PRICEY SONG - OH BOY! $2 MILLION FOR LENNON LYRICS?Byline: - Daily News John Lennon Noun 1. John Lennon - English rock star and guitarist and songwriter who with Paul McCartney wrote most of the music for the Beatles (1940-1980) Lennon sat down at his piano on Jan. 17, 1967, and used a black felt-tip marker to start writing the lyrics to a song called ``A Day in the Life.'' He revised the song on the same sheet of paper that afternoon with fellow Beatle Paul McCartney Noun 1. Paul McCartney - English rock star and bass guitarist and songwriter who with John Lennon wrote most of the music for the Beatles (born in 1942) McCartney, Sir James Paul McCartney and it became the centerpiece of the album ``Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts lonely hearts Adjective of or for people seeking a congenial companion or marriage partner: lonely hearts ads lonely hearts adj lonely hearts ad → Club Band.'' Now, nearly four decades later, the two-sided lyric sheet is expected to fetch more than $2 million at auction. ``It's absolutely the finest rock and roll artifact to survive the 20th century,'' Martin Gammon, a book and manuscript analyst at Bonhams Bonhams is a privately owned British auction house founded in 1793. It is the third largest auctioneer after Sotheby's and Christie's, and conducts around 700 auctions per year. The firm has London salerooms in New Bond Street and Knightsbridge. & Butterfields, said Thursday. Bonhams is auctioning the Lennon lyrics along with manuscripts that include correspondence from Gandhi, checks signed by Marilyn Monroe and a letter from author John Steinbeck Noun 1. John Steinbeck - United States writer noted for his novels about agricultural workers (1902-1968) John Ernst Steinbeck, Steinbeck to Martin Luther King Jr. The lyrics and other rare books and manuscripts are on display in San Francisco San Francisco (săn frănsĭs`kō), city (1990 pop. 723,959), coextensive with San Francisco co., W Calif., on the tip of a peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay, which are connected by the strait known as the Golden through Feb. 12. San Francisco hippies were among the first Beatles fans to hear ``A Day In the Life,'' which trumpeted a new psychedelic sound and features Lennon's memorable lyrics: ``I read the news today, oh boy.'' George Harrison brought an early demo tape of the song to California and played it on the radio during his much-publicized visit to Haight-Ashbury in 1967 during the so-called Summer of Love. The album was a radical step for the Fab Four and is now regarded as perhaps the most important rock album ever. Gammon said Beatles manuscripts, especially those from the often-reclusive Lennon, are increasingly rare finds. Many Beatles songs were written on paper bags or scraps of paper and most were thrown away, he said. ``It's a window in time. You can imagine him (Lennon) coming up with the musical ideas that everyone now knows,'' Gammon said. The value of the manuscript has increased exponentially in a little more than a decade, Gammon said. An unidentified American collector purchased the lyrics for ``A Day in the Life'' in 1992 for roughly $100,000 - considerably less than the likely winning bid in 2006. They originally belonged to former Beatles road manager Mal Evans Malcolm 'Mal' Evans (27 May, 1935 – 5 January, 1976) is best known as the road manager, assistant, and a friend of the Beatles. In the early 1960s, Evans was working as a telephone engineer at the time, but was later employed as a doorman at the Cavern Club. . Gammon concedes it's ironic that the lyrics will sell for such a hefty price, considering that Lennon and Yoko Ono dropped off a closet full of possessions at a Salvation Army in 1977. Beatles fans can view the lyrics at Bonhams' San Francisco office before they move to Los Angeles and New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of . Final bids on the manuscript are due March 7. CAPTION(S): photo Photo: A photo shows both sides of a sheet of paper with the lyrics of ``A Day in the Life,'' penned by John Lennon. It's expected to fetch more than $2 million at auction March 7. Bonhams & Butterfields |
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