Imagining John, Lucy and the Vatican
The Vatican’s recent publicized praise on the Beatles’ musical legacy is something that I don’t expect. When I was in high school, one of our teachers preached that the Beatles’ song Imagine is an allusion to communism and that Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds is an ode to LSD, a prohibited drug. It should also be recalled that the outrageous boasting of John Lennon in 1966 that his band was more popular than Jesus Christ earned him the ire of many believers.
The tide has turned. The Vatican is now sounding philosophical about John Lennon’s infamous remark. The November 22, 2008 edition of L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, said, and I’m writing it here verbatim, “the remark can be written off now as the bragging of a young man wrestling with unexpected success.”
I was not yet born in 1966 but, growing up, I’ve heard stories and disparate opinions about the bragging. On the one hand, just like what seems to be the Vatican’s position now, I believe that John Lennon didn’t mean to discredit Jesus Christ. On the other, I understand such show of emotion by those who were offended. Now, did John Lennon apologize? This, I don’t know. But, I believe he owed an apology to those he offended. I’m not sure if what he did was blasphemy. Maybe, on the point of view of those who were outraged, it was.
The DVD Come Together: A Night for John Lennon’s Word and Music (2001) shows some footages of interviews with John Lennon when he was still alive, inserted with impressive editing in between musical numbers. In one of these, John Lennon shares his inspiration to writing (with Paul McCartney) the music and lyrics of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds to spurn old speculations that the song was written with reference to LSD. According to him, one day in 1966 his son, Julian, came home from nursery school with a drawing of a classmate, a girl named Lucy, and bragged about the artwork to his father. Then three- or four-year old Julian described the picture as "Lucy in the sky with diamonds." After that segment in the DVD follows Marc Anthony’s number to interpret the song:
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 …
It is said these lyrics were drawn heavily from John Lennon’s own childhood affection for Lewis Carroll’s Through The Looking-Glass and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
By the way, the Vatican further surmises that Beatles’ music is better than the standardized and stereoptypical songs being produced these days. I agree.
The tide has turned. The Vatican is now sounding philosophical about John Lennon’s infamous remark. The November 22, 2008 edition of L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, said, and I’m writing it here verbatim, “the remark can be written off now as the bragging of a young man wrestling with unexpected success.”
I was not yet born in 1966 but, growing up, I’ve heard stories and disparate opinions about the bragging. On the one hand, just like what seems to be the Vatican’s position now, I believe that John Lennon didn’t mean to discredit Jesus Christ. On the other, I understand such show of emotion by those who were offended. Now, did John Lennon apologize? This, I don’t know. But, I believe he owed an apology to those he offended. I’m not sure if what he did was blasphemy. Maybe, on the point of view of those who were outraged, it was.
The DVD Come Together: A Night for John Lennon’s Word and Music (2001) shows some footages of interviews with John Lennon when he was still alive, inserted with impressive editing in between musical numbers. In one of these, John Lennon shares his inspiration to writing (with Paul McCartney) the music and lyrics of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds to spurn old speculations that the song was written with reference to LSD. According to him, one day in 1966 his son, Julian, came home from nursery school with a drawing of a classmate, a girl named Lucy, and bragged about the artwork to his father. Then three- or four-year old Julian described the picture as "Lucy in the sky with diamonds." After that segment in the DVD follows Marc Anthony’s number to interpret the song:
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 …
It is said these lyrics were drawn heavily from John Lennon’s own childhood affection for Lewis Carroll’s Through The Looking-Glass and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
By the way, the Vatican further surmises that Beatles’ music is better than the standardized and stereoptypical songs being produced these days. I agree.
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