Lucy in the Sky

I like listening to vinyl (see this earlier post) but I have a computer, an ipod, and an iphone like many people. I also listen to the radio every day. This makes the songs on my itunes a little unusual. You see, most of the music I like to listen to I get to hear on the radio - so I don't buy the songs on itunes. For the most part, my itunes library is made up of weird songs I bought for various personal reasons and is often not a very good indicator of my musical tastes. Still, when I set it to random (as I usually do when I am working on this blog) the occasional gem will show up and make me smile. I decided, therefore, to introduce a new feature to this blog. Every once in a while I am going to press "random" on my itunes library and write a blog entry about whatever song happens to pop up. As you can probably tell from the title of this post, this week's entry features a certain girl in a certain celestial location with certain precious gems.

Friday July 10th, 2009 - "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds (Love Version)"

So most of my music is Beatles-related. The odds were that a fab tune would show up. Here we have "Lucy" from the soundtrack of the Cirque du Soleil Beatles spectacular, Love.

For Thanksgiving 2008, my dad decided to come to sunny So. Cal to visit me from out of state. I was all for a visit from my dad, but I wasn't really sure what we were going to do. I mean, I wasn't going to cook... So, he suggested we go to Vegas, since he has never been. To me, Vegas mostly means going to clubs and drinking alcohol, then seeing a weird expensive French Canadian circus show. I did not want to do the first two things with my dad, so I settled on taking him to see LOVE. Being a fan of the Beatles I had an interest in seeing the show, which features the music of the Beatles re-arranged by their original producer Sir George Martin and his son. I didn't really know much about the show. (My dad, by the way, waits until we are in our seats to mention that he "never really cared for the Beatles" but OK). The show was really not at all like the other Cirque production I have seen, "O", it was more dancing and less circusing. Still, it was OK at first. I mean, it had it's moments. I know that Paul and Ringo and Yoko and Olivia all signed off on it. The last half, however, left me with my mouth hanging open in shock and disgust. A fun circus-dance about pre-teen John Lennon's mother getting hit by a car is not exactly my idea of fun.

Anyway, the song. A lot of those LOVE songs are fun re-arrangements of the classic. This one, though, out of all of them seems the most like the original and that's not really a good thing. Not that the original isn't amazing, but compared to other songs on the soundtrack like the brilliant mix of "Here Comes the Sun/The Inner Light" (I remember thinking while watching the show, "This is the George Harrison show starring George Harrison!" Yay!) "Lucy" falls a bit flat. One reviewer calls it "largely unsullied."

The Wikipedia page about the album goes into some of the details of how the Martins used "elements from 130 individual recordings of the Beatles" to create the 26 tracks on the album. Here is an excerpt from the article:

• "Drive My Car"/"The Word"/"What You're Doing" – As reported, the medley features the guitar solo from "Taxman" and the horns section from "Savoy Truffle".
• "Gnik Nus" – As suggested in its title, the track contains the vocal arrangement of "Sun King" played in reverse.
• "Something" (with "Blue Jay Way" transition) – The track contains vocal elements from "Nowhere Man".
• "Strawberry Fields Forever" – A review of the album noted that this version builds from an acoustic demo. It includes the orchestral section from "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band", the solo piano from "In My Life", the brass included in "Penny Lane", the cello and harpsicord arrangement from "Piggies" and the coda of "Hello, Goodbye".

Don't those make the songs sound like the fun and new versions of beloved classics that they are? Well, "Lucy" is not mentioned in the list - probably because it's not as interesting. It's just not as different from the original. In defense of the show, I do recall the "Lucy" part (along with "Something") being one of the most interesting circusy parts of the show - it's just that the album version of the song is not that amazing.

Don't those make the songs sound like the fun and new versions of beloved classics that they are? Well, "Lucy" is not mentioned in the list - probably because it's not as interesting. It's just not as different from the original. In defense of the show, I do recall the "Lucy" part (along with "Something") being one of the most interesting circusy parts of the show - it's just that the album version of the song is not that amazing.

That having been said, are you still thinking it's about LSD? Stop thinking that. Any good Apple Scruff worth his or her salt will tell you that John got the title from a drawing made by his then young son Julian of a classmate named Lucy. The real-life Lucy, in fact, recently re-kindled her friendship with now 46 year-old Julian. Lucy Vodden, unfortunately, has been diagnosed with Lupus, a condition which attacks the internal organs of the body and leaves one exhausted and often depressed.

Don't let me review scare you away from LOVE (the album) but you might consider letting it scare you away from wasting $250 on LOVE (the show).

Best wishes to Lucy!

References:
Alternative Health Journal
Wikipedia - LOVE (the Beatles album)
PopMatters Review