Miley Cyrus Records Beatles Cover for Flaming Lips ‘Sgt. Pepper’ Tribute Album
One of pop music’s most talked about artists has teamed up with one of its weirdest for an epic new collaboration. The Flaming Lips singer and front man Wayne Coyne recently posted a behind-the-scenes picture to his Instagram account of ‘Wrecking Ball’ singer Miley Cyrus in-studio recording vocals for a cover of the Beatles’ classic ‘Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds.’
“If you're a Beatles and John Lennon freak you gonna love love love this track!” Coyne wrote in the caption. Andrew VanWyngarden of MGMT is also said to have worked on the track, which the Flaming Lips recently performed on 'The Late Show with David Letterman' with Sean Ono Lennon.
Another picture on the account reveals Cyrus preparing a joint with her trademarked ‘Bangerz’ rolling papers with a caption that reads, “Yup......Recordin with Miley... High as f---....” Cyrus has long been open about her affinity for marijuana, which she most recently reiterated to Rolling Stone. “I think weed is the best drug on earth. One time I smoked a joint with peyote in it, and I saw a wolf howling at the moon. Hollywood is a coke town, but weed is so much better. And molly, too. Those are happy drugs – social drugs.”
This isn’t the first time Coyne and Cyrus have teamed up. The two recently performed a duet of the Flaming Lips classic, ‘Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Take One’ on a stop of Cyrus’ Bangerz Tour in Los Angeles. "I hope I can inspire you guys as much as the Flaming Lips have inspired me and encouraged me to always be myself and to make music because I love it and always invent something new for my fans," Cyrus proclaimed at the show. “So as much as you guys are fans, I'm a true fan of these amazing guys right here."
Originally recorded in March 1967, ‘Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds,” was written by John Lennon after supposedly seeing a picture drawn by his son Julian of girl in his in his class. The girl behind the drawing, the real Lucy, sadly passed away in 2009. While Lennon had long professed that the origins of the song were completely innocent, many have speculated for years that the true intent of the track was a nod to the hallucinogenic drug LSD.
In an interview with Uncut Magazine in 2004, Paul McCartney all but settled the argument when he stated, “A song like 'Got to Get You Into My Life,' that's directly about pot, although everyone missed it at the time." "Day Tripper," he says, "that's one about acid. 'Lucy in the Sky,' that's pretty obvious. There's others that make subtle hints about drugs, but, you know, it's easy to overestimate the influence of drugs on the Beatles' music."
Consequence of Sound is reporting that the cover will be included in the Flaming Lips' track-by-track tribute to 'Sgt. Pepper.' In the past, they've given similar treatment to Pink Floyd's 'Dark Side of the Moon' and King Crimson's 'In the Court of the Crimson King.'