Preface
Chapter 1 - The Problem
Chapter 2 - The Style
Chapter 3 - The Story
Chapter 4 - The Words
Chapter 5 - The Music
Chapter 6 - The Man, his Recent Past, and his Son's Drawing
Chapter 7 - Recipe for a Song
Chapter 8 - The Next Songs
Chapter 9 - Expression
Author's Afterword
Notes
References
Appendices
Tim Kasser is Professor of Psychology at Knox College. His publications include The High Price of Materialism (MIT Press, 2002) and many scientific articles and book chapters. Tim enjoys playing the piano (including blues and Beatles' songs), interpreting dreams, and spending time with his family at their home in the western Illinois countryside.
"In this unique analysis, Tim Kasser puts a famous and enigmatic
Beatles song under the psychological microscope. Bringing methods
to bear from linguistics, cognitive science, music theory, and the
study of attachment, Kasser probes deeply into the life and the
soul of John Lennon. His little book shines as bright as a diamond
in the (strawberry) field of psychological biography."
-- Dan P. McAdams, Henry Wade Rogers Professor of Psychology and
Director of the Foley Center for the Study of Lives, Northwestern
University, and author of George W. Bush and the Redemptive
Dream
"Tim Kasser's in-depth study of 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds'
brings a fresh and thought-provoking approach to a well-known and
oft-discussed Beatles song. While most scholars and critics have
come at this song from the point of view of musical analysis or
biography (or both), Kasser's readings rely principally on methods
drawn from the field of psychology. The interpretations in Lucy in
the Mind of Lennon open up new ways to think about meaning in
popular music."
-- John Covach, Professor of Music, University of Rochester and
Eastman School of Music
"This is an outstanding work, a wonderfully rich and synthetic
portrait. Tim Kasser artfully employs some of the latest scientific
methods for studying individual lives to illuminate the complex
meanings behind Lennon's song Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds and its
place in Lennon's life history. He has an engaging, conversational
style of writing that draws the reader in, so that we're traveling
partners sharing a fascinating journey of exploration into
Lennon's inner world."
-- Amy Demorest, Professor of Psychology, Amherst College
"This is an excellent psychobiography that employs several rarely
used techniques in the research, such as the chapters analyzing
musical melodies of various John Lennon songs in order to draw
personality-based conclusions. This book will have wide appeal for
its treatment of topics on religion, substance abuse, and
creativity. The book's strengths are in its singular focus on the
meaning behind one song Lennon wrote ("Lucy in the Sky with
Diamonds") at a
critical psychological juncture in his life, as it offers Kasser an
achievable yet ambitious framework in which to perform his
inquiry."
-- Joseph M. Kramp, Religious Studies Review
"In this effort to decipher Lennon's creation, [Kasser] works hard
and researches deeply, bringing in Freud, dream analysis, B. F.
Skinner, Dr. James Pennebaker and his computer analysis Linguistic
Inquiry and Word Count, and Script Analysis among other
methodology. Kasser has done yeoman work in this short book, and it
will be of interest to Beatle and Lennon fanatics and of course to
teachers and other scholars who might want to use it as a classroom
tool or
reference." --Gary Presley, The Internet Review of Books
"In his new book, Tim Kasser, a social-personality psychologist
with decidedly clinical interests, relies on a variety of
intriguing techniques to explore an unusual case: the late John
Lennon's intentions when he wrote 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.'
Attempts at 'psychobiography' are by no means new [...] but trying
to understand a creative work like the origins of this familiar, if
enigmatic, rock song, is novel." --Dana S. Dunn, Journal of Social
and
Clinical Psychology
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