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My Gen X Playlist: Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds – The Beatles

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My wife suddenly started rattling off a list of delicious foods.

Fried chicken, french fries, donuts, potato chips and hot dogs.

I thought, Are you trying to serenade me? But then she followed it up with:

Processed Foods: How Bad They Can Be.

Apparently it was an episode of a health podcast and she asked me if I wanted to listen to it together. Um, that’s a hard no. I’d much rather listen to a podcast entitled How bad can they be?

She moved from speaking my love language to tiptoeing around a junk food ban. I’m sure this wasn’t a premeditated scheme. She was just talking off the top of her head. Still, I couldn’t help think of that classic Peanuts scene where Lucy pulls the football just as Charlie Brown is about to kick it, sending him flat on his back. While we laughed about it in the end, I told her I’d like to avoid these Lucy football moments in the future.

I always thought the Beatles Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds was a strange song. That doesn’t mean I didn’t like it. When I was younger, I probably wouldn’t have listened to it as much if it wasn’t for the cool chorus.

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 spelt L.S.D. He added: “I didn’t even see it on the label. I didn’t look at the initials.”

Lennon affirmed this on the Dick Cavett Show, telling the host, “My son came home with a drawing of a strange-looking woman flying around. He said, ‘It’s Lucy in the sky with diamonds.’ I thought, ‘That’s beautiful.’ I immediately wrote the song about it.”

It’s not just fans that didn’t believe him: Paul McCartney said it was “pretty obvious” that this song was inspired by LSD.

Songfacts

I’m pretty sure it’s about getting high. I’ve never tried LSD nor do I have any curiosity to dabble with it. My drug of choice these days is fried chicken, french fries, donuts, potato chips and hot dogs. Nothing like an unhealthy food coma to make me see shiny glittery objects in the sky. KFC, anyone? Der Weinerschnitzel? That’s a recipe for a good time, for sure.

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For a complete playlist, please click here.

For the Spotify playlist, please click here.

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

Cellophane flowers of yellow and green
Towering over your head
Look for the girl with the sun in her eyes
And she's gone

Lucy in the sky with diamonds
Lucy in the sky with diamonds
Lucy in the sky with diamonds
Ah

Follow her down to a bridge by a fountain
Where rocking horse people eat marshmallow pies
Everyone smiles as you drift past the flowers
That grow so incredibly high

Newspaper taxis appear on the shore
Waiting to take you away
Climb in the back with your head in the clouds
And you're gone

Lucy in the sky with diamonds
Lucy in the sky with diamonds
Lucy in the sky with diamonds
Ah

Picture yourself on a train in a station
With plasticine porters with looking glass ties
Suddenly someone is there at the turnstile
The girl with the kaleidoscope eyes

Lucy in the sky with diamonds
Lucy in the sky with diamonds
Lucy in the sky with diamonds
Ah
Lucy in the sky with diamonds
Lucy in the sky with diamonds
Lucy in the sky with diamonds
Ah
Lucy in the sky with diamonds
Lucy in the sky with diamonds
Lucy in the sky with diamonds

19 thoughts on “My Gen X Playlist: Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds – The Beatles”

  2. This is too funny! “Are you trying to serenade me?” LOL! My husband and I usually try to eat healthy, but we fell off the bandwagon around February (my birthday month) and haven’t gotten back to it yet. This week, we decided to go on the Whole 30 plan again. We have both noticed that our joints hurt, and we feel bloated and achy. It’s amazing how eating clean reverses all of those negative issues.

    Also, I remember hearing somewhere that “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” is one of the songs with the most misheard lyrics of all time! So, I looked up some examples:

    Lucy in disguise with Linus.

    Lucy getting high with Simon.

    Lucy in the sky, likes pie, man.

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  3. Haha! Funny! Ok, you can probably switch that with homemade french fries, air fried chicken, and healthy snacks. Seriously I am eating potato chips while typing this message, so don’t trust me too much. 😂🤣

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  6. That brings to mind the meme of Lucy (from peanuts) floating on a cloud with a huge diamond by her side. Like you, I didn’t much care for this song when I was a kid. Also, if y’all are interested, there’s a book called “Ultra Processed People” and one titled “The Dorito Effect” that talk about ultra-processed foods and how they’ve invaded our foodstuffs.

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  8. Looking at those lyrics… yep, all about Julian’s picture, absolutely nothing to do with tripping 👌🤪😂 Sgt Pepper one of the best… I like Good Morning when the chicken cluck turns into a guitar lick 😎

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  9. Great, the way you brought this around. John was like all of us, with our subconscious having way more to do with expression and choices than we may think. 🙂

    There’s a list of high micro-plastic foods out too. I’d say stay away from it, but I hope that creative and conscientious people will live very long lives, so duty-bound.

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      1. It is, and it isn’t like previous times where in most cases we could make better choices. We can still try, and should, but it’s like Horton Hears a Who.

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