Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds Research Paper

Urban legends are secondhand stories told as true and are plausible enough to be believed. These stories circulate in society making people question the truth of the matter. One urban legend that poses real questions and a lot of controversy is about the song “Lucy in the sky with diamonds” by the world famous band The Beatles. The song is believed to represent the psychedelic drug LSD because the initials of the song have the same letters as the spelling of the drug. It is relatively apparent that the Beatles were heavy drug users, and after publicly announcing that they had taken countless doses of LSD, fans began to believe that the song was a hidden message meant to represent LSD, but this pun on words happens to be sheer coincidence. When The Beatles released the album Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in 1967, its centerpiece track, “Lucy in the sky with diamonds”, featured John Lennon’s high pitched voice singing drug-inspired lyrics. It was not long before their fans discovered the pun hidden
within the song’s title, which spelled LSD. After the band publicly admitted to taking LSD, their fans knew that it was no mere coincidence. The song incorporated acid trip imagery and an album cover featuring psychedelic designs; not to mention that LSD was the rage around the country at the time and was all over the news. With all this evidence backing up this questionable urban legend, there is no way that “Lucy in the sky with diamonds” was an accident. At least that is what everybody thought. While John Lennon never denied the fact that the song was inspired by the countless acid trips he had taken, Lennon quickly explained that the relationship between the song title and the psychedelic drug LSD was just a mere coincidence.
In an interview, John Lennon explains the meaning behind the name. He says that one day when his four-year-old son, Julian Lennon, came home from school, he brought a pastel drawing of his classmate Lucy’s face against a backdrop of exploding, multi-colored stars. Lennon was extremely impressed with his son’s handiwork, and when he asked Julian what the drawing was called, he responded, “Lucy in the sky with diamonds.” John Lennon loved his son’s creation and admired his imagination so much that he used the title in his next album Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Lennon claimed that he had no idea that the title’s abbreviation spelled LSD until someone pointed it out to him after the release of the
album. In a 2004 interview in Uncut Magazine, Paul McCartney details his drug use for the first time with The Beatles. In the interview, McCartney acknowledged that “Lucy in the sky with diamonds” had indeed been named for the drawing by Julian, but he also said, "It's pretty obvious that the song is about an acid trip.” This explanation was not accepted by The Beatles fans and was thought to be a measly cover up to prevent losing popularity. The fans were not about to be taken by the Beatles. Some believed that they did not want to jeopardize the public’s opinion, making everybody think less of them because they had taken part in illegal drug use, but that would not make any sense because the band had publicly announced that they had taken countless hits of acid. This point is illustrated in Ron Schaumburg’s Growing Up With The Beatles: An illustrated Tribute, in which Schaumburg says, “There is no reason to doubt Lennon’s official explanation. The man has always been open and honest, if not always careful in what he says. He admitted to using drugs, he admitted to taking over a hundred LSD trips. So why on earth would he bother to deny one little story about the origins of a song unless it wasn’t true?” Schaumberg’s point is very valid and really punches a hole in this so-called urban legend. There is very little question that Lennon’s explanation was an accurate and honest one. He did not just claim that the title was an accident that happened in a twist of fate, but he gave specific explanations of the song’s origins, and he gave his explanation at the time of the songs release, and he maintained the same story throughout his entire life, not to mention that his explanation was shared by the entire band and all of his friends. Unfortunately John Lennon is no longer around to further explain his story and make people believe him, so the final word on the subject will have to be left to Paul McCartney, the only Beatle still alive: “This one is amazing. As I was saying before, when you write a song and you mean it one way, and then someone comes up and says something about it that you didn’t think of; you can not deny it. Like ‘Lucy in the sky with diamonds’, People came up and said, very cunningly, ‘Right, I get it. L-S-D,’ and it was when all the papers were talking about LSD, but we never thought about it.” Even when asked, McCartney about his outlook on this whole ordeal, McCartney would give the same exact answer every time, and since he has been so committed to the story over the years and has never changed it, it does not make sense not to believe it.
The Beatles’ “Lucy in the sky with diamonds” acrostic myth has been weighing on the minds of Beatles fans for years, but it is safe to say that this urban legend is nothing but a bunch of phony bologna. The Beatles were one of the most influential bands of all time, and even though they were drug users, ““Lucy in the sky with diamonds”” happens to be a music history mix up.