Just “The Mothers”, I think. The label knew people would fill in the blank, so insisted on adding “of Invention”.
Heh, this got me thinking about the lyrics to Lola, specifically the line ‘…you drink champagne and it tastes just like Coca Cola’ (or ‘cherry cola’ depending on the version).
Why would champagne taste just like Coca / cherry cola? Other than both being carbonated, they are not in the slightest sense similar looking or tasting beverages. Could it be just a throwaway line that rhymes with ‘Lola’, or… could it mean that the singer character of the song is such an inexperienced, gullible neophyte that not only is he baited and switched into thinking Lola is a woman, but he’s also served what he’s told is champagne, at champagne prices, but being poured cola? Kind of a clever bit of foreshadowing, maybe, since the line is at the very beginning of the song.
I googled to see if anyone else had the same thought, but most of the Lola / cola search word results involved the story of why ‘Coca Cola’ was switched to ‘cherry cola’ (ostensibly the Kinks first recorded the single as ‘Coca Cola’ but had to change it when the BBC refused to play the song on air because they didn’t secure the rights to the brand name-- though stories differ).
I thought it was just to indicate that the establishment in Soho wasn’t exactly the Ritz, but I like your theory better.
I hope you don’t view me as being one who is trying to convince you of that. If you do, then I have to ask what part of “A great many songs of that era were informed by their composers’ drug use, whether explicitly or implicitly. It’s not a stretch to posit that ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’ is among them” you didn’t understand.
FWIW, Lennon said the primary inspiration for “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” was Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. Lennon stated multiple times that he was a manic fan of this work as a child. (McCartney confirmed this when speaking of their work together in writing this song.) We also have Lennon’s writing in In His Own Write and A Spaniard in the Works as further evidence of his imaginative writing. (Both were written before he ever touched LSD.)
But I agree that a song can have more than one inspiration.
I want to make sure I understand your thesis clearly.
Since the first recording session for “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” took place on February 28, 1967, that puts its likely composition no later than early February of that year (assuming John wrote the song very soon after Julian brought his drawing home).
In early February 1967, Julian Lennon was 3 years and 10 months old. So you’re saying the “world” of a child that age in 1967 included frequent references to LSD?
How exactly did that happen? In conversation 'round the dinner table with Cyn and Julian, John casually mentioned “Wow, I had a great trip on LSD last night”? (Also, it’s likely Lennon would have used the term “acid” rather than LSD, since it had been in use since 1965.)
I’ll just leave it to others evaluate the likelihood of your subsequent “conjecture” about Julian’s 3-years/10-month-old thought process as he created his drawing.
So you’re basically saying you are a more “reliable narrator” of John Lennon’s life than John Lennon? OK, then…
I find it notable that in your relentless attempts to find fault with Lennon (something that seems really, really important to you), you have ignored the most salient point about the Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds controversy: could Lennon, one of the greatest songwriters of the 20th Century, really have come up with a scheme this lame? (Note: lameness and “lying” are two different issues.)
I look forward to you advancing further evidence — based on what we know about one of the most prominent figures of his era — that such a thing would be possible.
Well, first of all, I already said upthread that my theory that Julian Lennon picked up on the term ‘LSD’ and came up with his own words for what it stood for is pure conjecture on my part, and could very well be (probably is, even) wrong. I don’t feel like arguing that again.
Second, I’m not relentlessly trying to find fault with Lennon. I think he’s a towering talent in music history, who I have enormous respect for in that regard. When I picked up his “Anthology” CD box set, I played the hell out of it. But, you said yourself he had his faults. He wasn’t always the nicest or easiest person to get along with, and did, by his own admission, write a nonsense song (Glass Onion) to mess with his fans who tried to glean deeper meaning in his lyrics. I don’t think it’s that much of a stretch to go from that to lying about the LitSwD’s actual meaning, just for a laugh, or for whatever reason.
Your main argument against it seems to be that it would be too lame for a genius like Lennon to do something like that. I don’t see why it’s so lame. He got sick of everybody constantly asking him what his songs really mean, so he made up a story (if indeed that’s what happened).
Finally, it’s just my opinion. I could be wrong. You could be right. Could be a little bit of both-- the song maybe was inspired by a child’s drawing, Lewis Carroll, and a soupçon of psychedelia.
had to…
That reminds me of the story about The Angry Samoans being blacklisted by every Hollywood club in the 1980s because they recorded a mean song about DJ Rodney Bingenheimer. I’m pretty sure I saw them play those clubs back then, though.
Hard core nicotine addict. But that is perfectly legal, and so is booze.
Because ti was cola- priced at champagne prices. At certain clubs- when you “buy a girl a drink” at her urging, they put a very expensive bottle of “champagne” on your tab, but she gets soda.
And FYI the song Lake Shore Drive is not about LSD either. It is a drive in Chicago.
Ask any parent how easily kids of that age pick up on the words you don’t want them to!
But we’re to believe that (1) Julian heard people say “LSD”, even though (2) as noted above, it’s unlikely that a user would call it by that name in 1967, that (3) he recognized it as three letters and not a new word “elessdee”, and (4) this precocious three-year-old child then CONSTRUCTED AN ACRONYM based on those letters? I don’t believe it for a second.
I recall a similar rumor/joke/story during my high school years (1988-1991), that said that there was going to be a tour of two popular hair bands:
The Ratt/Poison Tour.
They actually did in 1987 
Mad Magazine had a whole series of fantasy double-bills along those lines, e.g.:
The Mamas and the Papas / The Offspring
Bad Religion / Faith No More
Also a hard core caffeine addict, also legal.
Even well into the terminal phase of his cancer (he was obviously dying and didn’t deny it) he insisted in a televised interview that tobacco smoking was literally nutritious for “people like me.” He was far too arrogantly smug to ever admit he was addicted to it.
I saw a comedian (Bob Saget?) use the same idea.
Meatloaf/Bread
Madonna/Supertramp
Led Zeppelin/The B-52s
As long as the Who is on first.
Death Cab for Cutie and The Dismemberment Plan actually teamed up for “The Death and Dismemberment Tour.”
And Guess Who is the second act.
The Jam and Cream had to cancel their joint tour of Devon and Cornwall as they couldn’t agree which one came first.
I was at a festival in Mexico billed as Los Muertos con Queso. The performers included several members of the Grateful Dead plus the String Cheese Incident. (The Dead with Cheese, get it?)