When Paul McCartney first showed Bob Dylan ‘Sgt. Pepper’
Many things tie The Beatles and Bob Dylan together. Famously, it was Dylan who gave the Liverpool band their first proper experience of marijuana in 1964, and it was this moment that would see the band enact a stylistic change that resulted in the first of their experimental records. That year’s Rubber Soul set them on their path to release masterful opuses such as Revolver and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Aside from this significant meeting in a swanky New York hotel that saw all in the room get higher than the sun, is the fact that Dylan and The Beatles are undoubtedly the most consequential acts of their generation, and whilst Dylan had a great impact on The Beatles in their early days, respectively, what both did to inspire each other and change the world is so multifaceted that it is certain that it will be discussed in hundreds of years to come.
In the 1960s, Dylan was the master of the protest song, the spiritual successor to his hero Woody Guthrie, who helped soundtracked the counterculture and socio-political turmoil of his day with sharp perception and an obvious musical genius. He then made a brave segue out of folk when he adopted the electric guitar on 1965’s Bringing It All Back Home. What followed has been a long and meandering career that has seen him undertake a variety of stylistic changes.
As for The Beatles, they started as just another sugary rock ‘n’ roll band in 1960, who quickly rose to become the biggest act in popular music before that fateful meeting with Bob Dylan in New York set them on their path to becoming the pioneers that we know and love, with the effects of their work still reverberating across life in 2022, a testament to just how game-changing they were.
The Beatles and Bob Dylan became great friends after that afternoon they spent getting high, and when The Beatles were gearing up to release their masterpiece, 1967’s Sgt. Pepper’s, Paul McCartney played the Minnesota troubadour tracks off the album for the first time, and after listening, Dylan responded in his typically humorous way.
At the time, McCartney had visited Dylan in his London hotel to specifically play him the songs. Per the author Joshua M. Green, who wrote, Here Comes The Sun: The Spiritual And Musical Journey Of George Harrison, after listening, Dylan smiled and said to McCartney: “Oh, I get it. You don’t want to be cute anymore.”
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