A Day In The Life

Hmm ... is "art" in general "important"? I guess to some it is, usually to the types of humans that have filled the lower echelons of Maslau's hierarchy, in that they aren't wondering where the next meal is coming from, people like us. Maybe art is important to all if it can contribute to social change? But this of course assumes that "social change" is important to all.

Having said that, "A Day In The Life" is a fine piece of work IMHO. My interpretation is that it is probably the pinnacle of The Lennon & McCartney & MARTIN partnership for a number of reasons.

1. That fine piano chord at the end :-) Three pianos - George Martin was on piano A, John on piano B, and Paul on piano C, at the prescribed moment they all together hammered down on that crashing E chord and held it. It goes on for some time, a minute later you can hear the dying embers of it, they had to turn the mikes up and you can even hear the air conditioners working in the Abbey Road studio. But I jest, this is just a good ending.



2. There are no harmonies in it, so suggests a departure from their early days to their more "serious" stuff.



3. John wrote a song with a beginning and an end, but with no middle, that was Paul's bit. And just like "We Can Work it Out" - which was similarly constructed - represents the juxtaposition of John's pessimism with Paul's optimisim. A mixture that quite accurately reflects the state in which most people seem to find themselves in.



4. The George Martin scored orchestral build-ups could not be produced by a computer - even now. They are very analog in nature, not random but just, well, human, quite terrifyingly so I would say. For instance, compare it to something that borrowed heavily from it, the big C chord you hear at the start of some DVD's/movies that have THX sound. This noise is generated by a 20,000 line C program, and you can tell that it's digital in nature (it too is a great noise).



5. The song was banned. The naughty line "I'd love to turn you on" probably did more to bring on the Flower Power Drug age than any other song.



6. The fondness with which George remembers John when talking the viewer through thie recording of this track on the Beatles Anthology DVD set. He has teary eyes and a wistful smile as he play's John's count-in, instead of "1-2-3-4" it's "Suger-plum fair-ie, suger-plum fair-ie ...." and John's voice is well - angelic - I think this is the only word to describe it. He always claimed to have built in vibrato :-)

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For underrated/unknown songs, nobody has ever heard of "Temptation" by New Order. The first time John Peel heard this song he freely admits that he openly wept. It's one of the greatest songs ever made, some classic lines such as "Tonight I think I'll walk alone, I'll find my soul as I go home" and "Bolts from above hit the people down below, people in this world we have no place to go". A good summary of the human condition again. Bernard Albrecht's guitar playing meshes so seamlessly with Peter Hook's fretless bass, it's just very syncopated. They weren't so good live though. Another underrated album is Magazine's "The Correct Use of Soap".

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I can't recall that Who song, I'm not a big fan of The Who to be honest, I reckon that they were overrated in general for tunesmithing, but technically very good. Blasphemy I know. One song that winds me up no end is "Uptown Girl" by Billy Joel. Maybe anything by Billy Joel. "Middle of the road" in general winds me up. For me, Dire Straits only get away with it because Knopfler is such a good guitarist and the tunes are plain good.

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I asked my manager about overhead of employees and in the UK they use a 2x figure, so if you earn 100K per year your cost to the company is allocated at 200K per year. 200+ gallons of water per day seems way high. There is so much hydrogen and oxygen in the Universe that there really should not be a shortage of water. Another good reason to make spaceships to go get the stuff?

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Guessing based on cynicism usually a good way to guess !!?? Have faith brother :-)