The Disputed Origins Of The Beatles' “Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds”

By | November 18, 2021

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One of the greatest Beatles albums ever. (pinterest)

“Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds,” the hit song off The Beatles’ iconic “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band'' album, ranks as one of the most memorable Beatles’ songs ever. Despite its incredible pop culture footprint, the song made it to just 34 on the US Billboard's year-end Hot 100.

Nevertheless, the song has been memorialized in everything from 3 million-year-old fossils to the discovery of the universe’s largest known diamond. Elton John once covered it to the tune of 1974’s #1 hit while William Shatner attempted it in a spoken-word style to the bane of everyone’s ears. So was there a real-life Lucy, what inspired the song, and is it really about LSD? Here’s everything you needed to know about The Beatles’ “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds.”

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Julian Lennon's artwork that supposedly inspired Lennon to write "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds."

The Disputed Origins Of “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds”

According to John Lennon, the song has absolutely nothing to do with LSD. As he ardently insisted for years, it all started with a painting his son Julian did of his classmate Lucy. As he tells it, “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. After the album had come out and the album had been published, someone noticed that the letters spelled out LSD, and I had no idea about it. … But nobody believes me.”