"A Day in the Life" became one of the Beatles' most influential songs, and is now considered by many to be the band's greatest work. Paul Grushkin, in his book "Rockin' Down the Highway: The Cars and People That Made Rock Roll", called the track "one of the most ambitious, influential, and groundbreaking works in pop music history". According to musicologist John Covach, "'A Day in the Life' is perhaps one of the most important single tracks in the history of rock music; clocking in at only four minutes and forty-five seconds, it must surely be among the shortest epic pieces in rock." In his review of the 50th anniversary edition of "Sgt. Pepper" for "Rolling Stone", Mikal Gilmore says that "A Day in the Life" and Harrison's "Within You Without You" are the only songs on the album that transcend its legacy as "a gestalt: a whole that was greater than the sum of its parts". In a 2017 article for "Newsweek", Tim de Lisle cited Chris Smith's recollection of him and fellow art student Freddie Mercury "writ little bits of songs which we linked together, like 'A Day in the Life'", as evidence to show that "No "Pepper", no 'Bohemian Rhapsody'."