The surrealistic imagery in Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, inspired by Lennon’s childhood reading of Lewis Carroll’s classics and his adventures with hallucinogenic drugs. Cellophane flowers. Newspaper taxis. Rocking-horse people. Looking-glass ties.
The aching sadness of Sheila Bromberg's harp in She's Leaving Home, McCartney's kitchen-sink drama with strings, inspired by a tabloid newspaper story about a real life teenage runaway named Melanie Coe.
Lennon’s rejoinder to McCartney’s “I’ve got to admit it’s getting better, a little better all time” in the song Getting Better. He sings: “It couldn’t get much worse!” a line that perfectly encapsulates the yin and yang of McCartney’s happy positivity and Lennon’s innate contrariness.
The beautiful, logical simplicity of the call-and-answer section in With a Little Help from My Friends: “Do you need anybody? I need somebody to love. Could it be anybody? I want somebody to love.”
The orchestral bridge used to graft Lennon’s opening stanzas of A Day in the Life to an unfinished McCartney composition about smoking dope on the upper deck of a bus.
