This
is a long post (nearly 3,600 words), and is only tangentially about Jane
Austen, but most everyone loves the Beatles, and so I hope you will nonetheless
find reading this post a magical tour you won’t regret taking, and will stay
with me till we’ve reached the end.
The
inspiration for this post arose in my mind yesterday afternoon as my wife Jackie
and I were driving to see (what turned out to be an extraordinary film, Sarah
Polley’s envelope-edge-pushing documentary) Stories We Tell, and we were listening
to our local classic rock radio station.
The
Beatles’s Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds came on, and although I must have
listened to that song two hundred times (or more) during the past 47 years, my
attention was caught this time around by a lyric which reminded me strongly of…..(who else?)
Jane Austen’s writing!
The lyric was:
Everyone
smiles as you drift past the flowers,
That
grow SO INCREDIBLY HIGH.
What
I consciously recognized for the first time at that instant was that John
Lennon, as a lyricist, had done something with the words “so incredibly high”,
which I have caught Jane Austen doing hundreds of times in her writing—which I
call “literary ventriloquism”.
To
wit: ostensibly and literally, in those lyrics, Lennon was describing flowers
growing so incredibly high (meaning, tall, in a physical vertical sense).
However, metaphorically, he was also speaking directly to the listener, bypassing
the flowers, and saying, in effect, “I am describing in these lyrics what it is
like to be so incredibly high on LSD”, in an intangible, psychological sense.
In
short, Lennon, skilled wordsmith that he was, was having it both ways at once,
being both direct and indirect in his meanings.
He was describing flowers, but also describing his own mind which
conceived of these fantastical flowers under the influence of LSD.
How
does this relate to Jane Austen’s writing? I could write 50 pages on that
topic, because there are so many examples that I have detected (and continue to
find more even after a decade of searching), but today one example will have to
suffice, and so I will use the very first post in this blog, which I wrote more
than six years ago…
…where
I suggested that Jane Austen had done the identical sort of ventriloquism with
the following speech by Mrs. Elton in Emma:
"That's quite unnecessary; I see Jane every
day: -- but as you like. It is to be a morning scheme, you know, Knightley;
quite a simple thing.”
Ostensibly, Mrs. Elton is telling Knightley about
the parameters she has in mind for the outing to Donwell Abbey which is being
planned. But ventriloquistically, this is also Jane Austen telling her
observant readers about one of the Shakespeare plays which she has been
covertly channeling throughout her entire novel:
“…but AS YOU LIKE. IT is to be a morning scheme…”
Among many parallels….
….Emma is an intensely pastoral novel, and As You
Like It is an intensely pastoral play, so it was most apt of JA to choose that
moment of discussion of a rustic picnic to turn Mrs. Elton into a puppet to
unknowingly mouth the title of Shakespeare’s Ardenesque play.
And
those are the last words that will pertain to Jane Austen till the very end of this
post, as I will now return to my tour of John Lennon’s intensely pastoral song
which I interrupted to take this short Austenian tangent.
Most
people don’t think of rock music as aesthetically complex, but the musically
savvy know that Lucy in The Sky is subtly sophisticated in a musicological sense…
….and
so it should not be surprising that it is also subtly sophisticated lyrically.
Starting
with the obvious, in my opinion only a diehard literalist skeptic would believe
John Lennon when he famously and disingenuously claimed that his title was not
an intentional allusion to LSD. While I don’t doubt that his young son’s
drawing was part of his inspiration for writing the song, it is quite clear
from even a skeptical reading of the lyrics that psychedelics were never far
from Lennon’s thoughts as he composed them:
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.
Cellophane
flowers of yellow and green,
Towering
over your head.
Look
for the girl with the sun in her eyes,
And
she's gone.
Lucy
in the sky with diamonds [CHORUS]
Lucy
in the sky with diamonds
Lucy
in the sky with diamonds Ahh...
Follow
her down to a bridge by a fountain
Where
rocking horse people eat marshmallow pies,
Everyone
smiles as you drift past the flowers,
That
grow so incredibly high.
