The day Bob Dylan got The Beatles stoned for the very first time
Back in 1964, two legends of the rock and roll world met for the very first time. It was here that a lasting love blossomed, though not always necessarily in equal measure. The day that the Beatles finally met Bob Dylan is a famous one for many reasons: it was a meeting of two great behemoths of popular culture, a gathering of musical minds. However, it was also notable because this was the moment that the Fab Four were introduced to marijuana.
With that, let’s all remember the day that Bob Dylan managed to get John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr suitably stoned for the very first time. The date was August 28th, 1964, and following a performance to the usual mass of hysterical girls at Forest Hills Tennis Stadium in Queens, New York, the Beatles had a meeting of their own that had them giddy with excitement. The Fab Four were on the way to catch up with Bob Dylan, the enigmatic new folk singer and protest poet that everybody was talking about.
Following their performance, the band returned to their suite at the Hotel Delmonico at Park Avenue & 59th Street in Manhattan, where they patiently awaited Mr Zimmerman’s arrival. The meeting had been arranged by the music journalist Al Aronowitz, and it must have felt like a very special occasion indeed, considering the growing gravitas of each of the respective stars. At the time, Dylan was coming off the back of his stunning album The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan and was arguably the most trusted voice of the generation. Likewise, The Beatles were still pumping out number-one hits like a bonafide hit factory, but with a view on the future, the Liverpudlians were keen to take their music to the next level. It’s a part of why the group wanted to meet Dylan in the first place. The Fab Four, slightly green at the time, were keen to pick his brains and share their own thoughts. It was undeniably a star-studded event, but a star or otherwise, the first time meeting anybody can tend to get a little awkward. With that idea running through his mind, Dylan brought along something to break the ice.
Via his road manager Victor Maymudes, Dylan produced a sizeable bag of weed and asked the Fab Four whether they wanted to get stoned with him. After sitting down with the bag, he was a touch startled to learn that the band had never previously never smoked the stuff. His consternation is expected least of all because Dylan thought The Beatles were singing “I get high” in the chorus of their 1964 hit ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’. John Lennon was quick to explain that the often misheard lyric was actually, “I can’t hide”.
As most Beatles aficionados will tell you, the band had, in fact, smoked weed during their time in Hamburg, but they remained sturdy in their stance that it had had no effect on them at the time. Dylan, likely seeing this as a challenge of sorts, passed the bag to Maymudes and asked the road manager to start rolling. Maymudes, a seasoned smoker, rolled a joint quickly and passed it to Lennon, who, in turn, swerved the advance and passed it quickly aside to Ringo Starr, allegedly saying, with classic caustic wit, the drummer was his “royal taster”.
Starr was quick to light the joint and go about his business and, while seemingly unaware of conventional spliff politics, held on to the joint instead of passing it along. Maymudes, realising that he was dealing with amateurs, rolled another for each member of the band. Starr shared the story’s natural conclusion with late-night TV host Conan O’Brien in 2012, saying: “We got high and laughed our asses off”.
Perhaps the final ending of the story is further down the line than just the hilarious conclusion of the evening. The band would cite Dylan as an influence on their sixth studio album, Rubber Soul, which was released just a year later, with Lennon referring to the LP as The Beatles’ “pot album”. While naturally, you couldn’t land all this on to Bob Dylan’s shoulders, it would have been interesting to know how different The Beatles’ output could have developed if they hadn’t met Bob Dylan back in ’64.
The group and Dylan would remain close friends – with a touch of rivalry – throughout their career, with Lennon and Dylan, in particular, often butting heads. Later, George Harrison and Dylan would become inseparable, with many again citing Dylan as the reason for the guitarist’s break out from the band.
The jury may be out as to whether this meeting influenced the band so greatly, but what is under no scrutiny is that this is one of the better rock and roll stories you’ll hear today.
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