On This Day in 1975, Elton John Kicked off a Two-Week Run at No. 1 With This Beatles Cover (Featuring an Undercover Beatle)

Few can do The Beatles like The Beatles. However, Sir Elton John isn’t most people. On this day (Jan. 4) in 1975, the EGOT winner was on top of the U.S. singles chart for the third time with his rendition of the 1967 kaleidoscopic masterpiece “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds.” To be fair, however, John had a secret weapon—an actual Beatle, with John Lennon on guitar.

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John Lennon Was Thrilled to See the Beatles’ Work Covered

Lennon was the primary songwriter on the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band track, which topped the Billboard Hot 100. In late 1974, the “Imagine” singer joined Elton John at Colorado’s Caribou Ranch to play guitar and sing backing vocals on his cover.

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“Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” is a song by the English rock band the Beatles from their 1967 album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. It was written primarily by John Lennon with assistance from Paul McCartney, and credited to the Lennon–McCartney songwriting partnership.Lennon’s son Julian inspired the song with a nursery school drawing that he called “Lucy – in the sky with diamonds”. Shortly before the album’s release, speculation arose that the first letter of each of the nouns in the title intentionally spelled “LSD”, the initialism commonly used for the hallucinogenic drug lysergic acid diethylamide.Lennon repeatedly denied that he had intended it as a drug song, and attributed the song’s fantastical imagery to his reading of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland books. #70smusic #retromusic #retromusic #musica #60 #eltonjohn #beatles

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Lennon downplayed his contributions in a 1978 interview with Spin, insisting, “Elton would have had a No. 1 record without me; he didn’t need me. And anyway, I was only Dr. Winston O. Boogie on it … ’cause they weren’t sure; and we didn’t have time to get real permission.” (Winston was Lennon’s middle name.)

However, John was much more magnanimous in a 1974 interview with Rolling Stone, telling the outlet, “John Lennon played on it and put his own personality on it.”

[RELATED: On This Day in 1974, John Lennon Lost a Bet to Elton John When He Scored the Only Solo No. 1 Hit of His Lifetime]

Frankly, Lennon was just happy to see an artist brave enough to tackle the Beatles’ work, as so many shied away from the Fab Four’s catalog. “People are afraid of Beatle music… Because they got that big image thing: ‘You can’t do a Beatle number … You can’t touch a Lennon song; only Lennon can do it,’” he told Spin. “It’s garbage! Anybody can do anything.”

Why Elton John No Longer Performs This Hit

Despite the success of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” Elton John seldom performs the song live anymore. His reasons are understandable: “I never do in a set at a concert simply because it reminds me too much of John Lennon.” The same goes for “Empty Garden,” which John penned in the Beatle’s honor after his 1980 murder.

Fortunately, the “Rocket Man” crooner did get the opportunity to perform the song with Lennon during a now-famous concert at Madison Square Garden. It would be his final public performance ever.

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