The Beatles released their eighth studio album, Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, in 1967, and it was met with great praise.
The record included such massive hits as A Day in the Life, A Little Help from My Friends, and Fixing a Hole.
But one of the most powerful songs on the album is Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, a track that has become iconic in the Fab Four’s repertoire in the decades that have passed.
However popular Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds was, its writer, John Lennon, was not happy with it.
In his final interview before he was murdered, Lennon explained: “As far as we were concerned, we were the best, but we thought we were the best before anybody else had even heard of us, back in Hamburg and Liverpool. So in that respect, I think The Beatles are the best thing that ever happened in pop music.” (Via Cheatsheet)
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Lennon then went on to say that, even though he felt the Fab Four were the best band around, he couldn’t stand listening to their music.
“You play me those tracks and I want to remake every damn one of them,” Lennon said, before taking aim at the fan-favourite track.
He said: “I heard Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds last night. It’s abysmal, you know?”
Lennon added: “The track is just terrible. I mean, it is a great track, a great song, but it isn’t a great track because it wasn’t made right. You know what I mean?”
He added that he could improve “every” Beatles song if he had the chance to rerecord them.
“But that’s the artistic trip, isn’t it?” he added. “That is why you keep going, always trying to make that next one the best.”
The song was written after Lennon saw a drawing his son, Julian Lennon, had made at school.
The image was of a girl, named Lucy, flying through the air surrounded by diamonds.
Julian later remembered: “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.”
