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unfiltered British cigarette) and somebody would speak and I would go into a dream.”
    The references to having a smoke, dreams and ‘turn-ons’ meant that the track was banned from the airwaves in many countries. There were even some who were convinced that the holes in Blackburn, like the holes Paul had been keen to fix, were those of a heroin user.
    In 1968 Paul admitted that ‘A Day In The Life’ was what he called ‘a turn-on song’. “This was the only one on the album written as a deliberate provocation,” he said. “But what we want to do is to turn you on to the truth rather than on to pot.” George Martin comments: “The ‘woke up, got out of bed’ bit was definitely a reference to marijuana but ‘Fixing A Hole’ wasn’t about heroin and ‘Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds’ wasn’t about LSD. At the time I had a strong suspicion that ‘went upstairs and had a smoke’ was a drug reference. They always used to disappear and have a little puff but they never did it in front of me. They always used to go down to the canteen and Mal Evans used to guard it.”

MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR
    With Sgt Pepper behind them, the Beatles immediately plunged into recording soundtracks for two very different films – Yellow Submarine and Magical Mystery Tour.
    Yellow Submarine , a feature-length animation project, wasn’t initiated by the group but they took a keen interest in its development. The Beatles were happy to see themselves turned into cartoon characters and contributed storylines as well as four original songs. The script was by a team of screenwriters, one of whom was Erich Segal, author of the best-selling novel, Love Story . A psychedelic fantasy, Yellow Submarine concerns a happy kingdom called Pepperland, which is taken over by the villainous Blue Meanies. The fab four ride to the rescue in a yellow submarine from Liverpool, eventually conquering the Meanies through the combined power of Love and Music.
    Magical Mystery Tour was an experimental 50-minute colour feature for television. It started off as Paul’s project but the whole group was heavily involved in all aspects of production. They financed, directed, cast and scripted the film, as well as appearing in it themselves.
    Along with the single ‘All You Need Is Love’/’Baby You’re A Rich Man’, the songs from this period are the most psychedelic of the Beatles’ career. Magical Mystery Tour was released in America as an album in November 1967 and in Britain as a double extended-play disc in December. The Yellow Submarine soundtrack, which included an orchestral side from George Martin, wasn’t released until January 1968, shortly after The Beatles.
    This eclectic bunch of songs would make a fitting farewell to 1967, the year of the Summer of Love, before the more sober reflections of1968. The new year marked a fresh period in the Beatles’ songwriting, when cleaning up, straightening out and getting back to basics became the order of the day.
    Magical Mystery Tour , which was first seen on British television on December 26, 1967, was a critical failure, which consequently received only limited exposure in America. The music was much more successful; the British double EP reached Number 2 in the singles charts and the American album went to Number 1.
    The Yellow Submarine film was released in July 1968 and was a commercial success in America, although it was never put on full release in Britain. The album, which featured other artists as well as the Beatles, reached the Number 3 spot in Britain and Number 2 in America.

ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE
    Early in 1967, the Beatles were approached by the BBC to take part in what would be the first-ever, live global television link: a 125-minute programme broadcast to 26 countries with contributions from national broadcasting networks in Europe, Scandinavia, North America, Central America, North Africa, Japan and Australia.
    To mark the occasion, the Beatles were asked to write a simple song that