Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds

"Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds"
Song

"Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" is a song written mainly by John Lennon (credited to Lennon/McCartney) and recorded by The Beatles for their 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Arrangement

The song has a complex arrangement typical of later Lennon-McCartney compositions; much of the song is in compound duple metre (6/8 time), except the chorus, where it switches to 4/4 time. The song also shifts between musical keys, using the key of A for the verse, B-flat for the pre-chorus or bridge section, and G for the chorus. It consists of a very simple melody (reminiscent of a nursery song), sung by Lennon over an increasingly complicated underlying arrangement which features a tamboura, played by George Harrison, and a Lowrey organ played by Paul McCartney being taped with a special organ stop to give it a sound not unlike a celeste

Lyrics and title

Session tapes from the initial March 1, 1967 recording of this song reveal that Lennon originally sang the line "Cellophane flowers of yellow and green" as a broken phrase, but McCartney suggested that he sing it more fluidly, thus improving the song.

Julian's drawing

According to the Beatles, one day in 1966 Lennon's son, Julian, came home from nursery school with a drawing he said was of his classmate, a girl named Lucy. Showing the artwork to his father, young Julian described the picture as "Lucy — in the sky with diamonds."

File:Lucyinthesky.JPG

Lucy — in the sky with diamonds by a young Julian Lennon.

Julian later said, "I don't know why I called it that or why it stood out from all my other drawings, but I obviously had an affection for Lucy at that age. I used to show dad everything I'd built or painted at school, and this one sparked off the idea for a song about 'Lucy in the sky with diamonds'."

His son's artwork appears to have inspired Lennon to draw heavily on his own childhood affection for Lewis Carroll's "Wool and Water" chapter from Through the Looking-Glass. At least one lyric was influenced by both Carroll and skits on a popular British radio comedy programme (The Goon Show) making references to "plasticine ties", which showed up in the song as "Plasticine porters with looking glass ties". A parody of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", recited by the Mad Hatter, appears in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

Carroll's work has also been cited as having influenced Lennon's "I Am the Walrus" which refers to a character from Through the Looking-Glass and his two books, In His Own Write and A Spaniard in the Works.

Who was Lucy?

The Lucy referred to in the song was probably a classmate of Julian's at Heath House School named Lucy O'Donnell, born in Weybridge in 1963. She has met up with him on a few occasions in the last few years, and occasionally appears on daytime shows for the anniversary of the "Sgt. Pepper's" album. She is featured in the book "A Hard Days Write". She now lives in Surbiton in Surrey, and owned a nanny agency for children with special needs until she was taken ill with psoriatic arthritis and lupus some years ago.

There is another candidate for the original Lucy: British comedian Peter Cook's daughter, Lucy. Lennon and Cook were seeing quite a bit of each other at the time (Lennon made a guest appearance on Cook's TV show Not Only... But Also as a doorman). According to Cook's biographer, Harry Thompson, Lennon told Cook's then wife, Wendy, that the song was inspired by Lucy Cook.

Reference to drugs and the title of the song

While Lennon and the Beatles were often frank about their drug use, for decades they denied that "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" had anything to do with LSD. In a 2004 interview, however, Paul McCartney spoke openly about his Beatles-era drug use, revealing that songs such as "Day Tripper" and "Got To Get You Into My Life" were written directly about LSD and marijuana. When questioned about "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," he noted that Julian's painting had inspired the song, but that it was "pretty obvious" that the song was about an acid trip.

In a 1971 interview, Lennon recalled hearing about how the initials of the title spelled out "LSD", then checking if the same thing had happened with other Beatles songs and finding "they didn't spell out anything." In that same interview, he stated the song was composed in a conscious attempt to craft poetry, and in 1980 he confirmed the images were taken from Alice in Wonderland.

In The Beatles Anthology (2000), Ringo Starr claimed he was present when Julian showed his "crazy little painting". McCartney recounted the time he and Lennon spent in Lennon's music room, swapping suggestions for lyrics, saying, "We never noticed the LSD initial until it was pointed out later, by which point people didn't believe us."

Although the Beatles say they did not name the song after LSD, the song was conceived and recorded during a time when the Beatles were experimenting with LSD frequently.

George Martin also denied the song was about LSD in the book The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions by Mark Lewisohn. However, Lewisohn goes on to say "there can be little doubt that this was the very substance that provoked such colourful word imagery to flow out of Lennon's head and onto paper."

Elton John version

The most successful remake was a single recorded in 1974 by Elton John with background vocals and guitar by John Lennon (who used the pseudonym Dr. Winston O'Boogie). The single topped the Billboard pop charts for two weeks in January 1975 and also appeared on the ephemeral 1976 musical documentary, All This and World War II.

