than the bridge. But it appears that Paul and George Martin were the key players in the production that it took to make this song happen. It took three times longer to make and produce this song that it did to produce their entire first album. Since they didn’t have to reproduce this sound on stage (since they stopped touring) they were free to create crazy and experimental sounds like “A Day in the Life”.

A Day in the Life 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.
Made my way upstairs and had a smoke,
And everybody 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…

written by lennon/mccartney