A DAY IN THE LIFE by THE BEATLES. Story by David Meldrum

Adelaide University, June 1967

I was studying at Adelaide University and the adjacent Teachers College.  The hub of the campus, the Barr-Smith Lawns, was just outside the main library. Without computers or the internet, if you needed to read a reference you had to come to the library. The grass, the low walls and a few seats to sit on would be filled with hundreds of students, especially at lunchtimes. Here those at the top of the A-list could hold court with their faithful, while us mere mortals tried to find a friendly face with which to share a sandwich. It was the ultimate people-watching spot, and I hung around there too long and too often to get the higher grades I needed.

But one day in June 1967, some guys from the theatre department came to install several huge speakers, hanging them from the trees and on the roof of the locker rooms. The news spread quickly — the newest Beatles’ album was out, and they were going to play it full blast. Within half an hour, the area was jampacked, and the whiff of dope smoked by the most daring wafted over us.

When that first line, It was 20 years ago today, came after a classic guitar intro, the place went wild. People started dancing and yelling, some trying to sing along, others telling them to shut up and let us all hear it. The speakers were awesome, at least for 1967, and there were complaints from all the adjoining study areas that no one could hear the lecturers trying to teach. Many gave up, and streams of students kept joining from “serious” faculties like medicine, law, engineering and even economics, the people we arty types thought incapable of aesthetic emotions.

A little over half an hour later, the last crashing chords of  A Day In The Life, which many critics think of as their finest work, faded away, leaving almost total silence across the lawns.

We were stunned.  Great art can leave you speechless, in fact it should, while you process something overwhelmingly new and important. Conversations began quietly, and people began to drift away to usual campus life. Of course, we all went out and bought, borrowed or pirated copies of the album over the next weeks. I went to at least two parties that were specifically about listening to it, while we drank bad wine and smoked the foulest cigarettes we could stand. But nothing compared to the shock of the new shared with an awed crowd, the day Sergeant Peppers was released in Australia.

Stereo Story #550

This is an extract from David’s memoir, Any Minute Now (Ginnenderra Press).

More Stereo Stories about Beatles’ songs.

David Meldrum

I mainly write fiction. Have completed two crime novels, with a third on the go. Live in Adelaide, spend a lot of time in Bali.