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TL;DR:

  • Producer George Martin called The Beatles’ “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” a “typical John song.”
  • Martin discussed the public reaction to the track.
  • Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was a huge hit in the United States and the United Kingdom.
"Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" era Beatles in black-and-white
The Beatles | John Pratt / Stringer

Producer George Martin worked on The Beatles‘ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. He revealed what he thought of The Beatles’ “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” Subsequently, he hated when the song was used in a program about LSD.

George Martin said people thought The Beatles’ ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’ was the ultimate drug song

The book The Beatles: Paperback Writer includes an excerpt from Martin’s 1979 book All You Need Is Ears. In the latter book, Martin discussed John Lennon’s songwriting. 

“Compared with Paul’s songs, all of which seemed to keep in some sort of touch with reality, John’s had a psychedelic, almost mystical quality,” he said. “‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’ was a typical John song in that respect, and a lot of analysts and psychiatrists were later to describe it as the drug song of all time. They were talking rubbish, but the tag stuck.”

George Martin discussed how drugs influenced The Beatles’ ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’

Martin didn’t like one of “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds”‘ appearances in popular culture. “I was very offended recently when I saw a television program about the drug raid, Operation Julie, in which some major world suppliers of LSD were rounded up,” he said. “The program was prefaced with ‘Lucy,’ as though it were the drug song — a ‘fact’ which people have taken as finally proven simply because ‘Lucy,’ ‘Sky,’ and ‘Diamonds’ happen to start with the letters LSD.”

Martin praised John’s work on “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” “John’s imagery is one of the great things about his work — ‘tangerine trees,’ ‘marmalade skies,’ ‘cellophane flowers,'” Martin wrote. He said John was more akin to surrealist painter Salvador Dalí than “some drug-ridden record artist.” At the same time, he admitted The Beatles used drugs while crafting Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Martin said drugs may have added the to magic of the album.

Related

John Lennon Said The Beatles’ ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’ Was About His Desire for Someone Like Yoko Ono

How ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’ performed on the pop charts in the United States and the United Kingdom

“Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” was never a single, so it didn’t chart on the Billboard Hot 100. The song’s parent album, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, was a huge hit. The album topped the Billboard 200 for 15 weeks and remained on the chart for 233 weeks.

According to The Official Charts Company, “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” never charted in the United Kingdom either. On the other hand, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band reached No. 1 for 28 weeks. The album lasted a total of 277 weeks, making it the Fab Four’s most popular album in the U.K.

“Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” is a classic song even if Martin didn’t like the way people reacted to it.

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