LUCY IN THE SKY W DIAMONDS by Steve April on The Pipeline at IndieMusicPeople

LUCY IN THE SKY W DIAMONDS
Lucy Vodden, the woman who inspired the Beatles classic 'Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds,' died last Tuesday at the age of 46. Vodden, a childhood friend of Julian Lennon, passed away after losing a fight with the autoimmune disease lupus, according to an announcement made Monday by the St. Thomas' Lupus Trust Charity.

John Lennon took the song title from a picture Julian had drawn of Vodden at school. "That's Lucy in the sky with diamonds," Julian told his dad when he brought the artwork home. Due to the psychedelic feel of the song, from the Fab Four's iconic 1967 album 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band,' many fans felt the song's title was an allusion to LSD...
from AP

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Bryon Tosoff

9/29/2009 1:08:30 AM

when it was first released It was so insane with the association with L S D that the odd DJ up here would pipe up during the song that when it was spinning the part Lucy in the sky with diamonds they would interject during the song in that phrase L S D , the jerks....thinking they knew what it was all about..shows how much they researched about the music and its background

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9/29/2009 2:21:00 AM ---- Updated 9/29/2009 2:22:17 AM

Sorry but I don't believe any of this. I suspect it was a clever cover story even if Julian swears on a bible that it's true.

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9/29/2009 5:17:57 AM

I think that John did see the picure and it was a picture of Julian and Lucy flying Kites which in the 60's were commonly diamond shaped.
John in his mind saw them as literal diamonds and because her feet were not right at the bottom of the picture he saw her as flying.
In Johns case that can be accepted as poetic licence or inspiration but in the 99% of cases who took so much LSD it resulted in madness or death.

Therefore the song should read

Picture yourself on a boat on a river with tangerine trees and marmalade skys
somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly a girl with kaleidoscope eyes
celophane flowers of yellow and green towering over your head
look for the girl with the sun in her eyes and she's gone

Lucy in the park with Julian fly kites
Lucy in the park with Julian flying kites
ah ah

It doesn't have the same ring to it so the beauty is that you don't have to see things exactly as they are and that drug taking and abnormal behaviour is often a path taken by people who refuse to see things as they are because it is to painful.

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Bryon Tosoff

9/29/2009 9:05:09 AM

whatever it may be about...the song reflects the undeniable genius of the most amazing group to grace the face of the earth...they worked their butts off to get good

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9/29/2009 12:29:21 PM

Amen to that bryon.

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Steve April

10/2/2009 3:30:03 PM ---- Updated 10/6/2009 1:36:13 PM

LUCY IN THE SKY WITH DIAMONDS (Lennon/McCartney) JOHN 1980: "My son Julian came in one day with a picture he painted about a school friend of his named Lucy. He had sketched in some stars in the sky and called it 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,' Simple. 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 visualizing 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 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... and I hadn't met Yoko then. But she was my imaginary girl that we all have." PAUL circa-1994: "I went up to John's house in Weybridge. When I arrived we were having a cup of tea, and he said, 'Look at this great drawing Julian's done. Look at the title!' So I said, 'What's that mean?' thinking Wow, fantastic title! John said, 'It's Lucy, a friend of his from school. And she's in the sky.' ...so we went upstairs and started writing it. People later thought 'Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds' was LSD. I swear we didn't notice that when it first came out."
- Stykman, little river, SC

This song isn't about LSD. There is no point in wasting studio time and money to talk about and acid trip for 5 minutes. It was obvious it was about a picture. Ever heard of an imagination. John sure had one. That's how he wrote this song. The real truth is that we will never know. No one knows but John.
- ben russell, durham, NC

See what Snopes has to say. They have a very good article outlining the facts behind this song, including: (1) It is not about LSD, (2) The title is based on paintings his school friend created (the pictures are shown in the Snopes article). (3) The lyrics in the song describe scenes in "Alice in Wonderland."
- Jackie, Arlington, VA

Elton John covered this too.
- dotdotcom, london, England

Susan is soooooo right. That bull@#%$ about a girl in school is so vague and transparent. Lets face it The Beatles were a bunch of acid tripping stoners with a lot of time on their hands....Not to mention great musicians and songwriters ;)
- Patrick, Durham, NC

