Blurtmusic Song-a-Day Challenge : Day 8

Today's challenge was to introduce a song about drugs or alcohol. How about a song that was rumored to be about drugs or alcohol?

For years I was sure the Beatles' Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds was about an LSD trip. This song came out on the Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band LP in June 1967.

The song featured a psychedelic organ sound and Harrison playing a droning tamboura. There are words like: "Picture yourself in a boat, on a river…" And we here, "cellophane flowers" and "newspaper taxis" and "kaleidoscope eyes". It makes us feel like we just woke up in Alice in Wonderland.

Many parents at that time told their kids not to listen to that drug music.

Lennon describes the inspiration of the song from a completely different way. He in an interview on the Dick Cavett Show (1971) that the inspiration came from Julian his son.

Julian came back from school with a pastel drawing of his classmate Lucy's face and the background was multi-colored exploding stars. When John asked his son what the painting was named he said, "It’s Lucy in the sky with diamonds, Daddy..." So Cynthia and John both said it was Julian's drawing.

Even Julian's friend Lucy O’Donnell said in a BBC radio interview in 2007, “I remember Julian and I both doing pictures on a double-sided easel, throwing paint at each other, much to the horror of the classroom attendant..."

Julian is still alive to talk about it, but people still insist the song was drug related. Nonetheless it was one of the first songs to be included in the psychedelic rock genre.

Here is take One:

Notice how Paul says, "Direct Injection" about 19 seconds into the recording. This got people to think he was doing heroin. At the time of the recording it seems more likely he was talking about the recording equipment.

Recording with George Martin

Here's what Paul says in an interview:

“I swear we didn’t notice that when it came out. In actual fact, if you want to be pedantic you’d have to say it is LITSWD, but of course LSD is a better story.”