During their collaboration, John appeared on Lennon's song "Whatever Gets You Thru the Night". Lennon promised to appear live with John at Madison Square Garden if it became a number 1 single. It did, and on Thanksgiving Night, November 28, 1974, Lennon kept his promise. They performed "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", "Whatever Gets You Through the Night", and "I Saw Her Standing There". Those live versions are available on the Lennon box set, as well as Elton John's Here and There. "It is a song that I never do in a set at a concert simply because it reminds me too much of John Lennon. This is the same with Empty Garden". Today, John does occasionally perform it, though only at Madison Square Garden in New York City. The single was later released on the 1996 re-release of Elton John's album Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy.

Other cover versions

The song has been covered by many artists.

• A 1968 version by actor William Shatner (included on his album The Transformed Man) wasn't successful at the time, but became well-known on the internet decades later. It was also included in the compilation album, Golden Throats. In the UK, it was championed by Kenny Everett, and appeared on his compilation album of bad pop songs. Reportedly, in both informal and more-structured polls of music fans, Shatner's rendition is considered one of the worst pop recordings ever, although the notoriety may, in fact, have helped his musical career.
• The Hooters performed the song on June 15, 1986 at A Conspiracy of Hope, a benefit concert on behalf of Amnesty International at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey and this version was later included on their 1996 compilation album Hooterization: A Retrospective.
• In 2002 the Brazilian artist Rita Lee released a Beatles cover album that included this song.
• Hyde, a Japanese rock musician best known as the vocalist for L'arc~en~Ciel, covered this song for the B-side to his 2001 solo single "Horizon," as well as numerous times in concert.
• A very different cover was recorded by pianist John Bayless, as a minuet in the style of Bach.
• In 1988, Frank Zappa changed the lyrics of the song to satirize the sex scandal revolving around televangelist Jimmy Swaggart. In this version it was called: "Louisiana Hooker with Herpes". For legal reasons, the song is not available on the official Zappa catalogue.
• Katie Melua performed a cover version which appears on the Special Edition of her second album, Piece By Piece, released in 2006.
• The Grateful Dead (and more recently Phil Lesh and Friends) have also covered this song in concert.
• The Black Crowes covered this song on the I Am Sam soundtrack. Aimee Mann also performed a cover of this song on the soundtrack, which consisted of covered Beatles songs.
• The Asian artist Wing performs this song on her Beatles cover album.
• Puffy AmiYumi a Japanese pop/rock duo performed a cover for the B-side of their 2006 single "Hataraku Otoko".
• Bono, with U2 bandmate The Edge on backing vocals, covered the song for the 2007 film Across the Universe, which is based on the songs of The Beatles.

Cultural influence

• The famous Australopithecus fossil Lucy was named after this song, which was being played loudly and repeatedly on a tape recorder in the camp when the fossil was discovered.

• The song is referenced in another Beatles song, "I Am the Walrus", in the line "See how they fly, like Lucy in the sky."

• In January 1968, John Fred and the Playboy Band parodied the song on their hit single "Judy in Disguise (With Glasses)" which intentionally sounds like "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds." Interestingly enough, the single knocked another Beatles single, "Hello, Goodbye", down the charts.

• On 13 February, 2004, astronomers at Harvard announced the discovery of BPM 37093, a celestial object which appears to be a carbon star. Carbon being the element diamonds are composed of, they whimsically named it Lucy, likely in reference to Arthur C. Clarke's 2061: Odyssey Three (1987), which speculates that the core of Jupiter may be an Earth-sized diamond, formed by carbon sedimenting from the outer layers (and when a mountain-sized chunk of diamond appears on Jupiter's moon Europa, Clarke's characters use the codeword "Lucy" to communicate the discovery).

• In The Simpsons episode "Last Exit to Springfield", Lisa is given nitrous oxide by her dentist and hallucinates in a scene inspired by the Beatles' Yellow Submarine movie. In it, she encounters the four Beatles in a purple submarine, with George Harrison saying, "Look, it's Lisa in the sky!" Followed by Lennon lamenting "No diamonds though."

• "Lucy In the Sky" is the codename of a superhero in the comic book Runaways. Karolina Dean takes up this name because her alien physiology makes her skin pulse with psychedelic colors and gives her the ability to fly, and because she is a fervent fan of The Beatles.

• The song also plays an important role in the movie I Am Sam, starring Sean Penn, in which he names his daughter (Dakota Fanning) Lucy Diamond because of the song.

• In the 1998 film Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas, Gonzo is found in a hotel room with a girl named Lucy. He had given her acid(LSD) and quotes the song. "This is Lucy, in the sky with diamonds."

References

• Paul McCartney's BBC Interview

External links

• MoreThings Al Barger's Analysis
• Lucy Richardson at IMDB