In the news today... (Oh boy!)

[Velvet]

Lennon's written Day in the Life lyrics on sale

CBC News

John Lennon's handwritten lyrics to the song A Day in the Life will be auctioned in New York in June. John Lennon's handwritten lyrics to the song A Day in the Life will be auctioned in New York in June. (Sotheby's Auction House/Associated Press) Beatles fans will have another chance at John Lennon's handwritten lyrics to A Day in the Life, with Sotheby's set to auction the artifact in June.

The page of lyrics — scribbed in black felt marker and blue ball point pen on both sides of a single sheet of paper — is expected to sell for between $500,000 US and $700,000 US in New York on June 18.

Signed by Lennon and including crossed out words, corrections and a few annotations in red ink, the paper once belonged to Mal Evans, the Beatles' road manager.

An unnamed collector purchased the lyrics at a Sotheby's auction in London in 1992 and attempted to sell the page in a sealed-bid auction at Bonhams in New York in 2006. However, it failed to sell at that time.

A Day in the Life, the final song on the Beatles's Grammy Award-winning album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, sparked controversy upon its release in 1967.

The BBC banned the song because of its line "I'd love to turn you on" — interpreted as a reference to illegal drug use. The same reasoning was given for the removal of the song (along with With a Little Help from My Friends and Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds) when Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was released in South Asia, Malaysia and Hong Kong.

A Day in the Life is also notable for the line, "He blew his mind out in a car," considered by many to be a reference to the death of socialite and Guinness heir Tara Browne, a close friend of Lennon and Paul McCartney, in a car accident.

Handwritten Beatles lyrics have had mixed success at auction. Though the original lyrics for the song I'm Only Sleeping failed to sell in 2005, the page bearing the lyrics for All You Need Is Love fetched about $1.3 million Cdn that same year.

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/arts/music/story/2010/04/29/beatles-lennon-lyrics-handwritten.html#ixzz0mVpIoeGb