Newspaper
taxis appear on the shore,
Waiting
to take you away.
Climb
in the back with your head in the clouds,
And
you're gone.
[CHORUS]
Picture
yourself on a train in a station,
With
plasticene porters with looking glass ties,
Suddenly
someone is there at the turnstile,
The
girl with the kaleidoscope eyes.
[CHORUS]
What
occurred to me listening to the song yesterday was that Lennon’s “so incredibly
high” was a quintessential example of literary ventriloquism, i.e., a coded
message concealed beneath the “story” of a trip to the visually potent fantasy world
conjured up by the words “picture yourself”.
And
this momentary ventriloquism (Lennon and many of his listeners being high on
LSD) is emphasized on the recording by a lush, echoing crescendo on the word
“high”, and also by knowing that LSD induces perceptual distortions in the size
of visual objects, such as the flowers in the song.
That
is all prelude to what I found today, with a little help from my friend
“Google”, that will blow your mind (in a car, or not, as you like it). ;)
First,
I only learned today that Lennon must’ve had a famous poem by Lewis Carroll (aka
Charles Dodgson) firmly in his mind as he wrote his Lucy lyrics:
It’s
so obvious, once you read Carroll’s poem:
A
boat beneath a sunny sky,
Lingering
onward dreamily
In an
evening of July --
Children
three that nestle near,
Eager
eye and willing ear,
Pleased
a simple tale to hear --
Long
had paled that sunny sky:
Echoes
fade and memories die.
Autumn
frosts have slain July.
Still
she haunts me, phantomwise,
Alice
moving under skies
Never
seen by waking eyes.
Children
yet, the tale to hear,
Eager
eye and willing ear,
Lovingly
shall nestle near.
In a
Wonderland they lie,
Dreaming
as the days go by,
Dreaming
as the summers die:
Ever
drifting down the stream --
Lingering
in the golden gleam--
Life,
what is it but a dream?
If the
slyness of the “LOOKING GLASS ties” worn by Lennon’s porters don’t convince
you, then how about this—did you notice my breaking Carroll’s poem into asymmetric
stanzas of 5, 9 and 7 words? I did that, to accentuate a famous aspect of Carroll’s
poem: it is a perfect acrostic on the
name of the girl who inspired the character of Alice—Alice Pleasance Liddell!
What’s
my point? That, acrostic-like, the first
letter of the three nouns in Lennon’s song title (and chorus), in order, spell the word LSD— as Dodgson, a
mathematician, would have written, QED!
And
directly relevant to that veiled allusion by Lennon to Carroll is the question
that has often been posed about Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking
Glass—we know that Lennon was flying high on LSD during the Sergeant Pepper
era, but was Carroll also on mind altering drugs when he conceived his greatest
works?
Here
is a link to a thorough BBC article….
….which
runs through the arguments over whether Carroll used drugs in order to create
the visual distortions depicted in his timeless classics. I personally am
suspicious of Carroll’s unsettling focus on young girls (which Lennon’s lyrics
avoid), but putting that aside, I think it’s clear that Carroll took some sort
of drug that altered visual perception, or he knew someone who did. And surely
Lennon recognized that drugginess in Carroll’s classics, and that is why he
chose to covertly allude to Carroll in his most psychedelic song lyrics—as, of
course, did Grace Slick, but overtly, in her 1967 White Rabbit—was she aware of
Lennon’s trickery? I suspect she was!
Now…if
that were all I found today, that would be enough. But it’s only one third of
it, and it’s hard for me to say which is the most amazing part. So please, don’t
turn back, and stay with me on this boatride a while longer, we’ve got
two-thirds of our journey still to traverse….
;)
Next….the
following is text I’ve taken from an 1889 book. Before I tell you its title,
please just read the two short passages I’ve quoted, and pay particular
attention to the words in CAPS. At the end, I’ll explain:
P.
