Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds

Description

Learn to play – Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds

Written by: Lennon-McCartney
Recorded: 28 February; 1, 2 March 1967
Producer: George Martin
Engineer: Geoff Emerick

Released: 1 June 1967 (UK), 2 June 1967 (US)

John Lennon: vocals, lead guitar
Paul McCartney: backing vocals, Lowrey organ, bass
George Harrison: backing vocals, lead guitar, acoustic guitar, tambura
Ringo Starr: drums, maracas

Available on:
Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
Anthology 2
Yellow Submarine Songtrack
Love

Although the title was widely perceived to be a coded reference to LSD, Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds in fact took its name from a drawing of a schoolfriend by the four-year-old Julian Lennon.

I had no idea it spelt LSD. This is the truth: my son came home with a drawing and showed me this strange-looking woman flying around. I said, ‘What is it?’ and he said, ‘It’s Lucy in the sky with diamonds,’ and I thought, ‘That’s beautiful.’ I immediately wrote a song about it.
John Lennon
There can be little doubt, however, that the song was directly influenced by John Lennon’s continual experimentation with LSD, which hit a peak in 1967. However, in 1980 he claimed the main inspiration came from Alice In Wonderland.

The images were from Alice In Wonderland. It was Alice in the boat. She is buying an egg and it turns into Humpty-Dumpty. The woman serving in the shop turns into a sheep, and the next minute they are rowing in a rowing boat somewhere and I was visualising that. There was also the image of the female who would someday come save me – a ‘girl with kaleidoscope eyes’ who would come out of the sky. It turned out to be Yoko, though I hadn’t met Yoko yet. So maybe it should be Yoko In The Sky With Diamonds.
It was purely unconscious that it came out to be LSD. Until somebody 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. And also the image of this female who would come and save me – this secret love that was going to come one day. So it turned out to be Yoko, though, and I hadn’t met Yoko then. But she was my imaginary girl that we all have.

John Lennon
All We Are Saying, David Sheff
The song is structured in two distinct parts: the dreamlike verses in 6/8, with their gently psychedelic imagery; and the switch to 4/4 for the chorus.

Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds was mostly written by Lennon, with a little help from Paul McCartney.

I showed up at John’s house and he had a drawing Julian had done at school with the title ‘Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds’ above it. Then we went up to his music room and wrote the song, swapping psychedelic suggestions as we went. I remember coming up with ‘cellophane flowers’ and ‘newspaper taxis’ and John answered with things like ‘kaleidoscope eyes’ and ‘looking glass ties’. We never noticed the LSD initial until it was pointed out later – by which point people didn’t believe us.
Paul McCartney
Anthology
And the Lucy of the title? Her name was Lucy O’Donnell, and she attended Heath House, a private Weybridge nursery school, with Julian Lennon. She didn’t realise she had been immortalised in a Beatles song until she was 13, in 1976.