A Day In The Life (all albums containing this song)

Official album • Released in 1996

5:05 • Outtake • D • Takes 1, 2 and take 6 overdub. Assembled expressly for the Anthology, this composite embraces the best of the unreleased outtakes of A Day In The Life, plotting the making of the song that brought such a monumental close to the album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The opening talk, the sounding of the alarm clock (used so effectively in the finished master) and the intro - John muttering "sugar plum fairy, sugar plum fairy"instead of the more conventional count-in - is from the start of Take 1, when the song was first taped on 19 January 1967. The main body of the music is Take 2, recorded during the same session. At this point the tape features John's acoustic guitar and haunting live lead vocal, sundry percussion instruments, piano (played by Paul) and an echo-drenched Mal Evans, one of the Beatles' two assistants, counting out the first of two long gaps that would later be so famously filled with the orchestral crescendos. After the counting, the track slips into mono to illustrate a guide vocal from Paul, taped on 20 January as an overdub on to Take 6 but then superseded by a better recording of the passage on 3 February. The original survives, however, thanks to a mono mix done in the interim, on 30 January. Take 2 then returns, leading into a new mix of the orchestral crescendos recorded on 10 January, but instead of the familiar final piano chord the track ends with Paul talking about the orchestral overdub, a short extract from one of four tapes of ambient studio sounds recorded at the same session.

George Martin:: Producer

Geoff Emerick:: Engineer

Session Recording:: Jan 19, 1967

Studio:: EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road

Good Evening New York City

Official live • Released in 2009

5:42 • Live • L1 • Could have been record on 17, 18 or 21 July 2009

Paul McCartney:: Executive producer

Performed by:
Paul McCartney • Rusty Anderson • Abe Laboriel Jr. • Paul Wickens • Brian Ray

Geoff Emerick:: Audio mixing

Paul Hicks:: Audio mixing

Jonas Westling:: Additional engineering

Richard Lancaster:: Additional engineering

John Henry:: Recording

Concert From the concert in New York, USA on Jul 17, 2009

Love

Official album • Released in 2006

5:08 • Studio version • E

George Martin:: Producer

Giles Martin:: Producer

Paul Hicks:: Remix engineer

Sam Okell:: Remix engineer assistant

Chris Bolster:: Remix engineer assistant

Mirek Stiles:: Remix engineer assistant

Session Recording:: Circa 2004-2006

Studio:: EMI Studios, Abbey Road

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (2017)

Official album • Released in 2017

5:23 • Studio version • A

Paul McCartney:: Bass, Piano, Vocals

Ringo Starr:: Bongos, Drums

John Lennon:: Acoustic guitar, Piano, Vocals

George Harrison:: Maracas

George Martin:: Harmonium, Producer

Geoff Emerick:: Engineer

Jack Brymer:: Clarinet

Mal Evans:: Alarm clock, Piano, Vocals

Sidney Sax:: Violin

Francisco Gabarro:: Cello

Jurgen Hess:: Violin

John Underwood:: Viola

Alan Civil:: French horn

David Mason:: Trumpet

Neil Sanders:: French horn

Erich Gruenberg:: Violin

Granville Jones:: Violin

Bill Monro:: Violin

Hans Geiger:: Violin

D Bradley:: Violin

Lionel Bentley:: Violin

David McCallum:: Violin

Donald Weekes:: Violin

Henry Datyner:: Violin

Ernest Scott:: Violin

Gwynne Edwards:: Viola

Bernard Davis:: Viola

John Meek:: Viola

Dennis Vigay:: Cello

Alan Dalziel:: Cello

Alex Nifosi:: Cello

Cyril MacArthur:: Double bass

Gordon Pearce:: Double bass

John Marston:: Harp

Basil Tschaikov:: Clarinet

Roger Lord:: Oboe

N Fawcett:: Bassoon

Alfred Waters:: Bassoon

Clifford Seville:: Flute

David Sanderman:: Flute

Monty Montgomery:: Trumpet

Harold Jackson:: Trumpet

Raymond Brown:: Trombone

Raymond Premru:: Trombone

T Moore:: Trombone

Michael Barnes:: Tubas

Tristan Fry:: Percussion, Timpani

Marijke Koger:: Tambourine

Session Recording:: Jan 19, 1967

Studio:: EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (2017)

Official album • Released in 2017

4:43 • Studio version • F • First mono mix. "This is RM1 of Four Track Take..ahh.. Six" announcement from Geoff Emerick is new. But on bootleg we have a different announcement circulating: "Four track remix, this is Take six" and was placed together with the RM1 acetate version, so maybe that announcement on bootlegs comes from the tape reduction made to create Take 6 but not the Mono mixing?. The rest of the song is the same version on bootleg circulating from many years where Paul makes the "Oh S**t!" mistake, but here is in perfect quality.