<P> Recalling the release of Sgt . Pepper in his 1977 book The Beatles Forever, Nicholas Schaffner wrote that "Nothing quite like' A Day In The Life' had been attempted before in so - called popular music" in terms of the song's "use of dynamics and tricks of rhythm, and of space and stereo effect, and its deft intermingling of scenes from dream, reality, and shades in between". Schaffner said that in the context of 1967, the track "was so visually evocative it seemed more like a film than a mere song". Richard Goldstein of The New York Times called the song "a deadly earnest excursion in emotive music with a chilling lyric...(that) stands as one of the most important Lennon - McCartney compositions...(and) an historic Pop event". In a contemporary music critics' poll published by Jazz & Pop magazine, "A Day in the Life" won in the categories of Best Pop Song and Best Pop Arrangement . </P> <P> In his appraisal of the song, musicologist Walter Everett states that, as on the band's Revolver album, "the most monumental piece on Sgt . Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was Lennon's". He identifies the track's most striking feature as "its mysterious and poetic approach to serious topics that come together in a larger, direct message to its listeners, an embodiment of the central ideal for which the Beatles stood: that a truly meaningful life can be had only when one is aware of one's self and one's surroundings and overcomes the status quo ." Author Philip Norman describes "A Day in the Life" as a "masterpiece" and cites it as an example of how Sgt . Pepper "certainly was John's Freak Out!", referring to the 1966 album by the Mothers of Invention . </P> <P> "A Day in the Life" became one of the Beatles' most influential songs, and is now considered by many to be the band's greatest work . Paul Grushkin, in his book Rockin' Down the Highway: The Cars and People That Made Rock Roll, called the track "one of the most ambitious, influential, and groundbreaking works in pop music history". According to musicologist John Covach, "' A Day in the Life' is perhaps one of the most important single tracks in the history of rock music; clocking in at only four minutes and forty - five seconds, it must surely be among the shortest epic pieces in rock ." In his review of the 50th anniversary edition of Sgt . Pepper for Rolling Stone, Mikal Gilmore says that "A Day in the Life" and Harrison's "Within You Without You" are the only songs on the album that transcend its legacy as "a gestalt: a whole that was greater than the sum of its parts". </P> <P> "A Day in the Life" appears on many top songs lists . It placed twelfth on CBC's 50 Tracks, the second highest Beatles song on the list after "In My Life". It placed first in Q magazine's list of the 50 greatest British songs of all time, and was at the top of Mojo's 101 Greatest Beatles' Songs, as decided by a panel of musicians and journalists . "A Day in the Life" was also nominated for a Grammy in 1967 for Best Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist or Instrumentalist . In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked it at number 28 on the magazine's list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time", and in 2010, deemed it to be the Beatles' greatest song . It is listed at number 5 in Pitchfork Media's "The 200 Greatest Songs of the 1960s". </P>

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