4 Beatles Songs From 'Sgt. Pepper's' That Paul McCartney Said Were Misinterpreted

Whenever you release music into the world, you’re no longer in control of how the public will interpret a song’s meaning—something Paul McCartney quickly learned once people started imbuing Beatles songs with extra messages and references the Fab Four didn’t intend to make. On the one hand, these different perceptions are what makes music such an interesting, universal experience.

But on the other hand, it’s rarely a pleasant experience to have someone put words in your mouth. In a 1967 interview with British artist and graphic designer Alan Aldridge, McCartney clarified what some Beatles lyrics actually meant and, perhaps more importantly, what they didn’t.  “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” Wasn’t An Ode To LSD

The Beatles’ iconic track “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” is the third song on the A-side of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, a concept album that marked the height of the Fab Four’s psychedelic phase. Consequently, many people believed “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” was an ode to LSD, or lysergic acid diethylamide, a potent hallucinogen commonly referred to as acid. Paul McCartney told interviewer Alan Aldridge that the connection was “cunning” but that the band “never thought about it.”

“What happened was that John’s son, Julian, did a drawing at school and brought it home, and he has a schoolmate called Lucy, and John said, ‘What’s that?’ And he said, ‘Lucy in the sky with diamonds.’ So, we had a nice title. We did the whole thing like an Alice in Wonderland idea, being in a boat on the river, slowly drifting downstream. This Lucy was God, the big figure, the white rabbit. You can just write a song with imagination on words, and that’s what we did.”  “Fixing a Hole” Wasn’t About Injectable Drugs.

Source: americansongwriter.com/Melanie Davis

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