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Royal Albert Hall was ‘furious’ over Beatles lyric, newly discovered documents reveal

Papers newly discovered deep under the Royal Albert Hall have revealed that the iconic London venue wrote to the Beatles in 1967 to object “in the strongest conceivable terms” to being named in the Fab Four’s song A Day in the Life.

The discovery came when correspondence was unearthed whilst clearing an old archive room as part of the Hall’s ongoing steam heating refurbishment project.

The verse of the famous 1967 song which mentions the Hall reads:

I read the news today oh boy
Four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire
And though the holes were rather small
They had to count them all
Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall
I’d love to turn you on

In a letter to Beatles manager Brian Epstein, the Hall’s then chief executive, Mr Ernest O’Follipar told the band that the “wrong-headed assumption that there are four thousand holes in our auditorium” threatened to destroy its business overnight.

Writing back cheekily to “Prince Albert and friends”, John Lennon refused to apologise for the lyric, an action which resulted in a ban on the song ever being performed at the Hall.

Interesting, I'm afraid that the 7th of this month I'll be 64, I'm sending a letter to Paul... If no answer "When I'm 64" wil be banned in my environment...

Have a look at the date of that article.

Reading the letter you see "Our council suggests". Yeah, right. Reminds me of a scene in Amadeus. The Emperor goes something like, "It's too long, there are too many notes, take out some of the notes." There's a difference between figurative and literal.

I never thought of the "holes" as real holes. You can dig around in lots of lyrics by the Beatles and others and wonder all you want:

"No, the purple paint didn't represent anything, it's not symbolic. It was the only paint I had around, and I didn't have time to shop."
- A college professor's reply to a paper written by one of his drama class students; the student extolled on the symbolism behind the set's purple backdrop.

If you were to read the news papers today, nothing's changed. There are still many useless studies being made and paid for by the public that seem to fulfill just as stupid results as how many holes it takes. If you examine most of the Beatles songs, you'll see them taking a poke at our silly system and how little we get for our buck.

I have been hornswaggled, duped, and played for a fool.

I got sucked in there to stand on my soap box.

logjam wrote:I got sucked in there to stand on my soap box.

I was about to join you, but something told me to read the whole thread before opening my mouth...........Most unlike me....

Matt

I guess April fools jokes have gotten beyond the spaghetti trees pranks.

OK, yep, whatever. Hagar clued us. Sgt Peppers released on June 1, 1967, the letter is dated before that. Forgot the most important thing, read your Columbo Handbook, clearly states therein, "Believe half of what you see, and none of what you read."

Apex wrote:Sgt Peppers released on June 1, 1967, the letter is dated before that.

Officials at the Hall apparently heard a demo tape of the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album shortly before its release on 1 June 1967 ...

If you're going to fake it fake it well.