Jump to content

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Radiopathy (talk | contribs) at 00:33, 26 May 2012 (1st mentions of nations). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

This article is about The Beatles' song. For the graphic character "Lucy in the Sky", see Karolina Dean.

"Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds"
Song

"Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" is a song written primarily by John Lennon and credited to Lennon–McCartney,[1] for The Beatles' 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.[2] This album became the biggest selling album of the 1960s and remains today the biggest selling studio album in countries as far apart as the United Kingdom and India.

Lennon's son, Julian, inspired the song with a nursery school drawing he called "Lucy — in the sky with diamonds". Shortly after the song's release, speculation arose that the first letter of each of the title's nouns intentionally spelled LSD.[3] Although Lennon denied this, the BBC banned the song.[citation needed]

In a 2004 interview, Paul McCartney said that the song is about LSD, stating, "A song like 'Got to Get You Into My Life,' that's directly about pot, although everyone missed it at the time." "Day Tripper," he says, "that's one about acid. 'Lucy in the Sky,' that's pretty obvious. There's others that make subtle hints about drugs, but, you know, it's easy to overestimate the influence of drugs on the Beatles' music."[4]

Arrangement

Much of the song is in simple triple metre (3/4 time), but the chorus is in 4/4 time. The song modulates between musical keys, using the key of A major for verses, B♭ major for the pre-chorus, and G major for the chorus.[5] It is sung by Lennon over an increasingly complicated underlying arrangement which features a tamboura, played by George Harrison, and a counter melody on Lowrey organ played by McCartney and taped with a special organ stop sounding "not unlike a celeste".[6]

Session tapes from the initial 1 March 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 to improve the song.[7]

Title and lyrics

Julian's drawing

Lennon's inspiration for the song came when his son, Julian, showed him a nursery school drawing he called "Lucy - in the sky with diamonds", depicting his classmate, Lucy O'Donnell. Julian 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..."[8][9][10] Lucy Vodden née O'Donnell, in a BBC radio interview in 2007, said, "I remember Julian and I both doing pictures on a double-sided easel, throwing paint at each other, much to the horror of the classroom attendant... Julian had painted a picture and on that particular day his father turned up with the chauffeur to pick him up from school."[11] Lennon said he was surprised at the idea that the song title was a hidden reference to LSD.[3]

It was purely unconscious that it came out to be LSD. Until someone pointed it out, I never even thought of it. I mean, who would ever bother to look at initials of a title? It's not an acid song. The imagery was Alice in the boat.

Reviews

Rolling Stone magazine described the song as "Lennon's lavish daydream"[12] and music critic Richie Unterberger said "'Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds' was one of the best songs on The Beatles' famous Sgt. Pepper album, and one of the classic songs of psychedelia as a whole. There are few other songs that so successfully evoke a dream world, in both the sonic textures and words."[13] In a review for the BBC, Chris Jones described the song as "nursery rhyme surrealism" that contributed to Sgt. Pepper's "revolutionary ... sonic carpet that enveloped the ears and sent the listener spinning into other realms."[14]

In later interviews, Lennon expressed disappointment with the Beatles' arrangement of the recording, complaining that inadequate time was taken to fully develop his initial idea for the song. He also said that he had not sung it very well. "I was so nervous I couldn't sing," he told the journalist Ray Connolly, "but I like the lyrics."[15]

Legacy

The song has the distinction of being the first Beatles recording to be referenced by the group themselves: the second verse of Lennon's "I Am the Walrus", released on Magical Mystery Tour at the end of 1967, contains the lyric "see how they fly, like Lucy in the sky, see how they run...".

In November 1967 John Fred and his Playboy Band released a parody/tribute song called "Judy in Disguise (With Glasses)"[16] which topped the US Billboard Hot 100 chart for two weeks and reached the number one spot in a number of other countries around the world.[17]

The Dream Theater song "Octavarium" contains three song names:

Sailing on the seven seize the day tripper diem's ready
Jack the ripper Owens Wilson Phillips and my supper's ready
Lucy in the sky with diamond Dave's not here I come to save the
day...

Pink Floyd namecheck "Lucy in the sky" on "Let There Be More Light", the opening song on A Saucerful Of Secrets (1968). The lyrics are by Roger Waters.

It was played by the Grateful Dead from 1993, and subsequently played by "The Dead".

A 3.2 million year-old, 40% complete fossil skeleton of an Australopithecus afarensis specimen discovered in 1974 was named "Lucy" because the Beatles' song was being played loudly and repeatedly on a tape recorder in the camp. The phrase "Lucy in the skies" became "Lucy in disguise" to the anthropologists, because they initially did not understand the impact of their discovery.[18]

The White dwarf star BPM 37093, which contains a core of crystallised carbon roughly 4000 km in diameter, is informally named "Lucy" as a tribute to The Beatles' song.[19]

One of the main characters of Hiro Mashima's manga Fairy Tail, Lucy Heartfilia, takes her name from the song.[20]

Jim Carrey's character in the film Mr. Popper's Penguins uses the first two lines of the song as a sales pitch to describe the establishment that his company plans on building, to take the place of an old restaurant.

In Runaways, Karolina Dean temporarily used Lucy in the Sky as her alias and later on, Xavin tells her that he told the band at their wedding to play "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" because it reminded him of her.

