John Lennon’s single favourite song of the 1960s: “I can’t stop playing [it]”
Certain songs come to define a time and a place in history, and no matter their new position in time, they are ingrained into the collective recollection of that period. The 1960s spawned countless examples of songs such as this; tracks that feel like an inseparable part of the time they’re a product of, as though they have been stitched into the very fabric of the era. With songs like ‘I Am The Walrus’, ‘A Day In The Life’, and innumerable others, The Beatles curated an all-encompassing soundtrack for a world in the midst of a cultural revolution.
While there are certainly more violent revolutions, there are few as everlasting as the counterculture movement. While politically it may have failed to achieve the turnaround on hate and love that it had hoped, there can be no doubt that The Beatles, alongside a new generation of artists, helped to redefine culture.
It was a revolution spearheaded by the mind-altering proliferation of pop culture and drugs like LSD and, for the most part, soundtracked by a heaving group of rock musicians. Below, we’ll be looking at John Lennon’s favourite song from that period of social transformation, a track he described as the perfect “dope song”. Unfortunately for those hoping Lennon had created some hip hop lexicon decades before the genre’s first record, he was referring to drugs.
It’s easy to look at the 1960s as an entirely unique decade. It’s easy to imagine that artists had relied not on drugs but on arithmetic and other rigorous mental exercises to inspire their creativity in previous decades. But the reality is that drug use and artistry have always had a symbiotic relationship. Consider writers such as Oscar Wilde sipping on absinthe or jazz musicians engaging in lengthy, drug-fueled concerts during the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. No, the ’60s simply marked the moment that the relationship between music and drug use was popularised and demystified.
LSD became especially important to The Beatles during the latter years of the 1960s. After drinking tea laced with the psychoactive substance in the home of John Riley, The Beatles were transformed. Suddenly, their music became more cerebral and oblique. They left behind the teeny-bopping pop hits and instead of trying to export their songs into the ears and minds of their audiences, they looked inward and began getting in touch with their own moral compasses. This transpired into music that wasn;t built for radio-friendly blasts but that demanded attention and a degree of intelligence.
It was no longer founded on the recognisable musical principles of western music but on eastern-influenced song structures and experimental production techniques. During this time in Lennon’s career, he became obsessed with Procol Harum’s song ‘Whiter Shade of Pale’ a track that stayed with him throughout his life.
In his book Lennon: The Definitive Biography, Ray Coleman talks about an episode at a party at Brian Epstein’s house, just before the release of the Beatles’ album Sgt. Pepper Coleman describes how: “We spoke a little about the state of the music scene, and he (Lennon) said there was one ‘dope’ record which he couldn’t get off his mind. He couldn’t remember the title. All other pop music of that period was ‘crap’, one of his favourite words at that time.”
“Next day John phoned me,” Coleman continues, “I remembered after I’d gone what record it is that I can’t stop playing,’ he said. ‘It’s that dope song, Procol Harum’s ‘Whiter Shade Of Pale’. It’s the best song I’ve heard for a while. You play it when you take some acid and … whoooooooo.'” The track has long been associated with the drug experience of the decade but that shouldn’t mean its categorisation is a bad one.
The effect of the Fab Four’s regular acid trips had a profound effect not just on their music but on their style, their public personas, and their appreciation of contemporary music. It seemed to renew something within them that had started to fade to grey, transforming the world into a kaleidoscope of vibrant colour.
In Scorsese’s documentary George Harrison: Living In the Material World, there is an interview in which Derek Taylor, ‘the fifth Beatle’, describes travelling to Brian Epstein’s home in Sussex. Taylor recalls: “Waiting for us was John and George, and they were dressed in this exotic way; they had silk shirts that were this incredible colour, and they hugged us, and they kissed us and all of a sudden there were no barriers – and what’s happening? We were swept outside of Heathrow Airport where John’s Rolls Royce, like a Romany caravan, was waiting for us – George in his Mini and us in the Rolls Royce with Procol Harum playing ‘Whiter Shade of Pale’, driving along the English roads from Surrey to Sussex.”
Yes, It would seem that even John Lennon had a song that defined his experience of the 1960s. Many people describe it as a time of innocence, an embryonic period before the Jonestown massacre and the ultimate demise of the hippie dream. In those years in the late 1960s, the world was bent out of shape in the most beautiful way possible.
An entire generation of young people was liberating itself from the oppression of 9-5 mundanity, military service, and the trauma of the Holocaust. Young people recognised that trying to change the world by force had only led to destruction and totalitarianism. So, instead, the ’60s generation, helmed by bands like The Beatles, attempted to change the world from within. They didn’t use guns but guitars, no knives just keyboards and bombs were axed for bass guitars. It was a seismic change that altered the minds of those who witnessed it forever.
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