One side of the lyric sheet shows Lennon's amendments

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John Lennon's handwritten lyrics to Beatles song A Day In The Life have sold for $1.2m (£810,000) at auction, well above the price expected.

The double-sided sheet of paper with notes written in felt marker and blue ink was sold at Sotheby's in New York.

The lyric sheet also contains some corrections and other notes penned in red ink.

The song - co-written with Paul McCartney - is the final track on the band's 1967 Sgt Pepper album.

The buyer was an anonymous American telephone bidder. The lyric sheet had previously belonged to Mal Evans, the Beatles' road manager.

According to the auction house, the previous record for a sale of Beatles lyrics was All You Need Is Love, which fetched $1m (£655,450) in 2005.

Rolling Stone magazine listed A Day in the Life at number 26 in its compilation of the greatest 500 songs of all time. The album went on to win four Grammy awards.

The BBC banned airplay of the track in 1967 because of the lyric "I'd love to turn you on", which was interpreted as a reference to drug use.

This also led to several Asian countries to release Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band minus the song.

The lyric was apparently a later addition by Lennon.