As a small child, I was terrified of the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band track, “A Day in the Life.” I wasn’t quite a year old when it was released, so a first exposure is anyone’s guess. All I remember was hiding when it was played on the gigantic stereo in my parents’ living room.
I heard it again the other day. The fear is gone, but the anxiety remains. As 2025 draws to a close, it occurred to me that the song fits the tone of this past year.
Not to criticize the song at all–I sincerely believe the song is a work of combined geniuses and a piece of art that can never be repeated. However, the message and mood aren’t particularly comforting or warm, and its repetitive theme of orchestrated chaos is a mirror for its title. In many ways, it is a “day in the life” of almost anyone.
Somewhere in Lennon’s first recollection of a traffic tragedy, the parallels to 2025 began forming in my anxiety-ridden brain, already dreading the crescendo that once made me hide and cover my ears.
One, this has been a year filled with almost constant bombardment of tales of injustice so barbaric it feels like fiction, and the reactions have been somehow minimized. In the absence of knowing how to respond or what to do, the world has taken the role of bystander. “A crowd of people stood and stared.” Yes, we certainly did. That’s about all we did.
Meanwhile, the chaos screams around us, followed by McCartney’s innocuous description of a typical morning with a splash of escapism, but it doesn’t last long. Soon we’ve returned to the state of the world and a cold, forensic summation of an event.
In 2025, it seemed there was no time to process anything, due to a lack of fact-checking, or for the smoke from all the other fires to clear. So much smoke, and more fires than could be contained. For me, at least, attempting to read an account of world events left me numb to more than I should have been. “Somebody spoke and I went into a dream.” (No drugs for me personally, but I hear that was an escape for many.)
Worst of all, with none of these things feeling controllable, there was an ominous feeling that something was definitely controlling all of it. There was an alter-ego of George Martin directing and manipulating all with the wave of his hand. Worldwide, we bystanders stood and stared, turned away, counted the holes in Albert Hall, ran combs across our heads, or occasionally noticed we were late. Our collective trauma-fatigue became willful ignorance, not out of apathy, but in the interest of self-preservation.
Will I remember 2025 fondly? I won’t know what to remember–thanks to the collapse of objective journalism–outside of my little life with its routines, but all memories, no matter how matter-of-factly they’re remembered, have a background soundtrack of impending chaos. It is difficult to file the year away as a success, using any known definition of success.
At least in the song, there is the final piano chord that signals the end may be near, although the Beatles tricked us with that “ending”, as well. In real life, we are unlikely to be alerted to an ending. We’ll only know once we’ve moved into another era.
I’ll be hiding for a while longer, covering my ears.
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