(18 Jun 2010) SHOTLIST
1. Wide exterior of Sotheby's auction house
2. Wide interior of auction house
3. Mid of auctioneer at podium, UPSOUND (English): "Lot number 46; John Lennon's manuscript for "A Day in the Life"
4. Mid of John Lennon's handwritten lyrics for "A Day in the Life"
5. Close of Lennon's handwritten lyrics for final song on Beatles album "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"
6. Close of writing on manuscript
7. Wide of auctioneer, UPSOUND (English): "How about a million, that would sound so good."
8. Mid of Sotheby's telephone auctioneers
9. Wide of auctioneer, UPSOUND (English): "At one million dollars then, at one million, at one million dollars. It's on Marcia's telephone, at one million dollars, at one million dollars, So, we all through? Anybody else? It's a great song. One million dollars is on the phone then, fair warning now at one million dollars," auctioneer hitting hammer to close auction, UPSOUND: audience clapping
STORYLINE
John Lennon's handwritten lyrics to the final song on the classic Beatles album "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" sold at auction in New York City on Friday for 1.2 (m) million US dollars.
The winning bid for "A Day in the Life" was placed by phone at Sotheby's auction house, by an anonymous American collector.
The price exceeded the pre-sale estimate of between 500-thousand and 800-thousand US dollars.
The double-sided sheet of paper features Lennon's edits and corrections, written in black felt marker and blue ball point pen, with a few 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.
The album "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" won four Grammy awards in 1968.
The lyrics, which begin with "I read the news today, oh boy," stirred controversy when the Beatles released the album in 1967.
The song was banned by the BBC because it twice features the line, "I'd love to turn you on," which was interpreted as supporting illegal drug use.
The song was also left off copies of "Sgt. Pepper's" sold in several Asian countries for the same reason.
The album's "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" was alleged to have glorified the use of the hallucinogenic LSD, a claim The Beatles 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 brewery heir and close friend of both Lennon and Paul McCartney.
The lyrics appear on both sides of the single sheet.
One side has Lennon's original first draft, written in a hurried cursive script.
The other side is written almost entirely in capital letters and incorporates the corrections from the first draft and adds the words, "I'd love to turn you on."
Sotheby's said the lyrics were consigned by a private collector.
Friday's price came close to the 1.25 (m) million US dollars paid in 2005 for the Beatles lyrics "All You Need is Love," it said.
It sold to an anonymous bidder at the British auction house Cooper Owen.
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