The Beatles made history, but they didn’t sing about it much. Even when they did, usually it was an oblique reference to a current event – something that for them was contemporary, but which has since gone into the history books.
In this way, larger historical currents did make their way into the band’s lyrics – albeit often metaphorically, or as quick one-liners. Here’s a sampling of the rare and subtle ways the Beatles commented on the world at large, and its past.
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Photo: Unknown / Wikimedia Commons / Fair use
1855 VOTES‘A Day in the Life’ Referenced The Fatal Car Accident Of A Famous Swinging London Socialite
I read the news today, oh boy
About a lucky man who made the grade
And though the news was rather sad
Well, I just had to laugh
I saw the photograph
He blew his mind out in a car
He didn’t notice that the lights had changed
So begins what some consider the Beatles’ greatest song of all, the John Lennon/Paul McCartney collaboration “A Day in the Life.”
It turns out that the “lucky man who made the grade” wasn’t just a figment of Lennon’s imagination. He was 21-year-old Guinness heir Tara Browne, a fixture of the Swinging London scene, who fatally crashed his Lotus sports car in December 1966.
Lennon was quite literally “reading the news today” when he saw the story about Browne’s accident:
I was writing “A Day in the Life” with the Daily Mail propped in front of me on the piano.
