(The Hit Hammer is where I'm reviewing each #1 song on the Billboard Hot 100. Starting from when the chart started in 1958 and eventually working my way to the present. To see my inspiration and more information about this blog, please CLICK HERE)
Elton John - "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds"
Hit Number 1: January 4, 1975
Stay at Number 1: 2 Weeks
John Lennon and his first wife, Cynthia, welcomed a baby boy, Julian, to their family in 1963. Since John was a Beatle, and everyone associated with the Beatles in the '60s could never be around the general public, Julian would attend a private school called the Heath House School. One day, Julian came home with a weird looking drawing, that even the mega dopehead John Lennon thought it was strange. The drawing was of a girl flying around in a night sky with stars all around her. Julian named the drawing "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", with the Lucy supposedly being a girl Julian went to school with. Keep in mind, this was right in the heart of '60s psychedelia, so anything that would normally be labeled as "strange" was viewed as being brilliant at that time. And when you put said weird thing right in the hands of a doper songwriter, such as John Lennon, they might get the idea to write a song about it. And that's exactly what John Lennon did.
"Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" never became a big-chart hit for the Beatles, which is surprising because it was the Beatles, and it had all the colorful weirdness that people in the '60s adored. The song really doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but Lennon tried to add more sense to it in later interviews. Whenever he was asked about the content of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", Lennon would say that the imagery was inspired not only by his son's drawing, but also from the book Through the Looking-Glass, a sequel to the book Alice in Wonderland. He's quoted as saying: "It was Alice in the boat. She is buying an egg and it turns into Humpty Dumpty. The woman serving in the shop turns into a sheep and the next minute they are rowing in a rowing boat somewhere and I was visualizing that." Okay, so, I'm not entirely sure what Lennon's trying to get at there, as there's nothing in the song that says anything about Humpty Dumpty or sheep, but I felt like it was worth putting that quote in here, whatever it's supposed to mean.
It's also worth putting here that many people believe the song to be about LSD. Not only could "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" stand for LSD, but the random, nonsensical context of the song also implies that the song is about all the weird stuff you can see while high on LSD. Even Paul McCartney claimed the song to be about drugs, even though Lennon denied that it was. Personally, I don't think the song is about drugs, but I do think that drugs were used in the making of the song. No sober person would write a lyric like "Follow her down to a bridge by a fountain/Where rocking horse people eat marshmallow pies". That just doesn't happen. "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" is a song about literally nothing. Lennon saw his son's drawing, got stoned and went to town. The result is a jumble of random words stitched together to create confusing imagery. The song messes with your brain's ability to function.
Even though the song wasn't a well-charting hit for the Beatles, it would still find its way to the summit with the help of maybe the most popular man in music at that time, Elton John. If you remember, Lennon just recently appeared in this blog with "Whatever Gets You Thru the Night", a song that featured Elton John on piano and backing vocals. It was then that Elton John and Lennon began a friendship, and Elton wanted to make a bet with Lennon that if "Whatever Gets You Thru the Night" hit #1, he would perform with him at his Thanksgiving concert later that year. Obviously, we know what happened with that, and Lennon and Elton would perform a few songs together, and one of those songs was "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds". It turns out that Elton John was a big fan of the song, and he believed it to be one of the best songs ever written. I guess he was destined to make a cover of the song.
On Elton John's version of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", Lennon is the one taking care of the backing duties. And the two sound like they're having the most freaking fantastic time doing this song together. That's pretty nice to hear, but what's still strange to me is that Elton John's version is even more confusing than the Beatles original. The Beatles' original uses voice changers in it too, and while their version is still weird, the Elton John version feels like a massive drug trip. The song never stays in one place, and it goes in a million different directions. And of course, those same stupid lyrics are still there, which puts the cherry on top of the weird sundae. I guess the weirdness is supposed to be part of the appeal, but really the Elton John cover is just a more drugged-out version of an already drugged-out song. It's fast then it's slow, it's trippy then it's all coked out. What I do know is that it's not the greatest contribution to music that either Elton John or John Lennon could come up with. It's a random mess of nothing.
This would actually be the last big contribution that John Lennon would give the music world for a while. He would take much of the later '70s off to raise his second son Sean, and he became more of a family man to Sean and his second wife, Yoko Ono. He'll eventually appear in this blog again. And of course, we'll see Elton John in here a few more times. He's not going anywhere anytime soon.
GRADE: 3/10
JUST MISSED:
Barry White's joyous, fun-time disco serenade "You're the First, My Last, My Everything" peaked at #2 behind "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds". It's an 8.
IN POP CULTURE:
The Flaming Lips released a cover of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" for their album With a Little Help from My Fwends, an album that served as a tribute to the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album. Their cover also features Miley Cyrus. an artist who will eventually show up in this blog, and Moby, who will not. Anyway, here's that cover:
(As I said, Miley Cyrus will eventually appear in this blog. The Flaming Lips' highest-charting single, "She Don't Use Jelly", peaked at #55 in 1995. It's a 7. Moby's highest-charting single was a collab he did with Gwen Stefani in 2000 called "South Side". That song made it to #14. It's a 4.)
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