# data[].attributes.headline
BBC Article - The History of Psychedelia 

# data[].attributes.subject
BBC Article - The History of Psychedelia 

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The first album to define its own contents as psychedelic was the debut album by Texas garage rockers The 13th Floor Elevators, in October 1966 (The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators). Within a year, psychedelia had exploded across the music scene like a giant paint bomb, turning everything from monochrome to technicolour almost overnight and inspiring 1967's epochal Summer of Love. The reverberations continue to be felt today throughout the worlds of music, art and fashion.

But what exactly is psychedelia? The Oxford English Dictionary describes it as "music, culture or art based on the experiences produced by psychedelic drugs" which is slightly reductive - LSD might have been the original inspiration, but it doesn't explain why psychedelic music is still being produced and enjoyed by people who've never dropped acid in their lives. Psychedelia is appealingly vague and open-ended - a melange of philosophies, colours and styles all happening at once. It's about opening your mind to the myriad possibilities of this world and beyond. It's about reconnecting with your inner child. It's exciting, but also a little bit scary. Psychedelia isn't a destination; it's all about the journey, man.

As 6 Music launches into a week of psychedelic programming - including current bands covering 60s classics, like Mystery Jets doing The Moody Blues' Nights in White Satin above - Sam Richards gets you up to speed with this handy psychedelic primer.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
BBC Radio 6 Music - The History of Psychedelia - A brief history of psychedelia in eight colours

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The first album to define its own contents as psychedelic was the debut album by Texas garage rockers The 13th Floor Elevators, in October 1966 (The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators). Within a year, psychedelia had exploded across the music scene like a giant paint bomb, turning everything from monochrome to technicolour almost overnight and inspiring 1967's epochal Summer of Love.

# data[].attributes.body
In December 1965, the Beatles released an album titled Rubber Soul, which was referred by Lennon as the band’s “pot album,” due to its more introspective lyrics and mesmerizing guitars, as well as reflecting the band’s use of cannabis

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In 1963, the official "Beatlemania" took hold and all of a sudden, four unknown guys from Liverpool became international pop stars, filling up stadiums and rocking the media with their liberal opinions on long hair, while opening a new surge of British bands into the vast American market.

Even though the band's success was growing with each new release, in 1965 their audience experienced a significant change in both their sound and their appearance.

In December 1965, the Beatles released an album titled Rubber Soul, which was referred by Lennon as the band's "pot album," due to its more introspective lyrics and mesmerizing guitars, as well as reflecting the band's use of cannabis.

Having been introduced to the drug by Bob Dylan, the Beatles were becoming a true voice of the generation regarding issues such as the emerging hippie counterculture and the Vietnam War.

Even though Rubber Soul represented a significant step in the band's development, it was not until one fateful night that their careers would take an unexpected turn.

It was at a friendly dinner to which John Lennon and George Harrison were invited together with their then-spouses. The event was hosted by a respectable London dentist John Riley and his girlfriend, Cyndy Bury.

After their meal, Riley insisted that the guests stay for a cup of coffee. Little did they know that the coffee was actually spiked with LSD ― a powerful hallucinogen which was becoming more and more popular among hippie youth, sworn to experiment with any mind-altering substance they could get their hands on.

When Riley announced that they had ingested LSD, George, John and their wives, Patty and Cynthia, protested against his decision to slip them the drug without prior notice. What followed was an episode of LSD-induced paranoia, which would change the two Beatles forever.

Lennon later recalled the incident, describing a scene at Harrison's Esher residence, just outside London:

"God, it was just terrifying, but it was fantastic. George's house seemed to be just like a big submarine... It seemed to float above his wall, which was 18 foot, and I was driving it. I did some drawings at the time, of four faces saying, 'We all agree with you.' I was pretty stoned for a month or two."

According to later interviews, George wasn't far off from John's point of view. The two agreed that they had to repeat the experience with the rest of the band, despite both having mixed feelings about the effects that the drug had on them.

Now it was time to take their music one step further, and during the 1960s it apparently meant consuming a more powerful drug. What would result from this experiment was something that changed music history forever ― the Beatles' seventh studio album, titled Revolver.

