A Movie Convinced Elton John to Cover The Beatles’ ‘Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds’
Elton John treated the world to a bizarre rendition of The Beatles’ “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” This only happened because his writing partner watched one of The Beatles’ movies. John Lennon revealed what he thought about the cover.
Elton John did The Beatles’ ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’ because of ‘Yellow Submarine’
Bernie Taupin co-wrote most of John’s hit songs. During a 1974 interview with Rolling Stone, Taupin revealed that he watched The Beatles’ animated musical Yellow Submarine on television and had the idea that John should cover “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” The original song appears in a scene from Yellow Submarine.
Taupin discussed what happened when John played the song in concert. “It went down incredibly well, staggeringly well,” he said. Taupin also revealed that one of The Beatles helped John create the new version of the song. “John Lennon played on it and put his own personality on it,” Taupin recalled.
John Lennon was a fan of Elton John covering 1 of The Beatles’ songs
During a 1975 interview with Spin, the “Imagine” singer discussed his feelings about the cover of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” “I love it,” he said. “I was thrilled he [Elton] was doing it.
“People are afraid of Beatle music,” he added. “They are still afraid of my songs. Because they got that big image thing: You can’t do a Beatle number. You can’t touch a Lennon song; only Lennon can do it … It’s garbage! Anybody can do anything.”
The former Beatle said he and Paul McCartney benefited from remakes of their songs. In his opinion, the other version of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” would have been a hit without his help. The “Mind Games” singer pointed out that he wasn’t even properly credited for working on the cover of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” instead using the pseudonym Dr. Winston O’Boogie (his real middle name was Winston).
Elton John’s ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’ was an incongruous edition to an album
The cover appeared on some editions of the “Bennie and the Jets” singer‘s album Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy. During the aforementioned Rolling Stone interview, John explained the idea behind the album.
“It’s a story of all the things that happened to Bernie and me, how we met, all we went through up to the point of the Empty Sky album, and all the disappointments, our experiences with music publishers, asking for 10 quid a week to live on,” he said. “It’s the entire album, and I think it’s very uncommercial. I don’t know if there’ll be any singles on it, even now that we’ve recorded it.”
Considering Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy is supposed to be autobiographical, “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” is an awkward fit for it. Regardless, “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” remains one of John’s most popular covers.
John’s “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” is memorable and it wouldn’t exist without Yellow Submarine.
