Dave,
Are you sure it wasn't disco that came along and ended the epic vinyl
creations? If that's what happened, then thank God for disco!!!
(To keep this poster related, I'd like to say that I don't own any
Saturday Night Fever one sheets or any other disco-related posters.)
-rk
On Sep 18, 2009, at 6:03 AM, Dave Rosen wrote:
Two short points:
a) Kirby is right.
And,
b) Sergeant Pepper is the most vastly over-rated album in pop music
history.
Not only that, but it damaged rock for years by introducing the so-
called "concept album" which caused legions of otherwise humdrum
rock musicians to suddenly think of themselves as great composers
capable of churning out over-produced, hyper-ventilating epic vinyl
creations from Tommy to Thick as a Brick to The Wall. Thank god
punk came along and put an end to it.
Ahem. Rant over.
Dave
p.s. Btw, I'm not a Beatles-basher, I just think they peaked with
Rubber Soul and Revolver.
----- Original Message -----
From: Kirby McDaniel
To: MoPo-L@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU
Sent: Friday, September 18, 2009 12:04 AM
Subject: Re: [MOPO] Lennon is laughing in his tomb OT
Since this is reasonably far off topic, I intend only to respond to
this once. This story is covered in Bruce Spizer's book THE
BEATLES, a good
if encyclopedic read about the Fab Four and recently in Philip
Norman's wonderful biography of John entitled appropriately enough
JOHN LENNON.
Norman states that Lucy In the Sky with Diamonds was the title of
a painting done by a very young Julian Lennon at school and he
further states
that Paul McCartney corroborated the story. So I don't think the
painting story was a hoax as such.
Peter Brown in his very tell-all book THE LOVE YOU MAKE writes
"Certainly John's dreamlike "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" and
it's "tangerine
trees and marmalade skies" were inspired by an acid trip, but it
was only an accident that the title of the song was an anagram for
LSD. Lucy
was little Julian's school chum, and "Lucy in the sky with
diamonds" was a phrase Julian used to describe a drawing of her he
made in school one day.
Likewise the hole Paul was fixing in "I'm Fixing a Hole" was not in
the arm of heroin addict, nor was John's "Henry the Horse" in the
surrealistic circus of "For the Benefit of Mr. Kite" a code word
for heroin. John took the name from a poster for a Victorian
circus he had purchased in an antique shop."
I have never read in any of the books I have read about The Beatles
that this Julian-painting story was deliberately hatched to
whitewash the song's rather obvious LSD connection. The
psychedelic era was an era of fantastic synchronicities and
coincidence.
The Beatles story is one of the most fabulous and fantastic in all
of show business and all three of these books are entertaining.
The cost of making Sergeant Pepper's? In an earlier biography of
John Lennon, LENNON by Ray Coleman, the author puts the cost at
25,000 pounds. Certainly not hay by 1967 standards.
Kirby McDaniel
www.movieart.net
On Sep 17, 2009, at 7:26 PM, James Richard wrote:
This is off topic, but it floors me to see people still believing
and repeating this hoax over 40 years later, so... let's see,
Julian Lennon was born April 8, 1963...
Studio files say the song "Lucy in The Sky with Diamonds" was
recorded at Abbey Road on March 1, 1967...
With it's complex arrangement (for the time), it's reasonable to
presume John wrote the song at least a couple of months before it
was finally recorded, so let's say he wrote the song on January 1,
1967.
When Julian was only 3 years and 10 months old.
Now, how many of us remember and can attest to what we did or said
when we were 3 years and 10 months old? But everyone buys the idea
Julian somehow remembers this incident so well that he "backs up"
John's flummery about the song being inspired by a picture drawn
at Julian's nursery school? I don't suppose it is more likely that
Julian grew up being told the story so often that the story became
his "memory"?
Look, the BBC immediately banned the Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds
from the British airwaves as soon as it was released because of
its obvious promotion of LSD use. The Sgt. Pepper album was the
most publicized and anticipated album in music history at that
point (and the most expensive to produce). Literally hundreds of
millions of dollars were at stake. And the now the BBC is banning
a song from the album the day after it is released? There is a
global controversy threatening to explode about the song and in
fact about the entire album, which no one every disputed was
clearly "psychedelic" in nature? And this coming less than a year
after the furor in America when Beatle songs had been banned from
some radio stations, some Beatle concerts canceled and Beatle
records were burned in protest over the wisecrack John had made
about the Beatles were "more popular than Jesus now"?
Oh, no... that simply wouldn't do at all...so the record company
and Brian Epstein and everyone else, including Paul probably, went
to John and told him, "Look, we're going to issue a cover story
about this song and you're gonna sell it."
Still, I'm surprised John could keep a straight face when he told
that whopper about 3-year old Julian and his nursery school
picture to the press.
Yet 40 years later people still accept this idea that what is
arguably the most blatantly psychedelic song ever written, which
was included on what is universally recognized as one of the most
psychedelic albums ever created -- which was produced and released
at the height of LSD usage around the world -- is not, in fact,
about LSD at all.
Sounds plausible to me. Sure. Why not?
-- JR
Carteron, Bruce - 1551 wrote:
Kirby:
It was actually Julian’s friend (named Lucy) at school who did
the drawing. Julian showed the picture to his father and told him
it depicted Lucy “in the sky with diamonds” (this is according to
John). Julian, who backs up this version, recently discovered she
had fallen on hard times and sent her some financial support.
From: MoPo List [mailto:mop...@listserv.american.edu] On Behalf
Of Kirby McDaniel
Sent: Thursday, September 17, 2009 5:21 PM
To: MoPo-L@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU
Subject: Re: [MOPO] Mary Travers, Singer of Protest Anthems, Dies
at 72 - Obituary (Obit) - NYTimes.com
That's not correct, actually. The picture was drawn by Julian
Lennon, as I remember it. Paul had no kids at the time that song
was written.
Kirby McDaniel
www.movieart.net
On Sep 17, 2009, at 2:30 PM, James Richard wrote:
Right... and John Lennon "officially" said Lucy in the Sky with
Diamonds was not written about LSD either, but about a picture
Paul's kid drew.
These were the kinds of official denial statements that were
issued after there was a social backlash against pop music and
movie stars "popularizing drug use" in their songs and films --
the record companies and studios got proactive about protecting
themselves for legal actions or calls for censorship by making
their stars deny that any of this stuff ever had anything to do
with drugs. "No sir, Mr. Media Interviewer, we din' mean nuthin'
like that by it at all, honest injun..."
However, anyone who grew up during the time listening to either
song could easily get what both were written about.
-- JR
Bruce Hershenson wrote:
P.S. At the shows Peter said Puff the Magic Dragon was in no way
written with drugs in mind!
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