>>This whole charade is almost as blatant as Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. In that song, everyone I knew, felt strongly that it was a reference to LSD.
Naturally, the band denied this. You have to remember the mindset of America, (one of the Beatles’ best markets ), at the time.
If they admitted this, It would have caused a major outrage.
That bit about Julian’s picture, was pomp and circumstance.
Far too much of a coincidence that the initials in it, just happened to be LSD.<<

A lot of rubbish in the above.

• First of all, Julian's picture *exists*. You can easily find it online.

° Secondly, The Beatles have always been candid about their use of LSD, right from the time they started it. There are any number of statements they made in public about using it. If there was any "outrage" at all, it certainly didn't cause them any great grief or loss of record sales…in America, or any other market. If you think an LSD reference of any kind (title or otherwise) could have slowed the sales of the "Sgt. Pepper" album…then you didn't live through this era.

• Third, there's no question that "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" was *influenced* by The Beatles' (and in particular, John's) use of LSD. But that's a different issue entirely from saying the song title is a coded reference to it.

• John says he saw Julian's picture, and then wrote the song. He swears he didn't give the initial letters a thought until sometime later. No offense to anyone, but I'll take his version of events over others who are on the outside looking in.

• Finally…I'm sorry, but I just don't see John Lennon being *corny* enough to say, "Ah, I've got it! I'll write a song that has LSD as letters in the title of it. Heh-heh-heh!" He simply had no reason to do something that corny.

And I agree that it’s too busy for just one guitar on the intro. But John and George’s guitars have sounded great woven together before, like on I Feel Fine, Nowhere Man and She Said She Said (on this album). And of course on Rain.

Was George playing along on the intro riff, or was it just John? I can clearly hear George’s guitar at various points in the song, but the intro sounds like just one guitar to me, but it seems to be doing just a bit too much to be just one guitar (of course Paul’s simple bass line can be heard underneath…). Any wisdom on this that anyone can impart would be appreciated.

Hearsay, anecdotes, even John’s own wry descriptions of any subject, rarely are factual.

That being said, this is a great song, on a legendary album.

George Harrison, who probably was factual, most or all of the time, on the Dick Cavett show, 1971, clearly states that the dentist they had, gave them coffee, laced with the notorious “L”.

“Take a drink from his special cup…” I mean, what could be more obvious?

A dentist is a doctor. And whether or not his real name was Robert, is also immaterial.

This whole charade is almost as blatant as Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. In that song, everyone I knew, felt strongly that it was a reference to LSD.

Naturally, the band denied this. You have to remember the mindset of America, (one of the Beatles’ best markets ), at the time.

If they admitted this, It would have caused a major outrage.

That bit about Julian’s picture, was pomp and circumstance.

Far too much of a coincidence that the initials in it, just happened to be LSD.

Decades later, in a interview, Sir Paul admitted that it was an obvious reference to LSD.