134: “The CLOUD is to the mountain what MOTION
IS TO THE SEA; it gives it an infinite variety of expression — gives it a life
— gives it joy and sufferance, alternate calm, and terror, and anger. Without
the cloud, the mountain would still be sublime, but monotonous; it would have
but a picture-like existence. How thoroughly they understand and sympathize
with each other — these glorious playmates, these
immortal brethren!...As you approach the mountains, it seems that the
clouds begin already to arrange themselves in bolder and MORE FANTASTIC SHAPES.
They have a fellowship here. They build their mountains upon mountains …I am
never weary of watching the play of THESE GIANT CHILDREN of the earth. ….How
magnificent then is that bright eminence seen above the cloud! How it seems
rising upwards — how it seems borne aloft by those innumerable wings — by those
enormous pinions which I see stretching from the cloudy mass! What an ascension
have we here ! — what a transfiguration! O Raphael! I will not disparage thy
name nor thy art, but thy angels bearing on their wings
the brightening saint to Heaven — what are they to the picture here?
Look!
there — FAIRLY IN THE SKY — where we should see but the pure ether — above the
clouds which themselves are SAILING HIGH high in serenest air —yes, there, in
the blue and giddy expanse, stands the solid mountain, GLITTERING LIKE A
DIAMOND. O God! the bewildered reason, pent up in cities, toils much to prove
and penetrate thy being and thy nature — toils much in vain. Here, I reason not
— I see. The Great King lives — lo, there is his throne. . . .
I
have seen hills on which lay the clear unclouded sky, making them blue as
itself. I have gazed on those beautiful far-receding valleys — as the valley of
the Rhone — when they have appeared to collect and retain the azure ether. They
were full of Heaven. …I have observed that the twilight, so grateful to the
plain, is mortal to the mountain. It craves light — it lifts up its great
chalice for light — THIS GREAT FLOWER is the first to close, to fade, at the
withdrawal of the sun. It stretches up to heaven seeking light; it cannot have
too much — under the strongest beam it never droops — its brow is never
dazzled.
…How
like a ruined Heaven is this earth! Nay, is it not more beautiful for being a
ruin? . . . I lie ROCKING IN A BOAT midway between Vevay and Lausanne. On the
opposite coast are the LOW PURPLE HILLS crouching beside the lake. But there,
to the left, what an ethereal structure of cloud and snowy mountain is revealed
to me! What a creation of that spirit of beauty which works its marvels in the
unconscious earth! The Alps here, while they retain all the aerial effect
gathered from distance, yet seem to arise from the very margin of the lake. The
whole scene is so ethereal, yon fear to look aside, lest when you look again IT
MAY HAVE VANISHED like a vision of the clouds.
And
why should THESE LITTLE BOATS, with their tall triangular sails, which GLIDE SO
GRACEFULLY OVER THE WATER, be forgotten? The sail, though an artifice of man,
is almost always in harmony with nature.. . . .
P.
303: [Letter] To Miss Mary Wrench. Zermatt, June 18, 1862.
This
is the place of places! No mountain that I ever saw equals the Matterhorn in
his hold over one's mind. Read about him, I beg, in Murray. How he rears
himself up — how when the CLOUDS come round him it takes your breath away every
time that he emerges to find that HIS HEAD CAN INDEED BE THERE SO INCREDIBLY
HIGH! . . . On our way here, at Visp, I heard as I believed pouring rain all
night, but did not like to get up and verify, fearing to disturb William. At
five we were up. It was the river, not the rain, I had heard; CLOUDS were
rising; guides promised fine weather. We were in our saddles at seven. How you
would have enjoyed it! I soon lost all sense of nervousness, and indeed there
is nothing to be the least nervous about. I love precipices, and to stretch out
my arms over a gorge with a torrent at the bottom. The nine hours' ride was one
ECSTASY of enjoyment; the day perfect, the horse an angel the saddle an
arm-chair. Murray gives one no idea of the grandeur of the scenery the whole
way to Zermatt. What with perpendicular and RICHLY
COLORED rocks, hills WOODED sometimes to their tops, and overlooked by one
white summit after another, the river roaring far below, the FLOWERS BY THE
WAYSIDE, the butterflies that crossed one's path; what with the grandeur and
the beauty, and all of it " REFLECTED FROM THE EYES that one loves,"
I may say life culminated that day. And yet the next was I think better, for
William was in my room at five, wild with spirits, feeling the air gives him
new life, and wanting instantly to be off on another expedition. Accordingly
off we set to the Schwarzsee (read about it) and oh, the glory of Monte Rosa,
cloudless to the summit, and THE FAIRY BEAUTY OF THE FLOWERS! Coming down, we
got WRAPPED IN CLOUDS. I liked to see them rising like smoke, so rapidly out of
the valley, veiling the mountains, then ALL MELTING AWAY SUDDENLY. I would not
have been without them, though it was very cold. I have got to like the feeling
of going up-stairs on horseback. We had one of the sweet fellows who brought us
over the day before, and a lovely youth of eighteen as guide. Fuchs (such was
the dear horse's name) wriggled so delightfully up great slabs of rock!
