A Day In The Life

Written by: John Lennon, Paul McCartney

Initial Release: Sgt. Pepper Knew My Father; NME PEP LP-100

Date: February 1988

Subsequent Releases:

The Collection; Castle CCSCD365, March 1993
The Fall Box Set 1976-2007; Castle CMXBX1558, 10 September 2007
Group on initial recording:

MES – vocals; Brix Smith – guitar; Craig Scanlon – guitar; Steve Hanley – bass; Marcia Schofield – keyboards; Simon Wolstencroft – drums

Commentary:

From The Big Midweek (Steve Hanley and Olivia Pierkarski, Route, 2014):

“…he [Simon Rogers] has to put his classically-trained ear to good use and decode Paul McCartney’s bass line.”

MES, interviewed in House of Dolls fanzine (May 1988): “We did it also because it was the NME and I thought it would be a decent album. It isn’t. I’ve always hated Sgt Pepper, but the track we did was one I liked.”

MES, interviewed in the NME by James Brown (29 July 1989): “Apart from the spastics producing it, I really enjoyed it. I’ve never been a big fan of theirs (The Beatles) but I do like that song.”

For a Fall cover (the original, of course, was by The Beatles on their 1967 Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album) it is remarkably faithful to the original (including the tape loop at the end).

The track contains one small lyrical difference to The Beatles’ original; “somebody spoke” is changed to “nobody spoke”.

It was never been played live by The Fall (as, indeed, it was never played live by The Beatles).

MES, speaking in the Seattle Bar on 21 May 1988: We had to find a copy of it, nobody had a copy of it…one of Steve’s Hanley had a scratched copy of it (Sgt. Pepper)…”We did it in an afternoon.”