A Day in the Life, Fifty Years On

Fifty years on, still one of the most remarkable recordings ever made. Let's see how it happened:

Tues Jan 17 - In the Daily Mail, John Lennon reads the coroner's report on Tara Browne's car crash as well as a little piece about 4,000 holes in the road in Blackburn, Lancashire.

Thur Jan 19 - Lennon's written his part of the song, and brought it to Abbey Road. The first recording takes place, with Lennon singing and playing guitar, McCartney on piano, Harrison on marracas, and Ringo on bongos. They leave 24 bars blank for something - what it will be has yet to be determined - that will happen between the two sections of Lennon's song, and again at the end. Mal Evans counts these sections off, and sets off an alarm clock at the end of his count. There is no middle section at this point - after the mysterious 24 bar something the song goes straight into the final verse. The band does three takes, using just two of the four available tracks. Take four is Lennon overdubbing two more lead vocals on the two blank tracks.

Fri Jan 20 - A reduction mix is made of the previous days work, comping the three Lennon vocals to achieve a final - for the moment - lead vocal and creating available tracks for more work.  McCartney's middle section, with a vocal and an instrumental section, makes its first appearance. It is placed between the first 24 bar section and Lennon's final verse. Paul overdubs a bass track, Ringo overdubs drums, and Lennon takes another crack at the lead vocal.

Mon Jan 30 - George Martin makes a rough mono mix for demo purposes. The band moves on to other material (a new one from Paul called "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and a new one from John called "Good Morning, Good Morning.")

Fri Feb 3 - Having presumably listened to the demo, Paul records a new bass part and Ringo replaces his drum part with a series of fills on his toms.

Fri Feb 10 - McCartney had hit on the idea of the orchestra buildup to replace fill the two blank 24 bar sections. George Martin had prepared a conventional score for the orchestra to link McCartney's section with Lennon's final verse. He had also prepared a decidedly unconventional score for the other parts - "Start on the lowest note of your instrument, arrive at the highest E major by the 24th bar, and pay no attention to how the fellow next to you is doing it."
On this evening, 40 musicians were hired to record this strange bit. In order to make the sound as massive as possible, Martin and his engineers (Ken Townsend and Geoff Emerick) ran two four track machines together. Such a procedure had never been attempted before, at least not at Abbey Road, but Townsend had figured a way to sync the machines together. It allowed them to record the orchestra four times, using all four tracks of the second machine, effectively creating a 160 piece orchestra. Martin would later note that the synchronization is a little off - "rather a hit and miss affair, and the orchestra is slightly out of time in places.")
Film cameras were there to record the fun, and many guests were invited as you can see from the video. The most recognizable would be Mick and Marianne, Keith Richards, Michael Nesmith, and Donovan.
When the orchestra had finished its work, the band attempted to record the song's ending, which at this point was going to be a long, loud "Hmmmm." They did 11 takes of this, and mixed it down.

Wed Feb 22 - A new idea for the song's ending, probably from McCartney who leads the session. He, Lennon, Ringo, and Mal Evans gather round three pianos and attempt to bash out an E major chord simultaneously. It took nine takes to get that right (bear in mind that two of the participants were a drummer and a roadie), and Geoff Emerick then played all kinds of games with his faders to squeeze every last second of dying sound out of chord as it faded. Once that was done, the remainder of the session was devoted to making mono and stereo mixes of the song.

Thu Feb 23 - The final stereo mix was finished.

Wed Mar 1 - Although the final mixes were in the can, McCartney records a piano overdub. It would never be used.

Thu Jun 1 - Album released in the UK.