There was no one in the great hotel but an American Congregational minister and
his wife and child — he a remarkably handsome young man in delicate health, she
healthy and kindly looking, WITH LOVING EYES, and a quite caressing smile. What
walks we had Saturday and Sunday, what snow mountains we saw — the Twins and
the Lyskamm (ALMOST AS HIGH as Monte Rosa), towering above the beautiful Gorner
Glacier, and a fringe of fir-trees for foreground, and SUCH A SKY! And then
think what it is to see William wild with health and mirth, and full of THE
MOST BEWITCHING CONCEPTIONS. We have walked every day in spite of the weather,
which broke up on Monday. Tuesday we went to see the river Visp break out of
its icy cradle, so weird and grand and desolate, with the mist of rain hanging
round….” END QUOTE
Did
you notice in particular “HIS HEAD CAN INDEED BE THERE SO INCREDIBLY HIGH!”,
which is the passage that Google directed me to, after which I collected all
the other densely clustered verbal parallels with Lucy in
the Sky With Diamonds. The parallelism is just amazing, both in the bulls-eyes
and the breadth!
It
may amaze you further to know the title of the book whence these passages were
taken:
The
Story of William and LUCY Smith! And the letter shown on page 303 was written
by… LUCY Smith! That only adds to the
improbability of these many textual parallels being one huge coincidence,
because clearly Lucy Smith was, as she toured the Alps, “in the sky”!
I infer
from the above that somehow, John Lennon, in his compositional process, found these
passages from this 1889 book, and wove them into his emulation of Carroll’s
poem. But why might Lennon, in 1966,
have chosen a lyrical 19th
century description of the Alps, and particularly the Matterhorn, that
included references to the sky, clouds and diamonds, as a source for Lucy in
the Sky?
The
answer to that question brings me to the third and final leg of this magical
mystery tour of the imaginative mind of John Lennon, and it will be at high
elevation, so to speak, so put on your imaginative hiking boots! ;)
For
starters, we have the following précis of one part of the plot of the movie Help!,
which was filmed only a year earlier.
“The
band flees to the Austrian Alps for refuge but both thugs and Foot follow in
pursuit….[later] Clang skis down a slope that Ahme told him was the way to get
to further pursue the Beatles, but turns out to be the take-off ramp for a Ski
jumping contest.” And of course, the “McGuffin”of the film is the ring which
Ringo cannot get off his finger, which contains an enormous JEWEL!
And
also here are the circumstances under which John wrote the song “Norwegian
Wood” for the Beatles 1965 album Rubber Soul:
“Norwegian
Wood…was apparently inspired by Lennon’s extramarital flings. Ironically, he
wrote it while he was on a holiday with
his wife, Cynthia, at St. Moritz in the
Swiss Alps. They were joined by The Beatles’ producer George Martin…[who]
recalled: “It was during this time that
John was writing songs for Rubber Soul…..a very bitter little story.”
And it was also the case that “…Lago di
Braies…[in] The Dolomites [part of the Alpine chain, in Italy] “…hosted
meditation sessions under the guidance of…Maharishi Mahesh, guru to…the
Beatles.”
