Lucy in the sky with diamonds.

William Shanter, who is this dude and why is he destroying one of out greatest Beatles classics?
When I first heard Shanter's version of one of my all time favorites, I thought it was one of those parody videos where some weird looking guy just takes the piss out of an amazing song and changes the words around a bit to get a reaction from the audience. So you can imagine the shock I had when I found out that Shanter did all of these things, except seriously expecting to make a hit record out of it. Dear oh dear. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-yy2URAYqU

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds was written by John Lennon and Paul Mc Carthy for the groups 1967 album, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
At the time of its release, the Beatles claimed that the inspiration for the song came from a drawing by John Lennon's son, Julian, which he called "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds". The song sparked controversy when released, including being banned by the BBC because of the supposed reference to the drug LSD with the first letter of each noun in the title spelling LSD. Although Lennon denied that the L-S-D in the title was a reference to the drug, McCartney later said that it was "pretty obvious" that the song was inspired by LSD.
Rolling Stone magazine described the song as "Lennon's lavish daydream" and music critic Ritchie Unterberger said "'Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds' was one of the best songs on the Beatles' famous Sgt. Pepper album, and one of the classic songs of psychedelia as a whole. There are few other songs that so successfully evoke a dream world, in both the sonic textures and words." And if you listen to The Beatles version, it is, undoubtably incredible. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7F2X3rSSCU

Although both versions of the song got the LSD effect spot with bright lights, floating objects and colours, what really surprised me after listening to both Shanter's version of Lucy in the Sky and The Beatles version was not only did Shanter get millions of listeners, he also got thousands of youtube fans saying how fantastic his cover was. One or two listeners even went to say that they "preferred" this guy's version of the classic. Perhaps I'm being a bit harsh on Mister Shanter, but then again, any Beatles fan would be. Perhaps his version of the song isn't as woeful to other peoples ears as it is to my own but my God, it'd leave any Beatles fanatic crying into their ipod anyday.