However, the band wasn't exactly unanimous in this decision. Ringo Starr agreed to partake, but Paul McCartney considered LSD too much of an influence:

"It alters your life and you never think the same again. John was rather excited by that prospect. I was rather frightened by that prospect. . . never get back home again. I was seen to sort of stall. . . because there was a lot of peer pressure."

Without McCartney aboard the Yellow Submarine, the band felt incomplete. It wasn't until later on that the Beatles bass player and vocalist would try LSD, but even without experiencing it first hand, he quickly came to realize that transferring the effects of acid into music was an experiment worth making.

McCartney was at the time the only Beatle who wasn't married and living in the suburbs. He was an important part of London nightlife and the underground art scene, with his ear constantly on the ground, listening for what might be the next big thing.

Therefore, the band's fusion of newly-induced ideas such as Indian and Tibetan religious philosophies with McCartney's influence by experimental composers of the likes of Karlheinz Stockhausen, Luciano Berio, and Edgard Varèse was bound to bring up surprising results and new techniques of recording once the group hit the studio at Abbey Road.

George Martin, who was the band's regular collaborator and the legendary producer behind Revolver was this time tasked with a slightly different approach. At one point, Lennon told Martin that he needed a sound of "thousands of monks chanting" for the album's final track, "Tomorrow Never Knows".

Of course, even for the almighty Beatles, the summoning of one thousand monks was out of the question, but the producer together with McCartney came up with a compromise that sounded even better. The track features Lennon's vocals which were amplified through a rotating speaker, achieving a never-before-heard chilling effect.

A number of other musical experiments were conducted on the record, and a number of them were refused as everyone agreed that they were just too crazy. For example, Lennon proposed at one point that he should sing while hanging from the ceiling of the studio.

Needless to say, not all of Lennon's ideas made it into the final cut, but still, this was one of the most radical albums in terms of recording of its time.

Harrison, on the other hand, added the mystical Indian vibe, by introducing traditional Indian instruments such as the tamboura and sitar into the recordings, creating an other-worldly experience they had strived for.

McCartney, who was more interested in the technical aspect of the process, was inspired by Stockhausen's experiments with early electronic music. One day he brought along a number of tape loops which he had prepared the night before. The loops included sounds of guitar tuning and various shrieks and unnerving sounds of unknown origin.

The loops were then played forward and backward, eventually resulting in the rather unique soundscape that is the Revolver.
Read another story from us: Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney's Feud Over Beatles Song Rights
A new chapter in music was opened, making way to bands such as The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service, the Doors, and Pink Floyd ― all of whom owe so much to the Beatles, who set the bar for making what was by then called Psychedelic music. Strangely enough, like many stories regarding historical moments, it all started around a dinner table.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Psychedelic Revolution of the Beatles - The Vintage News

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In 1963, the official "Beatlemania" took hold and all of a sudden, four unknown guys from Liverpool became international pop stars, filling up stadiums and rocking the media with their liberal opinions on long hair, while opening a new surge of British bands into the vast American market.

# data[].attributes.headline
LSD was important to the Beatles, whose song Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds is thought to be a nod to the drug, with psychedelics referred to in Day Tripper among others. LSD is also thought to have played an important role in the creation of the album Revolver. John Lennon and George Harrison were enthusiastic about taking the drug, whereas it took Paul McCartney some time to begin taking it.

# data[].attributes.subject
LSD was important to the Beatles, whose song Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds is thought to be a nod to the drug, with psychedelics referred to in Day Tripper among others. LSD is also thought to have played an important role in the creation of the album Revolver. John Lennon and George Harrison were enthusiastic about taking the drug, whereas it took Paul McCartney some time to begin taking it.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
While the neuropsychopharmacologist David Nutt and colleagues campaign for rules around psychedelics to change to aid research, such drugs have a long history in creative circles.

LSD was important to the Beatles, whose song Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds is thought to be a nod to the drug, with psychedelics referred to in Day Tripper among others. LSD is also thought to have played an important role in the creation of the album Revolver. John Lennon and George Harrison were enthusiastic about taking the drug, whereas it took Paul McCartney some time to begin taking it.

