Music Myth: “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” by The Beatles Was About LSD

In 1967, The Beatles released Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and along with it came “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” one of the band’s most psychedelic songs.

Just before the album was released, people began to speculate that the song’s title was meant to be a reference to the drug LSD. The band was often open about their drug use, but John Lennon consistently denied the song was about LSD and insisted it was just a coincidence. Similarly, Paul McCartney originally said the band didn’t notice the potential reference until others pointed it out, although he did mention the song when discussing drug references in the band’s music during a 2004 interview.

The Real Inspiration Behind “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”

John Lennon wrote most of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” himself, with some input from McCartney. Lennon got the idea for the song when his then-four-year-old son, Julian, showed him a drawing he’d made depicting a classmate, Lucy, in the sky with diamonds.

“Nobody believes me,” Lennon once said of the drawing. “This is the truth. My son came home and showed me this drawing of a strange looking woman flying around, and I said, ‘What is it?’ And he said it was Lucy in the sky with diamonds. I said, ‘Oh, that’s beautiful,’ and I immediately wrote a song about it.”

Julian has also commented on the drawing and song, saying, “I don’t know why I called it that or why it stood out from all my other drawings. I used to show Dad everything I’d built or painted at school, and this one sparked off the idea for a song.”

Lennon has also attributed the vivid imagery in the song, like “tangerine trees and marmalade skies” and “rocking horse people,” to the novel Alice in Wonderland, although some of those lines were the work of McCartney.

“I showed up at John’s house and he had a drawing Julian had done at school with the title ‘Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds’ above it,” McCartney once explained. “Then we went up to his music room and wrote the song, swapping psychedelic suggestions as we went. I remember coming up with ‘cellophane flowers’ and ‘newspaper taxis’ and John answered with things like ‘kaleidoscope eyes’ and ‘looking glass ties’.”

Lucy is also mentioned in “I Am The Walrus,” from Magical Mystery Tour.

As for the real Lucy herself, she had no idea she was immortalized in a Beatles song until she was 13. Julian reconnected with her after she appeared in a BBC broadcast discussing the song. She died in 2009 at age 46 from complications from lupus.

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