To explicate with an audio sample what cannot be conveyed with prose alone:
The musicologist Kenneth Womack describes "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" as a colourful adventure, on which "the Beatles achieve their most vivid instance of musical timbre by merging the nonsensicality and visual imagery of John's lyrics with the ADT-treated sounds of Paul's unforgettable Lowrey organ introduction". The lyric begins with what he characterises as "an invitation in the form of an imperative" through the line: "Picture yourself in a boat on a river", and continues with imaginative imagery, including "tangerine trees", "rocking horse people" and "newspaper taxis".(Womack, Kenneth (2007). Long and Winding Roads: The Evolving Artistry of the Beatles. Continuum. ISBN978-0-8264-1746-6. Pages 171–172)
In opinion of the author Ian MacDonald, "the lyric explicitly recreates the psychedelic experience". A hallucinatory chapter from Lewis Carroll's 1871 novel, Through the Looking-Glass, inspired the song's atmosphere.(MacDonald, Ian (2005). Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records and the Sixties (3rd ed.). Chicago Review Press. ISBN978-1-55652-733-3. Page 240)
George Martin describes the melody of the organ introduction, which he regards as "crucial to the staying power of the song", as "a falling scale in the left hand, a rocking scale in the right." In his opinion the first verse might have sounded monotonous if not for the juxtaposition "of that almost-single-note vocal against the inspired introductory notes", which he describes as "mesmeric, compelling." According to Martin "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" has the most variations of tape speed on Sgt. Pepper. During the recording of Lennon's vocals, the tape speed was reduced from 50 cycles per second to 45, which produced a higher and thinner-sounding track when played back at the normal speed.(Martin, George; Pearson, William (1994). Summer of Love: The making of Sgt. Pepper. Macmillian. ISBN978-0-333-60398-7. Pages 102–103, 105)
The recording features a tambura blended with a Lowrey organ that is prominent during the verses and final chorus, creating what the musicologist Michael Hannan regards as one of the album's "most unusual sound combination[s]".(Hannan, Michael (2008). "The sound design of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band". In Julien, Olivier. Sgt. Pepper and the Beatles: It Was Forty Years Ago Today. Ashgate. ISBN978-0-7546-6708-7. Page 50)
The musicologist Tim Riley identifies the track as a moment "in the album, [where] the material world is completely clouded in the mythical by both text and musical atmosphere."(Riley, Tim (1988). Tell Me Why: The Beatles: Album By Album, Song By Song, The Sixties And After. Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN978-0-394-55061-9. Page 216)
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