The tragic rich kid whose car crash death inspired The Beatles’ classic A Day In The Life
John Lennon scribbled down the lyrics to the tune after reading a report into Tara Browne's death
HE lived for just 21 years — but the Beatles classic he inspired has endured for nearly half a century.
Tara Browne, heir to the Guinness empire, was immortalised in A Day In The Life, which fans and critics have regularly voted the band’s greatest track.
The orchestral mini-epic was listed in a poll by Q magazine which said it was the best British song of all time.
A Day In The Life is the final track on Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band, released in the summer of 1967. A few months before, John Lennon scribbled down the lyrics to the tune after reading a newspaper report on the inquest into Tara’s death.
Tara had died on December 18, 1966 after slamming his Lotus Elan sports car into another vehicle.
One newspaper headline summed it up: “Dead — a Boy Who Had Everything.” Titled and rich, Tara was also pals with Paul McCartney — and even introduced the Beatles to LSD.
McCartney still owns a piano which he had painted in the same psychedelic pattern that adorned an AC Cobra sports car that Tara owned.
And bizarrely, A Day In The Life sparked a conspiracy theory that it was McCartney, not Tara, who had died in the car crash and a lookalike had taken his place in the band.
Now the life and times of Tara Browne, who was four years away from inheriting a £1million trust fund — £15million in today’s money — when he died, are chronicled in new book I Heard The News Today, Oh Boy.
Author Paul Howard tells how Tara was introduced to McCartney, then aged 21, by the singer’s brother Mike at the Ad Lib club in London’s Leicester Square around two years before the fatal car crash.
Lennon, who met Tara around the same time, was less enamoured with the handsome aristocrat.
It was at Tara’s London home that McCartney took acid for the first time
Tara’s friend Nicholas Gormanston said: “Paul liked being around people he thought he could learn something from. I think he would have been absolutely fascinated by Tara’s accent and his appearance.
“John was much more contrary — he either liked you or he didn’t. I don’t know if Tara was John’s cup of tea.”
Tara’s wife Nicky, who he scandalously married secretly in France when he was just 18, said: “I think he (Lennon) really sneered at people from Tara’s background.”
But McCartney warmed to him. He once recalled: “Tara was a nice Irish guy, a very sensitive bloke. I’d see him from time to time and enjoyed being around him.”
It was at Tara’s London home that McCartney took acid for the first time in the form of liquid LSD dots on blotting paper.
Barry Miles, writer of McCartney’s authorised biography Many Years From Now, told how the star admitted he had “not wanted to do” the drug. But Lennon had been baiting McCartney after the rest of the band had already tried LSD, teasing him: “We’re all doing it and you’re not!”
Nicky claimed her husband didn’t take acid that night because he was worried about how Paul’s first time would turn out.
She recalled: “He felt it was important for him to remain lucid just in case Paul had a bad trip.
“And what Paul did was spend his whole trip looking at this art book of mine.
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“He wasn’t interested in any of the females there. He just stared at this art book.”
On another occasion, McCartney was high on drugs when he and Tara were riding mopeds near Liverpool at Christmas in 1965.
McCartney crashed his bike, flying over the handlebars, which left him with a chipped tooth and split lip.
McCartney wasn’t the only famous face to fall under Tara’s spell.
He was also pals with David Bowie, Michael Caine, Jimi Hendrix, photographer David Bailey, actor Peter Sellers, Hollywood director John Huston, the Rolling Stones and artist Salvador Dali.
Stones founder Brian Jones was so close to Tara they would joke they were brothers. They spent so much time together there were even rumours of a gay affair.
Tara’s 21st birthday party — just months before his death — summed up the excess of the Swinging Sixties. Held at his family’s Irish estate, drugs were piled high on silver salvers alongside the best champagne and brandy.
Guests including Jagger and Jones flew in by private jet to be met by Tara handing out hash.
McCartney did not attend because the Beatles were recording at Abbey Road.
But even as he celebrated turning 21, Tara’s life behind the glitz and glamour was starting to unravel. His marriage to farmer’s daughter Nicky was on the rocks and he had moved into the Ritz.
Stones founder Brian Jones was so close to Tara they would joke they were brothers
A few months later, in the lead-up to Christmas, Tara and his mother Oonagh were locked in a bitter court battle with Nicky over custody of the couple’s young sons Dorian and Julian — which they eventually won.
Ominously Tara, who previously had a stake in a fashion brand and a nightclub, now had dreams of becoming a racing driver.
On the night of his death in December 1966, Tara had taken his new girlfriend Suki Potier, then 19, to a restaurant in Kensington, leaving around 11.40pm.
According to model Suki, they were driving through Earls Court “not very fast” before they turned into Redcliffe Gardens, South Kensington. But at the inquest, other witnesses told of the sports car “flying past” them with its engine making a “loud roaring noise”.
A car suddenly appeared in front of them. Suki — who died aged 33 in 1981 in a car crash — told police Tara had swerved at the last minute so his side of the car would take the brunt of the impact.
As he lay dying, Suki took off her coat and wrapped Tara in it.
When the news of Tara’s death was broken to Brian Jones, he sobbed uncontrollably. He later took up with Potier.
Keith Richards and billionaire’s son John Paul Getty Jnr, another close pal, went on to name their sons Tara in his honour.
Tara was buried by a lake in the grounds of his family’s Irish estate in a private family ceremony.
For years a single red rose was laid on his grave on the anniversary of his death — rumoured to be from McCartney.
Although Tara’s simple grave bears no words, one obituary published at the time of his death seems to sum up his life perfectly.
The epitaph read: “Tara Browne loved fast cars, discothèques and parties — and he had not a care in the world, or so it seemed to the casual observer”.
Read all about it
HERE is how a report in a paper led to John Lennon writing the lyrics to A Day In The Life ...
I read the news today, oh boy – Lennon had a newspaper on his piano when he saw the report on the inquest into Tara’s death.
About a lucky man who made the grade – A headline described Tara as “A Boy Who Had Everything”.
And though the news was rather sad
Well I just had to laugh
I saw the photograph.
He blew his mind out in a car
He didn’t notice that the lights had changed – Tara raced through a red light and crashed.
A crowd of people stood and stared
They’d seen his face before
Nobody was really sure
If he was from the House of Lords – Tara was an aristocrat, but The Beatles have said some of the song’s lines are about a fictional politician who took drugs in a car.