John Lennon lyrics fetch $1.2M at Sotheby’s auction

Sotheby’s Auction House in New York, sold a one side of a handwritten, autographed manuscript by the late John Lennon . The handwritten lyrics to the final version of the song on the classic Beatles album “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” were purchased by an American collector on Friday for $1.2 million.The winning bid for “A Day in the Life” was placed by phone at Sotheby’s auction house. The collector declined to be identifed.The price exceeded the pre-sale estimate which ranged between $500,000 and $800,000. Sotheby’s said Friday’s price came close to the $1.25 million paid in 2005 for the Beatles lyrics “All You Need is Love”

The double-sided sheet of paper featured Lennon’s edits and corrections in his own handwriting in a black felt marker and blue ballpoint pen, with several annotations in red ink.Rolling Stone magazine listed “A Day in the Life” at No. 26 in its compilation of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time and “Sgt. Pepper” won four Grammy awards in 1968. The lyrics appear on both sides ,one side has Lennon’s original first draft, written in cursive script. The other side almost entirely written in capital letters and incorporates the corrections from the first draft and adds the words, “I’d love to turn you on.”

The lyrics, which begin with “I read the news today, oh boy,” stirred controversy when the Beatles first released the album in 1967. The song banned by the BBC because it twice features the line, “I’d love to turn you on,” which was interpreted as supporting drug use. The song also was left off copies of “Sgt. Pepper’s” sold in several Asian countries for the same reason.

Later the album’s “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” was alleged to have glorified the use of the hallucinogenic LSD, a claim that band members denied.In addition, “A Day in the Life” features the lyric “he blew his mind out in a car,” which Beatles aficionados claim is a reference to the accidental death of Tara Browne, the Guinness heir and close friend of both Lennon and Paul McCartney.

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