When it comes to songs by The Beatles, ‘A Day in the Life’ is usually placed at the very top of the tree, or at least very close to it. In just four and a half minutes, Sgt Pepper’s sprawling closer whisks us from a melancholy meditation on a car crash in the papers, through a film about the Second World War, and on to a morning routine melting into a reverie.
And let’s not forget the acid-heightened orchestral crescendos or the song’s big double-piano-chord finish, which later inspired the start tone for Apple computers from the 1980s onwards.
Pausing for a moment at the end of that morning routine, though, we find Paul McCartney singing about the bus he’s just caught, as he belts out: “Found my way upstairs and had a smoke, And somebody spoke and I went into a dream…”
And so ends the section of the song that McCartney wrote on his own. Before we know it, we’re transported fully into the world of the dream he mentions. It’s not described or played out literally. It’s just heard. As immersive, haunting and menacing a moment of music as has ever graced a pop record. Or any record for that matter.
From nowhere, the key jumps from E to C, syncopated drum rhythms echoing the album’s title track completely contradict the staccato on-beats of McCartney’s middle section, and brass blares in threatening tones. We’re spinning dramatically out of control.
But spinning with us is a voice echoing from deep within the dream. A voice that sounds at once far away and close, pained and blissful, mystical and clear. It has nothing to say but a primal sound: “Ahhh”. It straddles major and minor modes of musical existence before suddenly the orchestra in the background sets us back down to the G chord of the song’s verses.
We’re left wondering, who, or what, is this voice? We know that the song’s verses belong to Lennon, with his tragic contemplations of lives alien from his own. And the middle is McCartney’s, with its descending piano line and pragmatic, active approach to the day.
We can hear both voices on the bridging lyric before the orchestral crescendos. Lennon and McCartney sing “I’d love to turn you on” to each other in one of their last truly great moments of artistic collaboration. But the dreamy “ahhhs”? They sound like they’ve come from another dimension.
So, who actually sings the “ahhhs” in ‘A Day in the Life’?
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Who sang this part of the song is still hotly debated to this day. In his much-derided autobiography Here, There and Everywhere, The Beatles’ sound engineer Geoff Emerick suggested it was John Lennon. More recently, Paul McCartney suggested in an online Q&A that The Beatles all sang the part. According to The Globe and Mail, there is also a school that ascribes the voice to McCartney alone.
Listening to the recording closely, I noticed that it very much sounds like one voice, particularly as it almost cracks towards the end of the section, wavering ghostlike between two notes. But it does have the distinctive nasal twang of Lennon rather than McCartney’s throaty falsetto.
With the vocal part isolated, the sound of Lennon’s voice rings even truer, while McCartney (and potentially others) seem to be making some off-key space-age sound effects in the background.
It’s interesting that this vocal line was one of the last things to be added to ‘A Day in the Life’. The version of the song’s basic track on Anthology 2 has otherwise complete vocals. Ringo’s drum part is polished, and aside from the odd mistake, each of the band seems settled into their respective roles in the song. But there are no “ahhhs”. Only an instrumental interlude, with orchestral overdubs planned.
The dream seemingly had to be realised in all of its multi-layered, multi-faceted majesty before Lennon and/or McCartney could vocalise 25 seconds of transcendence. And then, finally, perfect, arguably the greatest thing The Beatles ever accomplished.
