Handwritten Beatles lyrics for sale at auction

NEW YORK - John Lennon's handwritten lyrics to the Beatles song "A Day in the Life" are up for sale and auctioneers Bonhams said today they could fetch around US$2 (NZ2.9m) million.

"Based on market history, we believe somewhere in the neighborhood of US$2 million," could be the final sale price, Martin Gammon of Bonhams said. That could make the lyrics "the most valuable musical manuscript composed in the 20th century to be offered at auction," he said.

The sealed bidding process will close on March 7. The lyrics are owned by an unnamed collector who bought them at auction in 1992 from the estate of one of the Beatles' road managers.

It was 39 years ago that Lennon sat down at his piano with the January 17, 1967 edition of The Daily Mail propped up in front of him. Some of the stories inspired him to write what became the final track on the group's ground-breaking 1967 album "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band."

Clips about a young man who was killed in a car crash - thought to be Tara Browne, friend of the Beatles and heir to the Guinness empire - and a study showing that the streets of the northern English town of Blackburn had 4,000 potholes were immortalized in the song.

"He blew his mind out in a car, he didn't notice that the lights had changed" and "I heard the news today, oh boy, four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire," are among the lines of the song.

Citing the line "I'd love to turn you on," the BBC banned the record from its radio stations saying it appeared to advocate drug use.

Paul McCartney would add the middle section - including the line: "Found my way upstairs and had a smoke, somebody spoke and I went into a dream" - to complete what many fans and critics regard as one of the band's finest songs.

A seven-figure sum may not be an unrealistic target.

Lennon's handwritten lyric sheet for the Beatles' 1967 live satellite broadcast of "All You Need Is Love" sold in July last year for 600,000 pounds.

His original lyrics for the 1966 song "I'm Only Sleeping" from their "Revolver" album, however, failed to sell at auction in September last year after being tipped to fetch more than 200,000 pounds.

- REUTERS