The night The Beatles and The Byrds “took LSD together”
Politically, socially, and musically, the 1960s was a revolutionary period. The foundations laid by rock and roll during the late 1950s had blossomed into an all-encompassing pop rebellion, with British invasion groups like The Beatles leading the charge. During that period, artists could find inspiration seemingly everywhere, but as the decade progressed, the impact of mind-bending substances like LSD became more and more prevalent, particularly on the fresh-faced Fab Four.
They might have started out as marketable teeny-boppers, singing catchy love songs like ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’ and ‘She Loves You’, but The Beatles were keen to pursue groundbreaking and modern songwriting from pretty early on in their careers. If you were a little reductive, you could separate The Beatles’ discography into two distinct categories: pre-LSD and post-LSD. For the most part, it was the post-LSD period which produced the most interesting and beloved tracks by the Liverpool outfit.
LSD took the art world by storm during the mid-1960s, and its influence could be felt in virtually all forms of artistic expression at the time. Artists like Roger Dean, writers like Hunter S Thompson, and groups like The Byrds helped to establish the drug as a beacon of psychedelic inspiration, fitting in perfectly with the inherent ethos of the counterculture and hippie age. As such, it did not take long before The Beatles were exposed to the potent power of the substance, following a night spent with David Crosby and Roger McGuinn of The Byrds.
Crosby and McGuinn were essential figures in the development of psychedelic rock, with The Byrds blazing a trail that countless other artists would soon attempt to follow. Ultimately, few bands summarised the American hippie movement quite as expertly as Crosby’s outfit. Like virtually everyone of the period, The Byrds were dedicated fans of The Beatles, and the two groups even got the chance to hang out together during the Fab Four’s 1965 trip to the United States.
Speaking to Mojo shortly before his death, Crosby reflected on his love for The Beatles. Recalling the night he spent with the band, he shared, “The Byrds and The Beatles had taken LSD together, playing music and laying around in the sun in the Hollywood Hills, but the startling part was the chemistry between the people rather than the drugs.”
The songwriter also claimed, “I introduced George to Ravi Shankar when I went to England, which led to George learning the sitar and meeting the Maharishi, so we inspired each other.”
Separately, Roger McGuinn also once shared his fond memories of the evening, saying, “There were girls at the gates, police guards. We went in and David, John Lennon, George Harrison and I took LSD to help get to know each other better. There was a large bathroom in the house and we were all sitting on the edge of a shower passing around a guitar, taking turns to play our favourite songs. John and I agreed ‘Be-Bop-A-Lula’ was our favourite ’50s rock record.”
However, Crosby’s claims of introducing Harrison to Ravi Shankar are disputed by McGuinn, who attested, “I showed George Harrison some Ravi Shankar sounds, which I’d heard because we shared the same record company, on the guitar. I told him about Ravi Shankar and he said he had never heard Indian music before.”
Whatever the truth of that fateful evening, it is of vital importance within the history of both The Beatles and The Byrds. Using LSD opened up both bands to entirely new, previously explored avenues of inspiration that would be used to generate some of the most iconic records of the 1960s.
