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About

Genius Annotation

John Lennon’s son Julian came up to him after a day in pre-school and showed him a picture that he’d drawn of his friend named Lucy who was flying amidst a backdrop of bright stars. Julian’s title for the drawing: “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds”.

This inspired the classic Sgt. Pepper’s song of the same name. Given the initials of the song title’s nouns (“Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”), the psychedelic evocations of the lyrics, and the “Summer of Love” subculture of the time, it was and is commonly believed that the song is about the effects of the hallucinogenic drug LSD. For instance, according to Steve Turner, author of several books on the Beatles:

The imagery in the song is partly a reflection of John’s drug experiences, and partly his love of ‘Alice in Wonderland’.

But not so fast. While John Lennon was generally open about drug references in his songs, he always emphatically denied that this one is about LSD.

An interesting footnote is that “Lucy”, the 3.2 million-year-old hominid skeleton found in Kenya in 1974, is named after this song.

Q&A

Find answers to frequently asked questions about the song and explore its deeper meaning

How can you say this song is not about LSD?
Genius Answer

Easily. Read the annotation of the chorus; it convinced me. Try to have an open mind.

What did The Beatles say about "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds"?
Genius Answer

“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, Beatles Bible

“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 by David Sheff.

Is there a live performance of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" by The Beatles?
Credits
Produced By
Harmony Vocals
Lowrey Organ
Lead guitar
Rhythm Guitar
Recorded At
EMI (Abbey Road) Studios, London, UK (February 28, March 1-2, 1967)
Release Date
May 26, 1967
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