She: (Starts giving information)

The place to meet the maid is derived from the specific references in Lucy in the Sky. They are: "boats," "river," "flowers overhead," "a girl with sun in her eyes," "bridge," "fountain," "rocking horse people," "newspapers and taxis," "train," and "train station." The song itself is a description of meeting a girl. In London there is a footbridge with railroad tracks across the Thames which runs between Charing Cross and Waterloo stations called the Hungerford footbridge. On the Charing Cross side there is a dock. To one side are the Victoria Embankment Gardens, to the other the South Bank Gardens. These Gardens are full of flowers, and also serve as a playground for children, who are "rocking horse people." If you were on the river in a boat, the flowers would be overhead. A few blocks away is Trafalger Square, which has fountains. We have already determined that we are looking for a girl. The importance of the sun being in her eyes is that it puts her on the Charing Cross side of the river, if we consider the late afternoon, about "ten to six."

The final clue to the girl's location would be if there was a bank on that side of the river. This is derived from the title: Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, which is anagrammatic for Lsd, which stands for pounds, shillings, and pence, which implies a bank. (We are indebted to Mr. Peter Stansky for this observation.) Unfortunately, my map of London does not show banks.

We never got around to checking the paper of the album covers under ultraviolet light, or for watermarks. I have been told that the record itself fluoresces under UV light. Whether this is simply due to the diffracting characteristics of the record grooves being enhanced by using long wavelength light, I do not know.

We did tear open the side of the album cover that the record does not slide into, in a frenzy of wondrous hope, only to find that it was empty.

We tried to determine if the faces on the cover were the key to a cipher, but were unable to break the code. Any attmpt to do this requires a key to the faces. "Sixteen" magazine published one last summer sometime. The gravest fault in the "Sixteen" key was that instead of admitting their ignorance when they couldn't identify a face, they called them all "Indian Gurus." There is an almost infinite number of ways a cipher could be built into the crowd of faces. It is a very frustrating way to spend a weekend.

There is, of course, the question of George Harrison's finger. On the back cover, you will see that he has his hand at his waist, clenched into a fist. Something that should be his thumb, but looks more like a hot dog, is sticking up. It is really too long to be a thumb but it could be a thumb turned backwards by trick photography. In any case it is pointing directly at the line "five o'clock." If you extend the line of his "finger" up across the album with a ruler you will find that this line crosses many of the significant phrases already discussed.

The strange manner in which the type is set up is quite striking. By running a clear plastic ruler, available at the Coop, under the lines across the back you will find that it makes fascinating reading: "Follow her down to a bridge by a stepping outside she is free. Then you may find peace of mind is good morning, Good morning." Many times the ruler will cut off some lines in the middle, while lying correctly under others. This forces you to skip columns as you read across on particular lines. I can't help feeling there is something significant about this.

A close listening to the Reprise will reveal that Paul is shouting something in the background. This is supposed to be clearer on the mono copies. At the very end of the Reprise the group in the background starts singing the chorus to an old Rock and Roll song called "Farmer John." You can find out who sang it in the Yellow record catalogue at College Music Shop in Central Square.

The cover was designed by MC Productions and photographed by Michael Cooper, whose initials are MC. The designers must have contributed to the formulation of the cryptogram. The same people designed the cover to the Stones new album, "Their Satanic Majesties Request." The Stones' album has its own little puzzle, which has a number of possible solutions. Why shouldn't the two be connected? The man in blue with only his back showing on the back cover of the album is, after all, Mick Jagger, not Paul. The Beatles are hidden in the three dimensional picture on the Stones cover. This interesting mutual exchange could have gone deeper than the mere covers of the albums. Our analysis of the Stones album is continuing.

There are many people who maintain that whatever message the cryptogram contained has long since become useless knowledge. If this is true, it can only be due to the Beatles' disappointment when they found that no one in the world was hip enough to play their game, and win.