A Day In The Life Of A Millionaire

Sotheby’s auction house revealed that Friday’s winning bid was placed by phone but declined to identify the collector.

“A Day in the Life” is the last track on the Beatles eighth studio album, 1967’s Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

The lyrics were written on both sides of a single sheet of paper using black felt marker and blue ball point pen along with a few marks in red ink.

On one side Lennon wrote out his original draft in a hurried cursive script with the other side written almost entirely in capital letters. The second side includes the singer-songwriter’s edits and corrections from the first draft along with the addition of the lyric “I’d love to turn you on.”

The Associated Press notes that the line “I’d love to turn you on” was considered quite controversial back in 1967 because it was thought to support illegal drug use. The BBC thought the lyric was so scandalous that it banned the song. Several Asian countries took a stand by leaving the song off copies off Sgt. Pepper’s…

Another interesting tidbit – the song’s second verse, including the lyric “he blew his mind out in a car,” is thought to reference the accidental death of Tara Browne, the Guinness heir and close friend of Lennon and Paul McCartney.

The pre-sale estimate on the handwritten lyrics had been set at $500,000 and $800.000.

Click here for the AP story.