The first time George Harrison and John Lennon took LSD, they ingested it accidentally. The experience started off terrifying, but they quickly grew to enjoy the drug. Both musicians felt so altered by their LSD use that they could no longer relate to their other bandmates. Harrison and Lennon came to the conclusion that Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr had to take LSD too.
George Harrison and John Lennon tried LSD before their bandmates
Lennon, Harrison, and their wives were at a dinner party when their host informed them that he’d put LSD in their coffees. Horrified, the group fled. After a while, though, they began enjoying the effects.
“I had such an overwhelming feeling of well-being, that there was a God, and I could see him in every blade of grass,” Harrison said, per Rolling Stone. “It was like gaining hundreds of years of experience in 12 hours.”
Harrison and Lennon rented a house in Los Angeles to try the drug again. After this, they realized their bandmates needed to take LSD too. They wouldn’t be able to relate to them otherwise.
“John and I had decided that Paul and Ringo had to have acid because we couldn’t relate to them anymore,” Harrison said. “Not just on the one level — we couldn’t relate to them on any level, because acid had changed us so much. It was such a mammoth experience that it was unexplainable. It was something that had to be experienced, because you could spend the rest of your life trying to explain what it made you feel and think. It was all too important to John and me.”
Starr happily agreed to try it, but McCartney pushed back, worrying that it would permanently change him.
LSD had a sizable impact on The Beatles’ music
By the time Harrison and Lennon tried LSD, The Beatles had already released Rubber Soul, their “pot album.” LSD had an even greater impact on their music. Their songs became hallucinogenic and groundbreaking. Songs like “Tomorrow Never Knows” not only pushed the envelope of what The Beatles could do, but of what any musician could accomplish.
Their new, experimental music also made it difficult to play their new songs while touring. They played their old hits, adding a further layer of frustration to their tour. For this reason, among many others, they decided to stop touring in 1966. This allowed them to spend more time on their music, allowing for more creative invention.
George Harrison and John Lennon finally convinced Paul McCartney to try LSD
McCartney was the final Beatle to try LSD, but he eventually caved to his bandmates’ wishes. He found the experience just as eye-opening as the others did.
“[It] opened my eyes to the fact that there is a God … It is obvious that God isn’t in a pill, but it explained the mystery of life,” he said. “It was truly a religious experience.”
McCartney also agreed that it impacted their music.
“It started to find its way into everything we did, really,” he said. “It colored our perceptions. I think we started to realize there wasn’t as many frontiers as we’d thought there were. And we realized we could break barriers.”
