What disease is Lucy Vodden, who inspired the song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”, battling?
They were childhood chums. Then they drifted apart, lost touch completely, and only renewed their friendship decades later, when illness struck. Not so unusual, really. Except she is Lucy Vodden — the girl who was the inspiration for the Beatles’ 1967 psychedelic classic “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” — and he is Julian Lennon, the musician son of John Lennon. They are linked together by something that happened more than 40 years ago when Julian brought home a drawing from school and told his father, “That’s Lucy in the sky with diamonds.” Just the sort of cute phrase lots of 3- or 4-year-olds produce — but not many have a father like John Lennon, who used it as a springboard for a legendary song that became a centerpiece on the landmark Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album. “Julian got in touch with me out of the blue, when he heard how ill I was, and he said he wanted to do something for me,” said the 46-year-old Vodden, who has lupus, a chronic disease where the immune syste
