Psychedelic drugs clearly had a distinct influence on the Beatles’ sound toward the later part of their career together, but for a brief moment, John Lennon almost gave up music altogether after these drugs led to an intense battle with his ego. Fortunately for Fab Four fans (and Lennon, too), he was able to get a handle on his internal conflicts.
But he needed some external assistance before he could do it.
(Half Of) the Beatles’ First Encounter with Psychedelics
The Beatles’ first encounter with LSD was by accident (and no, that’s not just a flimsy excuse they tried to use to get out of trouble). The Fab Four had previously only been on marijuana, booze, and the occasional assortment of pills until a dentist named Dr. John Riley laced John Lennon, George Harrison, and their partners’ coffee with LSD at a dinner party.
Although all of the Beatles would eventually experiment with psychedelics, Lennon and Harrison seemed to explore LSD the most. “In L.A., the second time we took it, Paul felt very out of it because we were all a bit slightly cruel, sort of ‘we’re taking it, and you’re not,’” Lennon recalled in a 1971 interview with Rolling Stone. “But we kept seeing him, you know.”
“I think George was pretty heavy on it,” Lennon continued. “We are probably the most cracked. Paul is a bit more stable than George and I. I think LSD profoundly shocked him and Ringo. I think maybe they regret it.” These types of revelations are always easier to identify in hindsight. But for a brief time during Lennon’s experimentation with LSD, it almost disaffected his entire being—from his personality to his desire to make art.
John Lennon’s Struggles With His Ego
At the time of his 1971 Rolling Stone interview, Lennon estimated that he took LSD at least a thousand times. However, he insisted, he never took it in the studio—except one time by accident. As he would come to find through further experimentation, the psychedelic drug significantly impacted his sense of self. He retreated inward and began to doubt himself.
“I didn’t believe I could do anything and let people make me, and let them all just do what they wanted,” Lennon recalled. “I just was nothing; I was s***. Then Derek [Taylor, the Beatles’ press officer] tripped me out at his house after he got back from L.A. He sort of said, ‘You’re all right,’ and pointed out which songs I had written. ‘You wrote this,’ and, ‘You said this,’ and, ‘You are intelligent. Don’t be frightened.”
“The next week, I went to Derek’s with Yoko,” Lennon continued, “and we tripped again. She filled me completely to realize that I was me and that it’s all right. That was it. I started fighting again, being a loudmouth again and saying, ‘I can do this, f*** it, this is what I want, you know, I want it, and don’t put me down.’”
Indeed, leave it to the press officer tasked with convincing the entire world to care about the Beatles to be the one to convince a Beatle to care about himself.
