Posted on 06/07/2009 8:49:32 AM PDT by JoeProBono
The young British schoolgirl who was the inspiration for John Lennon's "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" is facing a stormy future as she battles an incurable disease. Now the slain Beatle's oldest son, Julian Lennon, has come to the aid of Lucy O'Donnell Vodden, a girl he had played with at nursery school and whom he had drawn a picture with stars around her head. Julian showed the picture to his dad, saying, "That's Lucy in the sky with diamonds." It prompted Lennon to pen the hit song. O'Donnell, 46, is suffering from lupus, a painful autoimmune disease. When Julian initially heard of her illness, he sent flowers to her home. "I've been able to help out a bit. I was so upset to hear what had happened," he told the Sunday Times of London. "It was lovely of Julian," said Lucy, who has only seen him once, 23 years ago, since they were in nursery school.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
So I guess that debunks the L.S.D. theory.
My sister has Lupus.
Godspeed.
I always thought it was about drugs. Or are they rewriting history again?
Screwy disease. Symptoms are all over the place and always shifting. She was diagnosed at least 20 years ago. Lately its thyroid problems that top the list.
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.
I’m sorry for your sister, that has to be a horrible disease to deal with since it has so many manifestations.
I don’t understand. Why can’t the song be about both?
John said a long time ago his son brought him that drawing of Lucy in the sky with diamonds and he came up with the song from there.
Nancy Sinatra's Sugartown is also one of those double meaning songs.
Lucy Vodden, 43, was at nursery school in Weybridge with Julian Lennon
The painting that inspired the song Julian later confirmed this: "I don't know why I called it that or why it stood out from all my other drawings, but I obviously had an affection for Lucy at that age. "I used to show dad everything I'd built or painted at school, and this one sparked off the idea for a song about Lucy in the sky with diamonds." Beatles biographers and account by band members confirm that she is the most likely source of the song.
How fricking cool would it be to have a song written about you by the Beatles?
How can you say that?
The Paul is Dead rumor proved true
I heard the interview with Paul last weekend on an ‘all Beatles’ station.
I believe both are true.
It’s about Lucy, but they incorporated all the elements of an acid trip in the lyrics.
“Abbey Road” was the Beatles’ true masterpiece in my opinion and far superior to “Sgt. Pepper’s”.
Lucy’s got some ‘splainin’ to do.
Ok, I’ll buy that.
I think “Revolver” was the best crafted album of all. No filler at all.
Lennon said in his famous interview with Playboy that he wrote the song based on a painting by Julian.
The full interview was later published in a book. Lennon was a very complex man. I was very saddened when he died because at the time of his death he seemed to finally be entering a time in his life where was, for the first time, content and happy with himself and his life.
John Lennon told the same story in 1967.
Agreed. Did you know that that amazing guitar ensemble at the end of the record was recorded by all them at the same time? I mean, it wasn’t tracked and spliced and dubbed - - it was a live recording, one guitar after the other. Un-freaking-real.
So do I.
Macca of course is known as a bassist, but the guy had some serious chops on guitar, he even drummed on a few songs, as I recall when Ringo wasn’t in the studio.
Well sometimes it is...I should know.
McCartney was apparently a good drummer. One time when a reporter asked John Lennon if Ringo was the best drummer in the world, Lennon laughed and replied that Ringo wasn’t even the best drummer in the Beatles.
Sucks doesn’t it?
Its one of those diseases that people really don’t understand so they assume its a made up condition. Personally I suspect its a family of related diseases that are grouped together and called Lupus.
I remember reading that. Side B of “Abbey Road” is, in my opinion, the very best work the Beatles ever did.
McCartney’s first solo album, he played all of the instruments...Amazing.
“Revolver” is my second favorite after “Abbey Road” with “Sgt. Pepper’s” and “Let It Be” tied for third.
I’ve got several rare copies of the “White Album”, including one on white vinyl, but I’ve never really cared for it.
Yep, the White Album has too much shite on it, for the few good songs, a pure exercise in indulgence. Their brains on drugs.
Yes, it does stink. I was ill for years before it was diagnosed. They just kept treating symptoms but no one ever put all those symptoms together. Then I got a solicitation letter from the Lupus Foundation that listed symptoms and I said oh my goodness I have 8 of the 10!. I took the letter into my internist and she made an appt for me with a rheumatologist and we began speaking the same language so to speak. I was finally diagnosed 10 years ago but had been ill for 12 years before that, since right after the birth of our son.
There was no cohesion to the White Album, it was just a bunch of drug-induced ramblings thrown together in no logical pattern. Yes, there are a few good songs, but most of it is noise.
It was also the last thing they recorded as a band. I was a junior in high school and bought it the day it came out. The dude next to me in homeroom told me it was supposed to be coming into the Hatboro Music Shop and I went that afternoon and picked it up.
You didn’t have to hear a Beatles album to decide whether or not to buy it. You just bought it, brought it home, put it on your meatgrinder record player, and enjoyed a whole new bunch of great music.
Those were the days.
Prayers for her health.
Thanks. I enjoyed watching that.
Double Fantasy was one of the happiest records I've heard, especially, as you say, in light of Lennon's 'complexity' -- i.e. his perpetual pissing and moaning. Great record, excellent guitar playing, lots of whimsy and the joy of fatherhood was positively inspiring.
That record and "The Jealous Kind" by Delbert McClinton, and later Steve Winwood's "Arc of Diver" set the stage for a very happy decade. At least, they did for me.
I concede the point.
It’s kind of likely the kid did draw the picture, make the statement and his higher than a kite Dad put two and two together in his drug induced haze..... so both stories are true. Ya think?
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