"A Day in the Life" is the grand finale of The Beatles influential 1967 album "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band". Many consider this to be the greatest song the group did, and see it as the pinnacle of the experimentation the four guys had been undertaking during the mid 60s.
2007 was its 40th anniversary, and it was of an immense deal that the cast of Eastenders did a cringeworthy tribute of it for Comic Relief (take some time to think before you go to this) and a whole bunch of other bands (from Stereophonics to The Fray) got together to do a cover album as a tribute too. But it was two years later in 2009, when I first listened to the album and therefore the song. I did not think that it was worth all that fuss. I found out that it was. It's still not my favourite of theirs though.
In terms of the track... I think I was looked at its article on Wikipedia one time (God knows why) and the overwhelming detail it listed about "A Day" - its background, the dates it was recorded on, the crescendos of the brass, the combination of Lennon and McCartney's separate song ideas, the almighty piano chord at the end - it made me think I was missing out on a song of epic proportions. I had to listen to it.
Funnily enough, I didn't care for it so much the first time. I was thirteen. This opinion has changed. It is one of the greatest album closers ever.
To put it simply, everything in the song is from the poster. The horse's name wasn't Henry though. It was actually "Zanthus". I don't think "Zanthus the horse dances the waltz" would have been as good of a lyric though. Mind you, if they had used that lyric it wouldn't have been banned on the BBC for supposed "drug references". Silly BBC.
If you own the vinyl version of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band", this song closes the first side of the album. To emphasise the circus theme of the song, their renowned producer George Martin asked the engineer to chop up recordings of various faiground organs and calliope music, throw them in the air and reassemble them at random. These are the noises used for the instrumental break, and also during the outro of the song. It took five days for the band to make this, and is regarded to be one of the more complex songs on the album.
It's used in this epic mix on the LOVE album from 2006 too.
Until tomorrow.
Jamie.
Kings of Leon - "Supersoaker"
Alright! So Kings of Leon are back, and this is their new single "Supersoaker". There's the audio-video right up there.
It premiered yesterday on Zane Lowe's radio show on BBC Radio 1. I missed the first time it played.
But then it played again later..... and I was quite pleased! Only a few posts ago was I talking about how I didn't like the new sound that they were going for now and how I was dissappointed that they had sold out or whatever. But this song is like a mix of that sound and their "Aha Shake Heartbreak" material. Reminds me of "Taper Jean Girl" in particular. This is what I wanted. They've gone back to where they once belonged. You can hear their roots in the song. The only recent song I can think of when they have done this is "Back Down South", and that's not even a bad song. I find myself singing that from time to time. Stick to your roots, KOL.
It's a thumping four-on-the-floor western rocker with Caleb's crooning vocals over the relentless guitars and jumpy bassline in the verses and everything. Yeah... I can dig this. This is a good first single.
Their new album "Mechanical Bull" is released in September.
