EMI is informed of ban of “A Day In The Life” by the BBC

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BBC radio ban

The song became controversial for its supposed references to drugs. On 20 May 1967, during the BBC Light Programme’s preview of the Sgt. Pepper album, disc jockey Kenny Everett was prevented from playing “A Day in the Life”. The BBC announced that it would not broadcast the song due to the line “I’d love to turn you on”, which, according to the corporation, advocated drug use. Other lyrics allegedly referring to drugs include “found my way upstairs and had a smoke / somebody spoke and I went into a dream”. A spokesman for the BBC stated: “We have listened to this song over and over again. And we have decided that it appears to go just a little too far, and could encourage a permissive attitude to drug-taking.”

At the time, Lennon and McCartney denied that there were drug references in “A Day in the Life” and publicly complained about the ban at a dinner party at the home of their manager, Brian Epstein, celebrating their album’s release. Lennon said that the song was simply about “a crash and its victim”, and called the line in question “the most innocent of phrases”. McCartney later said: “This was the only one in the album written as a deliberate provocation. A stick-that-in-your-pipe … But what we want is to turn you on to the truth rather than pot.” The Beatles nevertheless aligned themselves with the drug culture in Britain by paying for (at McCartney’s instigation) a full-page advertisement in The Times, in which, along with 60 other signatories, they and Epstein denounced the law against marijuana as “immoral in principle and unworkable in practice”. In addition, on 19 June, McCartney confirmed to an ITN reporter, further to his statement in a recent Life magazine interview, that he had taken LSD. Described by MacDonald as a “careless admission”, it led to condemnation of McCartney in the British press, recalling the outcry caused by the publication of Lennon’s “More popular than Jesus” remark in the US in 1966. The BBC ban on the song was eventually lifted on 13 March 1972.

BEATLES LAUGH OFF BBC BAN

THE Beatles, whose new LP “Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” is released next Friday this week laughed off the BBC ban on one of its tracks. The banned song, “A Day In The Life,” is a Lennon-McCartney composition which refers to a man going upstairs on a bus for a smoke.

From the London home of their manager Brian Epstein, the Beatles denied that there were any drug references in the song.

Said Paul: “John woke up one morning and read the Daily Mail. The news stories gave him the idea for the song. The man goes upstairs on a bus for a smoke. Everybody does that sort of thing. You can read a double meaning into anything if you want to. But we don’t care if they ban our songs. It might help the LP. They’ll play other tracks.“

From Melody Maker – May 27, 1967

Last updated on February 12, 2024