Okay - in this article on MSNBC.com, which excerpts an interview with Sir Paul from the Daily Mirror, he talks about which Beatles songs have drug influences.
I thought John always got frustrated with anyone’s connecting Lucy in the Sky with LSD - he asserted that he got the name from a drawing of Julian’s.
Granted, I find John’s assertion a bit of a stretch, but I never knew that Paul commonly just disregarded this bit of Beatles’ lore and just said “yep, it was about acid.”…
I argued this point until I turned blue in the face.
Since Lennon always denied LSD was about LSD, everyone concluded it wasn’t about LSD. My point was Lennon wasn’t going to let you in on his little jokes, you weren’t allowed to be on his level. You know, Lennon was kind of an arrogant jerk at times.
Who exactly wrote the song? It was my understanding that most of the songs attributed to Lennon-McCartney were primarily written by one or the other. if Lennon primarily wrote ‘Lucy’, I’d give his explanation more credence. Plus, it’s supported by the actual picture his kid drew, which turned up. And his kid’s story.
Of course, the song could have been initially inspired by the pic, then Lennon noticed the LSD connection, and essentially the song it about both the pic and the drug.
In the quote you excerpted, Paul isn’t saying the name “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” refers to LSD; he simply says, “‘Lucy in the Sky,’ that’s pretty obvious.” And it is—the song “Lucy in the Sky” is very obviously LSD-inspired. Lennon didn’t bother to hide the fact that he was heavily influenced by LSD and “Lucy” is definitely supposed to be a trippy “head” song. But the title was always an accident. Sorry, ccwaterback, I don’t buy your denial. Lennon never bothered to dissemble about other obscure references in his songs; in fact, he was uncommonly candid about what his lyrics meant.
“Lucy” was mostly written by John, with a few lyrics (and probably some help on the arrangement) from Paul.
I followed the thread ccwaterback listed - there is the Snopes entry for Lucy and it pretty clearly states that it was not intentional and in fact includes a quote from Paul saying that the title was not intentional.
Having said that, I still find Paul’s more recent quote confusing, even if - as Nonsuch argues - the song itself may incorporate LSD-influenced imagery but was named coincidentally.
At that point, we are kinda of splitting hairs - Lennon was clearly going through a “word painting” kind of phase. While that must have been drug-influenced, the songs weren’t necessarily about drugs. I am the Walrus, Strawberry Fields and A Day in the Life don’t strike me as about drugs. It is not clear to me that Lucy is about LSD.
Since McCartney is on record as having specifically denied this, it’s not clear what this sideways comment might mean, even if we had the full context.
Well we will never really know the story behind LSD, only Johnny knows for sure, and he’s not going to tell us now. Remember, Elvis didn’t do drugs either.
I love Paul muchly, but he changes his story and contradicts himself (and the others) all the time. Sometimes in the same interview. It happened 40 years ago and his head has been riddled with drugs, from pot to coke…so it’s not entirely surprising.
Since John isn’t going to be changing his story any time soon, I’ll just go on believing his version of tihngs for now. Although, John did the same tihng Paul is guilty of. He contradicted himself from interview to interview, probably just because he could.
So - wait; this was a unintentional zombie revivification? I hate it when that happens.
And here I thought this thread was being revived by some random drive-by poster who was going to post some random comment about how Lucy in the Sky really refers to some porn star they need you to see at their website
John also said that “How Can You Sleep?” wasn’t about Paul. That maybe his troubles with Paul furnished the idea for the song, but it wasn’t really about him…