So from
all of the above, we know that John Lennon was no stranger to the Alps when he
was writing Lucy in the Sky, and we also know that a jewel was part of that
imaginative stew.
But
now we reach the final stage of our journey, which begins with the following:
Wikipedia:
“In January 1970, [George] Harrison purchased the 120-room Friar Park, set on
33 acres of land, just west of Henley-on-Thames…The house was built in the 1890s
on the site of a thirteenth-century monastery, by Sir Frank Crisp, a successful
City of London solicitor, microscopist and horticulturalist well
known for his eccentricities. Harrison described Crisp as a cross between LEWIS
CARROLL and Walt Disney. The 10 acres of Crisp's formal gardens were…overrun
with weeds…Among the garden features was a series of TIERED LAKES connected by
tunnels, to the south-east of the house, and an Alpine rock garden topped by a
100-foot replica of the MATTERHORN, to the north-west.”
Believe
it or not, this last item will bring together Lewis Carroll, fantasy, the
Matterhorn, and the Beatles!
First,
watch this 5 minute 49 second video from start to finish:
http://wn.com/george_harrison_buys_friar_park (click on the second video on the right,
entitled “Friar Park by Ravi Shankar”, whose music is the score for the slide
show which comprises this video)
In
particular:
At 3:08-17
into the video, you can see the pointed white “head” of Frankie Crisp’s faux
Matterhorn aptly poking up into the blanket of clouds which fill the sky.
And
at 2:15-24 into the video, you tell me if this snapshot does not fit with the
description “picture yourself in a boat on a river”!
What
does this all mean? What I suspect (but cannot yet verify) is that even though Beatle
George Harrison did not buy Friar Park until January 1970, John must’ve been aware
of Friar Park, with its 19C mock-Alp, waterways, and lush
foliage, prior to his writing of the lyrics of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds in
1966; and then he connected the dots between Friar Park and the Alpine
ecstasies of William and Lucy Smith, and wove them all together into the
immortal lyrics of Lucy in the Sky….and chose to keep all of that subtext
secret from the countless millions who know the words to his song by heart.
And I
hope you’ll agree that I could not have invented a more fitting conclusion to
this little tour through the subtext of one of John Lennon’s most magical and
mysterious musical poems.
Cheers,
ARNIE
@JaneAustenCode
on Twitter
P.S.:
By the way, I do not subscribe to the conspiracy theories that suggest that
Lucy in the Sky is a coded reference to Lucifer—I don’t see enough evidence
that Lennon was having a joke at the expense of those who thought drugs like
LSD were the weapons of the devil. And…so, coming full circle back to Jane
Austen, I am disappointed to have to say that I am unable to find any evidence
that John Lennon had Jane Austen’s Lucy Steele aka Lucy Ferrars aka Lucifer….
…on
his mind as he chose the name Lucy.
Can’t
win ‘em all!
P.P.S.: [Added two hours later]
According to John Lennon (1940-1980), both Beatles' songs "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" (1967) and "I am the Walrus" (1967) were inspired by the Alice books. John Lennon once admitted “I always wanted to write Alice in Wonderland—I was determined to be Lewis Carroll with a hint of Ronald Searle” (The Beatles Anthology).
P.P.P.S: (Added 8 hours later)
See my followup post re one key aspect of the above post:
http://sharpelvessociety.blogspot.com/2013/06/in-case-it-wasnt-clear-from-my-last.html
P.P.S.: [Added two hours later]
According to John Lennon (1940-1980), both Beatles' songs "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" (1967) and "I am the Walrus" (1967) were inspired by the Alice books. John Lennon once admitted “I always wanted to write Alice in Wonderland—I was determined to be Lewis Carroll with a hint of Ronald Searle” (The Beatles Anthology).
P.P.P.S: (Added 8 hours later)
See my followup post re one key aspect of the above post:
http://sharpelvessociety.blogspot.com/2013/06/in-case-it-wasnt-clear-from-my-last.html
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