Altered States

I had an MRI today; too much baseball for too many years has left a click in my shoulder. It doesn't really hurt, but I have to keep popping it back in place, and it's starting to get annoying.

Anyway, the MRI tube thingy, aside from inducing claustrophobia, makes quite a racket of whirs, buzzes, and other assorted obnoxious noises, so they give you headphones and a choice of music to listen to for the 20-25 minutes the process takes. The list of choices they gave me had classical, country, big band, jazz and rock, with a choice of artists in each category. I was thinking about listening to Dark Side of the Moon, but decided it was too trippy. I checked off "Beatles," not knowing whether that meant any specific album or just a selection of hits.

It turns out to be Sgt. Pepper. Talk about psychedelic! Have you ever really listened the words to Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds? How is that song not about an acid trip? John famously denied it, insisting that the title came from this picture his son Julian drew:

Julian was 4 at the time. What exactly was going on in the sixties?