From what I have read the drawing that Julian made in school was of his teacher and her name was Lucy. Coincidently mine is too, so I have a special relation to this song.
- Lucy, Long Beach, CA

(2001) The Black Crows sang this song for the I Am Sam soundtrack.
- Carolyn, P'ville, CA

I don't care how many times they deny the LSD reference. I don't believe it. It's too coincidental. And the entire song seems to describe an acid trip. I'm sure Julian did have this friend, but I'm also sure that John thought it was a good excuse to write a song about LSD.
- Susan, Huntington Beach, CA

In 2004, McCartney addressed the issue of drugs in an interview with the Daily Mirror newspaper: "Just about everyone was doing drugs in one form or another, and we were no different, but the writing was too important for us to mess it up by getting off our heads all the time."

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VELULA

10/2/2009 10:28:36 PM

When I took lsd first time listened to this album ... because my friend said ...we must listen this song! ... so for me it really has a connection :) ... far more than that i can't explain with words ;) hahah ... but it was a beautiful day day day .........

Ir.a

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Steve April

10/4/2009 2:15:14 PM ---- Updated 10/6/2009 1:33:00 PM

a few details about "lucy in the sky with diamonds"...and Sgt. Pepper in general...

"The song's colorful surface effects depends on novel instrumentation and engineering. The basic tracks, recorded on March 1 following a full eight-hour rehearsal, consists of Lennon's piano and Harrison's acoustic guitar (with a "wow" phasing effect very noticeable at 1:43 added in the reduction mixdown) on Track 1, heard mostly in the chorus. McCartney's Lowrey organ (with the bell stop on verses, featuring a slower decay than would be available from the Hammond) on Track 2, Ringo's drums on Track 3, and Lennon's guide vocal on Track 4...The next day, the new Track 4 was given McCartney's overdubbed bass and Harrison's strat slide with Leslie, heard right. Completing the recording, Tracks 2 and 3 were each filled with lead vocals by Lennon and, in the chorus, a descant part by McCartney, both heard center. One pair of these vocals was recorded at 45 cps and the other, with heavier echo at 48.5 cps...

...Despite the project's mass (The Sgt. Pepper LP), Emerick found it took 700 hours to record the LP, a number of specific musical devices relate some songs to others. Sgt. Pepper is not quite the "concept album" that McCartney might have wished, but the song order results in a surprising structural coherence..."
The Beatles As Musicians, Walter Everett

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Steve April

10/6/2009 1:23:51 PM ---- Updated 10/6/2009 1:28:09 PM

adding this little addendum about the Sgt. Pepper album in general, kinda fascinating imo...

For Sgt. Pepper, "a different theme was invented by McCartney. Bored he says, with writing unconnected individual songs, 'it was now to do more like writing a novel.' Liberated by the end of touring, McCartney's thoughts were expansive; he hit upon an alter ego for the Beatles, a band that the Beatles could pretend to be. "We were getting a little bit fed up of being the Beatles, because everything we did had to be the Beatles and I felt we were getting trapped in the whole idea of 'what kind of song does John do? What does George do? Paul does the ballads.' It was all getting so bloody predictable.'

"The 'Pepper' idea, which allowed the Beatles to remove themselves from the public by an extra layer, they were now giving a performance of a performance..."
The Beatles As Musicians, Walter Everett

p.s.

Ringo however was largely bored by the 5 month project; he was always on call, awaiting orders.
"The biggest memory I have of Sgt. Pepper," he recalled, "is I learned to play chess on it..."

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Steve April

10/8/2009 12:58:01 PM ---- Updated 10/9/2009 12:16:45 AM

here's another side of "lucy in the sky w diamonds." with WILLIAM SHATNER...

http://lolblips.dailyradar.com/video/youtube-william-shatner-in-lucy-in-the-sky-with/
(if anyone wants to embed this, i'm all thumbs w computers lol...)

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Chris Hance

10/9/2009 2:52:01 AM

there ya go...........

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Steve April

10/10/2009 12:49:33 AM

alrighty then, Data Thieves, thanks.

Hope the dinosaur wasn't too scary...or Spock in rose colored glasses...or the guy with his head in the clouds...

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