Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds
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Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds is a song written mostly by John Lennon (with some material by Paul McCartney) in 1967 and recorded by The Beatles for their album, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Image:Lucyinthesky.JPG
It is unusual among contemporary popular songs for being in triple metre, except in the chorus where it switches to 4/4 time, and having three key changes, A for the verse, B-flat for the prechorus, and G for the chorus.
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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."
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 comedy programme (the Goon Show) making references to plasticine ties, which showed up in the song as Plasticine porters with looking glass ties. Carroll's work has also been cited as having influenced Lennon's two books, In His Own Write and A Spaniard in the Works.
Who was Lucy?
Four year old Lucy Richardson was about a year older than Julian Lennon when he enrolled at the private Heath House School in Weybridge, Surrey. John Lennon and the other Beatles visited her family's antique and jewellery shop now and then, so the family knew Julian. When the little boy became homesick or unsettled at school, Lucy would be called out of class to sit with him while he drew pictures.
In 2005, her sister Mary Foster said, "One day John Lennon came into the shop and said, 'Hello, Lucy in the sky with diamonds.' We thought it was just John being John." When the song appeared on Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the Richardsons noticed the name but weren't sure of any connection until 1975, when Lennon told an interviewer the story of his son's picture.
Richardson went on to work in the film industry and is credited as art director on films such as Elizabeth, Chocolat and The Life and Death of Peter Sellers. She never married. In 2003, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. After gruelling therapy the cancer reportedly spread to her bones, and she died on 1 June 2005, the date that Sgt. Pepper was released in 1967.
When she was buried in Weybridge her family sprinkled crystals on the grave, symbolizing the song's title.
Reference to drugs
Since the initials of the title are LSD and the lyrics are psychedelic, some have suggested the song refers to drug use, and there was some controversy surrounding this when the recording was first released and getting airplay. While Lennon and the Beatles were often frank about their drug use, for decades they denied the song had anything to do with LSD.
In a 1971 interview Lennon recalled hearing about how the initials spelt out LSD, then checking if the same thing had happened with other Beatles songs and finding "they didn't spell out anything." In 1980 he confirmed the images were taken from Alice in Wonderland.
In The Beatles Anthology (2000), Ringo claimed he was present when Julian showed his "crazy little painting". Paul recounted the time he and John spent in John'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 did not name the song after LSD, it is worth noting that the song was conceived and recorded during a time when the Beatles were experimenting with LSD frequently, and creating much of their music under the influence. It is possible that Strawberry Fields Forever was the product of such sessions, which would account for the surreal and dreamlike lyrics.
Cultural echos
The song has since been covered by many artists, as have dozens of Beatles songs. 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. 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 has perhaps only helped his musical career. A more critically successful remake was recorded in 1974 by Elton John with background vocals and guitar by John Lennon (who used the pseudonym Dr. Winston O'Boogie) This version was released as a single and topped the Billboard pop charts for two weeks in January 1975.
The song inspired the name of an anthropological find. On November 30, 1974, Donald Johanson and Tom Gray discovered the skeleton of a 3.18 million year old female hominid in the Afar Triangle of Ethiopia. They called it Lucy because the Beatles hit was playing while they were discussing a name.
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 an episode of The Simpsons, 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 their yellow submarine, with George Harrison saying, "Look, it's Lisa in the sky!" Followed by Lennon lamenting "No diamonds though."
In January 1968, John Fred and the Playboy Band parodied the song on their hit single "Judy in Disguise (With Glasses)" which purposely sounds like "Judy in the Sky with Glasses." Interestingly enough, the single knocked another Beatles single, "Hello Goodbye", down the charts.
External links
- MoreThings Al Barger's Analysis
- Song lyrics
- Lyrics and chords
| The Beatles |
|---|
| John Lennon | Paul McCartney | George Harrison | Ringo Starr Pete Best | Stuart Sutcliffe |
| Management |
| Brian Epstein | Allen Klein | Apple Records |
| Production |
| George Martin | Geoff Emerick | Norman Smith | Abbey Road Studios |
| Official Studio Albums |
| Please Please Me (1963) | With the Beatles (1963) | A Hard Day's Night (1964) | Beatles for Sale (1964) | Help! (1965) | Rubber Soul (1965) Revolver (1966) | Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967) | Magical Mystery Tour (1967) | The Beatles (1968) | Yellow Submarine (1969) | Abbey Road (1969) | Let It Be (1970) |
| Films |
| A Hard Day's Night (1964) | Help! (1965) | Magical Mystery Tour (1967) | Yellow Submarine (1968) | Let it Be (1970) |
| Related Articles |
| History | Discography | Bootlegs | Long-term influence | Beatlemania | Beatlesque | Fifth Beatle | Paul Is Dead | British Invasion | Yoko Ono | 1960s | Apple Corps |
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