It was 56 years ago today (February 28th, 1967) that the Beatles began sessions for "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds." As opposed to their first album in 1963, in which the majority of the album was recorded in one marathon 11-hour session, the Beatles were now afforded the luxury of open-ended studio time and spent the night's session only rehearsing the song without the tapes rolling. The session, which took place at Abbey Road's Studio Number Two between 7 p.m. and 3 a.m., featured numerous unnumbered run-throughs of the song as the group worked out its arrangement. Session tapes for "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds" show that the song, which was mainly written by John Lennon, was greatly enhanced by Paul McCartney's instrumentation and guidance as he helped Lennon nail the spacey lead vocal.
Among the instruments featured on the eventual track, the 11th song recorded for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album, were McCartney's unique mellotron introduction and bouncing bass line, Lennon's acoustic guitar and lead vocal, George Harrison's electric guitar echoing Lennon's vocal line, and Ringo Starr's legendary thumping drum part. The song also featured maracas, a piano, a Hammond organ, and a tamboura -- an Indian instrument, which provided a distinctive droning sound. Lennon, McCartney and Harrison all contributed backing vocals.
The initials of the song's title are the same as those of the hallucinogenic drug LSD and that caused enough controversy to get the song banned from British airwaves. Lennon, who wrote the majority of the lyrics, always insisted that the song was written after his then-three-year-old son Julian came home from school with a crayon drawing of a schoolmate. When Lennon asked him what the picture was of, Julian answered, "Lucy in the sky with diamonds."