The Beatles were one of the most literate bands ever. Paul McCartney said The Beatles’ “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” reminded him of two books. John Lennon discussed a literary passage that inspired the song.
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Why Paul McCartney and John Lennon loved The Beatles’ ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’
In the 1997 book Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now, Paul recalled the writing of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” “John had the title and he had the first verse,” he said. “It started off very Alice in Wonderland: ‘Picture yourself in a boat, on the river.’ It’s very Alice. Both of us had read the Alice books and always referred to them, we were always talking about ‘Jabberwocky’ and we knew those more than any other books really.” “Jabberwocky” is a poem from the second Alice book, Through the Looking-Glass.
“And when psychedelics came in, the heady quality of them was perfect,” Paul said. “So we just went along with it. I sat there and wrote it with him: I offered ‘cellophane flowers’ and ‘newspaper taxis’ and John replied with ‘kaleidoscope eyes.’ I remember which was which because we traded words off each other, as we always did. And in our mind it was an Alice thing, which both of us loved.”
John Lennon said The Beatles’ song should maybe have another title
During a 1980 interview from the book All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono, John had quite a bit to say about “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” John downplayed any associations between the song and LSD. He said the tune was inspired by a passage from Through the Looking-Glass where Alice gets in a boat.
John also said the tune was about his desire for his dream girl. He said his dream girl was Yoko, he just wasn’t aware of that when he wrote “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” He said “maybe it should be ‘Yoko in the Sky with Diamonds.’”
The difference between the ‘Alice’ books and ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’
Of course, there is a dividing line between the Alice books and “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” While they are surreal, both Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass tell coherent narratives. They have a beginning, middle, and end, and the different scenes of the books build on each other.
On the other hand, “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” is less of a narrative and more of a tableau. John sings about seeing an incredible woman in the sky, but the image doesn’t resolve itself. That’s not a bad thing. Psychedelic music doesn’t have to be lyrically coherent. It just shows that “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” has more in common with contemporary psychedelic songs such as The Rolling Stones’ “2000 Light Years from Home” and The Monkees’ “Porpoise Song” than it does with Lewis Carroll.
“Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” isn’t too similar to Alice in Wonderland but Paul loved the similarities that were there.
