Nope. Not the whole claim, by any means. The OP is asking opinions on whether the song is about drugs, specifically LSD, and the initials in the title are only one of the factors involved in the argument that it is.
Also, you saying you never claimed the song wasn’t psychedelic with drug imagery kind of goes against your original post that started the whole thing in the original ‘Myths’ thread:
Good points, thanks.
There is a difference between saying a song is psychedelic with drug imagery , and that it is about drugs. A lot of the Sgt Pepper album is psychedelic with drug imagery.
Got to hand it to you, you can split hairs with remarkable precision.
I disagree. I think John caught the LSD coincidence in the drawing and thought, hey, this is a great cover story for a tripping song.
Regardless, however innocent the original idea was, there’s no way John did not morph it into an actual drug reference. If it had been Lucy in a Sportscar Driving and the imagery was all about driving a car, then yeah, connecting it to LSD would be a stretch. But given that imagery, it’s about drugs.
You can’t handle the truth!
I, too, am curious as to how many on the ‘definitely about acid’ side have ever taken it. Because I’m with you on this.
Me. No, I didn’t have those hallucinations specifically, or any hallucinations at all exactly. But the overall sense of the experience – yes.
However, my conclusion is still based on my not believing that none of the Beatles nor their manager noticed the acronym before the song was released under that title. Might have been a coincidence to start. But I really can’t see it as a coincidence that nobody noticed.
This:
The whole song sounds like an acid trip. And we know they were experimenting with acid. (No, i haven’t taken LSD. But i have heard reports from people who have, and the lyrics are consistent with those stories.)
Did his kid make the drawing? Almost certainly. Did his kid title the drawing, unprompted? Maybe. Did the Beatles know the title included a reference to LSD? Of course. Did they think the song was about LSD when they released it, and just denied the reference so it wouldn’t be banned on the radio, or drive away some fans? That’s certainly what i believe.
It took me about 4 minutes. Damn internet! And I was pretty disappointed when I finally saw it.
What sense is there besides the hallucinations?
I’ve dropped acid a few times. I don’t feel Lucy is anything like those trips. It’s much more like shrooms.
It’s a bit difficult to express in words; because the thing is that the part of me that thinks in words went out of gear. That part was still there, nattering along incessantly in words as usual; but the part of me that was running my eyes and ears and nose and muscles was the rest of me, which had gotten shoved into the background by the part that uses words somewhere around when I was three years old; and was very pleased to be up front again and having a lot of fun. Sensation and perception was quite a bit different – it’s a good thing I had somebody with me because I don’t think I could have recognized my way to find anywhere in particular – but again I can’t describe it in words. We were outdoors, wandering around on rough gravelly ground somewhere outside of Albuquerque back before that area was all built up; and at some point I’d taken my shoes off. I wasn’t in the habit of going barefoot except maybe inside on smooth surfaces, so my feet had no protective callus, and after a while the word-using part of me intruded enough on the rest of me to say 'Feet are going to be awfully sore tomorrow!" and got a wordless reply along the lines of ‘feels so good right now’. The shoes stayed off.
My feet weren’t sore at all the next day. I have no logical explanation for this; but they weren’t.
That’s wonderful, but does not in any way resemble LitSwD to me, either the lyrics or the music.
I don’t know when I’ve ever read an argument between people who are in basic agreement like this.
Everyone agrees the lyrics are trippy, that Lennon might have and might not have been conscious of the initials suggesting LSD at some very early point, with no way to know positively when he became aware, that Lennon enjoyed playing with words and teasing fans about their meaning or lack thereof, etc. We’re arguing, it seems to me, about things that are unknowable, probably even to Lennon–exactly when he first knew that the title could be taken as an allusion to LSD, and when the Beatles decided that was cool with them, and what to say in public about the connection.
As I said – the experience does not fit well into words. I can’t explain the resemblence, but it’s there.
I was surprised at the divide over the song in the original ‘Myths’ thread, which is why I made this poll thread.
I wouldn’t say they are quite in basic agreement, but I agree that there isn’t as much difference between the “of course it’s about drugs” camp and the “it’s not about drugs” camp as the vehemence of the argument would make it seem. The “yes, about drugs” camp mostly allows that maybe the LSD initials were a coincidence, and the “not about drugs” camp mostly allows that the song may at least be inspired or influenced by LSD / psychedelia.
The only vehemence I have is in reaction to the absurd argument that it absolutely had to be a coincidence because that’s what Lennon said.
It seems to me, that the basic debate is that Lennon set up the whole name to be a “wink wink nudge nudge” reference to LSD- vs- the title is purely innocent and refers to the kids drawing.
Most of the time it took me was typing “lucy in the sky with diamonds drawing” into the search bar. After that, it was scroll, click.
And yeah, it’s a pretty disappointing drawing. One of the problems I have with the ‘no drugs’ stance is that there’s a lot more in the song than was in the drawing. Totally believable to me that at least some of that additional imagery was inspired at least in part by hallucinogenic experiences.
I mean, keep in mind that it was made by a preschooler.
The thing for me is, nobody ever says that this song is about, say, magic mushrooms, even though that’s another substance the Beatles were known to use, and which also has trippy hallucinogenic effects. The argument is always that it’s about LSD specifically. And the only piece of evidence for that is the initials. And the initials are a pretty weak piece of evidence.
I, personally, have never tripped on LSD. I have, however, watched someone trip right here on The Straight Dope and. lemme tell ya, it sure looked like a Lucy In The Sky with Diamond sorta experience butternut shoehorn.
Right, except most of us are admitting that we can’t really be sure our position is correct.