Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds (3:04)

Cover of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

From Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and 26 other releases

“Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” is a song written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney that was recorded by The Beatles for their 1967 album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Many people thought this was about drugs, since the letters “LSD” are prominent in the title, and John Lennon, who wrote it, was known to drop acid. In 1971 Lennon told Rolling Stone that he swore that he had no idea that the song’s initials spelled L.S.D. He added: “I didn’t even see it on the label. I didn’t look at the initials. I don’t look— I mean I never play things backwards. I listened to it as I made it. It’s like there will be things on this one, if you fiddle about with it. I don’t know what they are. Every time after that though I would look at the titles to see what it said, and usually they never said anything.”

Paul McCartney recounted trading lyric ideas with Lennon in an interview, saying, “We never noticed the LSD initial until it was pointed out later, by which point people didn’t believe us.” This is confirmed by a 1971 interview of Lennon, where he described searching for acronyms in other song titles only to find “they didn’t spell out anything.” George Martin also denied the song was about LSD in the book The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions by Mark Lewisohn.However, Lewisohn goes on to say “there can be little doubt that this was the very substance that provoked such colourful word imagery to flow out of Lennon’s head and onto paper.

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Picture yourself in a boat on a river
With tangerine trees and marmalade skies
Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly
A girl with kaleidoscope eyes

MetroLyrics Full lyrics at MetroLyrics

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  • wolfy76484

    this not the version on my CD

    17 May 1:50pm Reply
  • howisya

    best tame impala song ever

    8 May 6:23pm Reply
  • SouthOfHeaven97

    this song is a clasic

    28 Apr 10:58am Reply
  • mango2425

    Why does this song remind me of The Mighty Boosh???

    2 Apr 8:14pm Reply
  • EctoDave

    About as much not about LSD as Ebeneezer Goode isn't about ecstasy,

    7 Mar 11:21am Reply
  • CanYouBlush

    a little to vivid for me.... ha-re, ha-re, krishna!!! krishna!!!

    4 Mar 1:09am Reply
  • MrBajaBlues

    ugh i love this song so much it ranks with my favorites

    21 Feb 1:26am Reply
  • dscomic

    Prefer the Shatner cover.

    12 Feb 4:32pm Reply
  • c0c0butter

    In a 2004 interview, Paul McCartney said that the song is about LSD, stating, "A song like 'Got to Get You Into My Life,' that's directly about pot, although everyone missed it at the time." "Day Tripper," he says, "that's one about acid. 'Lucy in the Sky,' that's pretty obvious. There's others that make subtle hints about drugs, but, you know, it's easy to overestimate the influence of drugs on the Beatles' music.

    11 Feb 1:56pm Reply
  • daveandi

    It's not about LSD.

    8 Feb 7:32pm Reply
  • Storchel

    L ucy S ky D iamonds ... it's not about LSD, indeed! :D

    5 Feb 2:55pm Reply
  • c0c0butter

    hahahahahah

    4 Feb 10:56am Reply
  • DavidSmith98

    watch John Lennon on the Dick Cavett show. it's on youtube. he says it was not at all about LSD. they did take lsd. trust me, i know my beatles.

    3 Feb 5:44am Reply
  • c0c0butter

    haha don't be naive of course its about LSD. It was just a scheme to prevent the bad publicity.

    22 Jan 8:08pm Reply
  • achromes

    kaleidoscope eyes...!

    18 Jan 6:41pm Reply
  • DavidSmith98

    No no no. LSD is not what it's about or even referencing. Julian Lennon drew a picture of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" so John wrote the song. They may have taken acid but they weren't singing about it.

    1 Jan 3:10pm Reply
  • oldiesfanjohn

    LSD. With a little help from my friends back in the day. <( ;

    26 Dec 2012 Reply
  • Ezekiel22

    A+

    21 Dec 2012 Reply
  • Charles_Heres

    Superb verses with an atrocious chorus? Might be one of the best chorus lines ever. Simple and clever at the same time, direct and joyful.

    1 Dec 2012 Reply
  • zachwill93

    Ahahaha LSD xD

    28 Nov 2012 Reply
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