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Fact #51575

When:

Short story:

Guinness heir and socialite Tara Browne, a friend of The Beatles, is killed when his car crashes in West London, England, UK, Europe. The coroner's report of his death, in the Daily Mail on January 17, will inspire John Lennon to begin writing the song A Day In The Life.

Full article:

Paul McCartney : A brilliant song. Basically John's song, but I worked on it with him from the start. He told me his idea, which was basically to base the lyric on newspaper articles, so we flipped through the newspaper and found little articles, like one about holes in the street in Blackburn, Lancashire, and another one about the Albert Hall, and John cleverly linked the two things together with 'now you know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall', which got us banned, because the BBC thought we were being rude, which we weren't. (censorship)

So that was a great memory, and I love that kind of big production thing. That little middle bit of mine, 'Woke up, fell out of bed…' is basically me catching the bus to go to school from Forthlin Road where I lived in Liverpool, just a pure diary moment, an autobiographical kind of thing.

So putting that in the middle of this very surrealist song was unusual, and on top of that we dared to write 'I'd love to turn you on.' which we knew was kind of a little bit radical and a little bit naughty, but we just gave each other a little mischievous look and said, 'C'mon man, throw it in' because the times were finally ready for it.

Keith Richard (guitarist, Rolling Stones) : There was this friend of ours called Tara Browne who died about three years ago and, at the time, Brian (Brian Jones of The Rolling Stones] and I agreed that he, Brian, wouldn't live very long either. I remember saying, 'You'll never make thirty, man.' And he said, 'I know.'
(interview with Ray Connolly, Dec 1969)

Jackson Browne : I remember hearing A Day in the Life on the radio. It was off a Beatles acetate, before the Sgt. Pepper album even came out. Nothing before had prepared me for this incredible song. It was a milestone, and it changed everything.