In the American TV series Fringe, the character Peter Bishop uses the line "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" in episode 4 of season 1, "The Arrival".

In the 2001 film I Am Sam, Sam (Sean Penn) names his daughter (Dakota Fanning) "Lucy Diamond Dawson" after the song. Beatles song covers and references to the Beatles are prominent throughout the film.

In Angela Robinson's short movie D.E.B.S., one of the main characters is named Lucy in the Sky. In the feature movie D.E.B.S. based on the short, that character is named Lucy Diamond.

The song "La Fee Verte" by British rock band Kasabian contains the lyric "I see Lucy in the sky, Telling me I'm high."

Personnel

The instrumentation on the track is:[21]

Cover versions

Elton John

"Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds"
Song
B-side"One Day (At a Time)"

In 1974, Elton John released a cover version as a single. Recorded at the Caribou Ranch, it featured backing vocals and guitar by John Lennon under the pseudonym Dr. Winston O'Boogie (Winston being Lennon's middle name). The single topped the US Billboard pop charts for two weeks in January 1975 as well as the Canadian RPM national singles chart for four weeks spanning January and February, eventually overtaken by The Carpenters's version of the Motown hit "Please Mr. Postman", a song covered, with Lennon singing the lead vocal, on With the Beatles in 1963. It also appeared on the 1976 musical documentary, All This and World War II.

The B-Side of the single was also a John Lennon composition, "One Day (At a Time)," a song from Lennon's 1973 album Mind Games. As with the A-Side, Lennon appears on the B-Side, playing guitar. In the US it was certified Gold on 29 January 1975 by the RIAA.

During their collaboration, Elton John appeared on John Lennon's song "Whatever Gets You Thru the Night". Lennon promised to appear live with John at Madison Square Garden if "Whatever Gets You Thru the Night" became a number 1 single.[22] It did, and on Thanksgiving Night, 28 November 1974, Lennon kept his promise. They performed "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", "Whatever Gets You Thru the Night", and "I Saw Her Standing There". The Lennon-sung "I Saw Her Standing There" (credited to the Elton John Band featuring John Lennon) was originally released in 1975 on the B-Side of Elton John's "Philadelphia Freedom" single. In 1981, all three live songs were issued on "28 November 1974," an Elton John EP. In 1990, the three songs were made available on the Lennon box set. In 1996, they were also included on the remastered edition of Elton John's Here and There album.

Elton John once said, "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds 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".

It was a part of Elton John's repertoire until 1976. One notable one-off performance by Elton John took place on 9 October 1988, John Lennon's birthday. It also received a handful of performances in 1998, but has not been played live by Elton John since. Both the single and the B-side were later released on the 1995 re-release of his album Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy and appear on various compilations.

It is the only Beatles cover song to reach #1 on the Billboard Chart.[citation needed]

Others

There is also a version floating around obviously recorded for the Yellow Submarine film using the original track by the Beatles with Jeremy Hilary Boob Ph.D. singing the first half of the first verse with completely different lyrics.

The different lyrics are: "Picture yourself just a nuclear fission with library cards and a metaphor skies. (laughter) Somebody quotes you, you read from the sourcebook, a concept with microphone eyes." (laughter)

It is unknown whether these lyrics were written by John Lennon or not.

References

Notes

  1. ^ Miles 1997, pp. 312.
  2. ^ allmusic.com 2010.
  3. ^ a b Sheff 2000, p. 182.
  4. ^ Matus, Victorino (June 2004). "The Truth Behind "LSD"". The Weekly Standard.
  5. ^ Hal Leonard 1993, pp. 646–650.
  6. ^ Lewisohn 1998, pp. 100–101.
  7. ^ Lewisohn 1998, p. 100.
  8. ^ The Guardian 2009.
  9. ^ Kral 2009.
  10. ^ BBC Radio 2, Sounds of the 60s, 2 February 2008
  11. ^ Goddard, Caroline (September 2009). "Beatles' muse Lucy Vodden dies". She knows Entertainment. SheKnows LLC. Retrieved 16 August 2010.
  12. ^ Rolling Stone 2003.
  13. ^ Unterberger 2009.
  14. ^ Jones 2007.
  15. ^ songfacts.com.
  16. ^ Anon. "Judy in Disguise Lyrics by John Fred". CD Universe. CD Universe/Muze Inc. Retrieved 24 August 2010.
  17. ^ Hawtin, Steve. "Song title 888 - Judy in Disguise (With Glasses)". tsort.info. tsort. Retrieved 24 August 2010. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  18. ^ Johanson & Edey 1981, p. 22.
  19. ^ Aguilar, David. "This Valentine's Day, Give The Woman Who Has Everything The Galaxy's Largest Diamond", Retrieved on 29 April 2010.
  20. ^ Mashima, Hiro (2008). Fairy Tail, Volume 2. Del Rey Manga. ISBN 978-0-345-50330-5.
  21. ^ MacDonald 2005, p. 240.
  22. ^ Sheff 2000, p. 31.

Bibliography

Preceded by US Billboard Hot 100 number one single
(Elton John version)
4–11 January 1975 (2 weeks) 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Canadian RPM number-one single
(Elton John version)
11 January - 1 February 1975 (4 weeks) 		Succeeded by
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lucy_in_the_Sky_with_Diamonds&oldid=494392788"