Editing Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds (section)

==LSD rumours==
Rumours of the connection between the title of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" and the initialism "[[Lysergic acid diethylamide|LSD]]" began circulating shortly after the release of the ''Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'' LP in June 1967.<ref name="davies">{{cite book |last=Davies |first=Hunter |date=1968 |title=The Beatles |location=London |publisher=William Heinemann |page=530 |isbn=0-393-33874-6 }}</ref><ref name="Hicks 2000 63">{{cite book |last=Hicks |first= Michael|date=2000 |title= Sixties Rock: Garage, Psychedelic and Other Satisfactions|publisher=University of Illinois Press |page=63 }}</ref> McCartney gave two interviews in June admitting to having taken the drug.<ref name="life">{{cite magazine |last=Thompson |first=Thomas |date=16 June 1967 |title=The New Far-Out Beatles |magazine=[[Life (magazine)|Life]] |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lVYEAAAAMBAJ&pg=101 |page=101 |access-date=8 December 2016 |archive-date=17 November 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211117042255/https://books.google.com/books?id=lVYEAAAAMBAJ&pg=101 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="itv">{{cite interview |last=McCartney |first=Paul |subject-link=Paul McCartney |work=[[ITV Evening News]] |publisher=[[Independent Television News]] |location=London |date=19 June 1967 |url=http://www.beatlesinterviews.org/db1967.0619.beatles.html |title=Interview with Paul McCartney |access-date=8 December 2016 |archive-date=15 October 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161015170416/http://www.beatlesinterviews.org/db1967.0619.beatles.html |url-status=live }}</ref> Lennon later said he was surprised at the idea the title was a hidden reference to LSD,{{sfn|Sheff|2000|p=182}} countering that the song "wasn't about that at all,"<ref name="cavett" /> and it "was purely unconscious that it came out to be LSD. Until someone pointed it out, I never even thought of it. I mean, who would ever bother to look at initials of a title?&nbsp;... It's ''not'' an acid song."{{sfn|Sheff|2000|p=182}}

McCartney confirmed Lennon's claim on several occasions.<ref name="anthology" /><ref name="parkinson">{{cite interview |last=McCartney |first=Paul |subject-link=Paul McCartney |interviewer=[[Michael Parkinson]] |title=''[[Sunday Supplement]]'' |publisher=[[BBC Radio 2]] |location=London |date=12 October 1997 }}</ref> In 1968 he said:

<blockquote>When you write a song and you mean it one way, and someone comes up and says something about it that you didn't think of – you can't deny it. Like "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," people came up and said, cunningly, "Right, I get it. L-S-D," and it was when [news]papers were talking about LSD, but we never thought about it.<ref name="aldridge">{{cite news |first=Alan |last=Aldridge |author-link=Alan Aldridge |title=Paul McCartney's Guide to the Beatles' Songbook |work= Los Angeles Times Magazine|location= Los Angeles |pages=19–24 |date=14 January 1968}}</ref></blockquote>

In a 2004 interview with ''Uncut'' magazine, McCartney confirmed it was "pretty obvious" drugs did influence some of the group's compositions at that time, including "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", though he tempered this statement by adding, "[I]t's easy to overestimate the influence of drugs on the Beatles' music."<ref name="uncut">{{cite news |title=McCartney: Of Course Those Songs Were About Drugs  |agency=Associated Press |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |page=C02 |date=3 June 2004}}</ref>

Claims have circulated that the [[BBC]] banned the song at the time of its release in 1967 for its alleged references to drugs.<ref name=ibtimes>{{Cite web| title = The day the BBC banned The Beatles for saying 'knickers'| work = International Business Times UK| access-date = 27 July 2018| date = 22 November 2017| url = https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/day-bbc-banned-beatles-saying-knickers-1648071| archive-date = 28 July 2018| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20180728035729/https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/day-bbc-banned-beatles-saying-knickers-1648071| url-status = live}}</ref> Among other sources, the claim has been recited in ''The Routledge Concise History of Twentieth-Century British Literature''.<ref name=routledge>{{Cite book| publisher = Routledge| isbn = 978-0-415-57245-3| last = Dawson| first = Ashley| title = The Routledge Concise History of Twentieth-century British Literature| date = 2013| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=Asrn229zGzQC&pg=PA121| access-date = 27 July 2018| archive-date = 18 August 2021| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20210818052015/https://books.google.com/books?id=Asrn229zGzQC&pg=PA121| url-status = live}}</ref> This claim has been disputed by authors [[Alan Clayson]] and [[Spencer Leigh (radio presenter)|Spencer Leigh]], who wrote in ''The Walrus Was Ringo: 101 Beatles Myths Debunked'' that the BBC never officially banned the song, despite the corporation's doubts about the subject matter.<ref name=clayson>{{cite book|last1=Clayson|first1=Alan|last2=Leigh|first2=Spencer|title=The Walrus Was Ringo: 101 Beatles Myths Debunked|year=2003|publisher=Chrome Dreams|isbn=1-84240-205-6|page=128}}</ref> ''The Oxford Handbook of Music Censorship'' consulted with the BBC's surviving internal correspondence and memos from 1967, and mentioned no ban on any ''Sgt. Pepper'' song aside from the one on "A Day in the Life", stating the BBC banned "this one track [A Day in the Life] from the album ''Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band''".<ref name=thompson>{{cite book|first1=Gordon|last1=Thompson |chapter=A Day in the Life: The Beatles and the BBC, May 1967|title=The Oxford Handbook of Music Censorship| editor-first1=Patricia|editor-last1=Hall |pages=535–558 |year=2018|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0199733163}}</ref> A 2014 documentary film produced and broadcast by BBC television entitled ''Britain's Most Dangerous Songs: Listen to the Banned'' also claimed that the BBC never banned the song:

{{quote|Strangely, on an entire album influenced by the band's mind-expanding experimentation, it was just the final track, "A Day in the Life", that came under the BBC's moral microscope ... After lengthy correspondence with [[Joseph Lockwood]] at EMI, the BBC banned the song for what they believed to be a drug reference in just one line ... In fact, another song on ''Sgt. Pepper'' [i.e, "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds"] did slip under the BBC's radar.<ref name=dangerous>{{cite AV media|title=Britain's Most Dangerous Songs: Listen to the Banned|date=11 July 2014|medium=Television documentary|work=BBC Four|publisher=BBC|minutes=27|url=https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6pnxo0}}</ref>}}

The song was played at least once on BBC Radio at the time of the ''Sgt. Pepper'' album's release, on the 20 May 1967 broadcast of ''Where It's At'' hosted by [[Kenny Everett]] and [[Chris Denning]].<ref name=lewisohn>{{cite book|first1=Mark|last1=Lewisohn|title=The Complete Beatles Chronicle|page=255|year=1992|publisher=Harmony Books|isbn=0-517-58100-0}}</ref>{{sfn|Winn|2009|p=138}} The song was also played as part of the 1972 BBC Radio documentary ''The Beatles Story'', hosted by Brian Matthew.<ref name=bbc_beatles_story>{{cite episode|title=The Psychedelic Chapter|series=The Beatles Story|network=BBC Radio One|date=9 July 1972}}</ref>