A Day in the Life of The Beatles

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We didn’t know where it was all going. We just didn’t know. One day in 1968 Don McCullin, then regarded as the world’s most accomplished warphotographer, received a commission from the Apple Corporation to spend a dayphotographing the Beatles. McCullin had just returned from covering the bitter fightingduring the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, and was the most hardened photojournalist in thefield. He was astonished by the invitation. On Sunday 28 September he met the Beatles atthe Sunday Times studio and began to photograph them in colour for a Life magazinecover. The day that followed has become known in Beatles lore as ‘The Mad Day Out’.McCullin shot twenty rolls of black-and-white film in various locations across London, fromthe banks of the Thames to Paul McCartney’s garden. Apart from the cover photographand two pictures in McCullin’s recent book In England, we believe the work to beotherwise unpublished. The timing of this day was significant. At the height of their international fame followingthe release of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the Beatles were in the middle ofrecording the White Album. The war was raging in Vietnam and riots had spread throughcapital cities worldwide. It was the very moment of a generational divide, and the Beatleswere the iconic figureheads of the youth movement. One of the most poignantphotographs taken that day was of John Lennon posing as dead, surrounded by the otherthree, in an image that he himself had carefully choreographed. What was an intentionalpose in protest is now seen as tragic and prophetic. These pictures are of four inspiredmusicians on the cusp of the change. They mark the passing of an era in which we canglimpse our own lost youth.

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Don McCullin grew up in north London. He worked for the Sunday Times for eighteenyears and covered every major conflict in his adult lifetime until the Falklands war. Thefinest British photojournalist of his generation, he has received many honours and awardsincluding the CBE. He lives in Somerset.