In November 1963, as Aldous Huxley lay dying from cancer, he asked his wife, Laura, to give him LSD. The results were recorded in a letter from Laura to Huxley's brother. "Suddenly he had accepted the fact of death; he had taken this moksha medicine in which he believed. He was doing what he had written in [his utopian novel] Island [which features psychedelic drug use], and I had the feeling that he was interested and relieved and quiet," she writes.

The novelist Aldous Huxley with his wife, Laura. Photograph: AP

While psychedelic trips are often connected with artists from the 1960s, modern painters have also explored the impact of mind-altering drugs. Among them is Joe Roberts, who has produced works inspired by trips from LSD, DMT, and psilocybin. In 2018, he explained his thinking: "Perhaps the most important thing is to inspire someone to see for themselves what the psychedelic experience is. I think they are incredible tools or teachers that we have access to, and they should be used. And like any tool, they should be treated with respect and used with caution."

Susan Sarandon. Photograph: Greg Allen/Invision/AP

Within the acting community, Susan Sarandon is among those known to advocate for psychedelic drugs, including LSD. "It's not going to solve all your problems," Sarandon told the Daily Beast "But, yes, I'm totally supportive of that means to reframe your universe."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
From Aldous Huxley to the Beatles: how LSD has inspired art

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
While the neuropsychopharmacologist David Nutt and colleagues campaign for rules around psychedelics to change to aid research, such drugs have a long history in creative circles. LSD was important to the Beatles, whose song Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds is thought to be a nod to the drug, with psychedelics referred to in Day Tripper among others.

# data[].attributes.body
The first drugs I ever took, I was still at art school, with the group – we all took it together – was Benzedrine from the inside of an inhaler.

- John Lennon 1974

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
LSD (part one)

While The Beatles were no strangers to drugs prior to 1965, their introduction to LSD caused a major shift in their music, personalities and public perception. The event was later termed the Dental Experience by George Harrison, and it had a profound effect on all those present.

The precise date of the first encounter is unknown, although it's likely to have been in March or April 1965. It is known, however, that it took place at Flat 1, 2 Strathearn Place, London W2, in the home of 34-year-old cosmetic dentist John Riley.

The first LSD trip: London

Riley invited John and Cynthia Lennon, George Harrison and Pattie Boyd to dinner. After the meal he gave them coffee laced with LSD, which at the time was little-known and still legal.

He laid it on George, me and our wives without telling us at a dinner party at his house. He was a friend of George's, and our dentist at the time. He just put it in our coffee or something. He didn't know what it was, it was just, 'It's all the thing,' with the middle-class London swingers. They had all heard about it and didn't know it was different from pot or pills. And they gave it to us, and he was saying, 'I advise you not to leave,' and we thought he was trying to keep us for an orgy in his house and we didn't want to know.

John Lennon, 1970
Lennon Remembers, Jann S Wenner

After the meal the five, along with Riley's 22-year-old girlfriend Cyndy Bury, adjourned from the flat's small dining room into the lounge. On the mantelpiece six sugar cubes had been carefully lined up. The cubes, each of which contained a dose of LSD, were slipped into the guests' coffees.

Riley's LSD supply had been manufactured at a farmhouse in Wales. His intention to keep his guests at the apartment backfired when they insisted on leaving for the Pickwick Club at 15-18 Great Newport Street, WC2.

Later that night we were going to a London nightclub called the Pickwick Club. It was a little restaurant with a small stage where some friends of ours were playing. Klaus Voormann, Gibson Kemp (who became Rory Storm's drummer after we stole Ringo) and a guy called Paddy. They had a little trio.

After dinner I said to John, 'Let's go - they're going to be on soon,' and John said 'OK', but the dentist was saying, 'Don't go; you should stay here.' And then he said, 'Well, at least finish your coffee first.' So we finished our coffee and after a while I said again, 'Come on, it's getting late - we'd better go.' The dentist said something to John and John turned to me and said, 'We've had LSD.'

I just thought, 'Well, what's that? So what? Let's go!'

This fella was still asking us to stay and it all became a bit seedy - it felt as if he was trying to get something happening in his house; that there was some reason he didn't want us to go. In fact, he had obtained some lysergic acid diethylamide 25. It was, at the time, an unrestricted medication - I seem to recall that I'd heard vaguely about it, but I didn't really know what it was, and we didn't know we were taking it. The bloke had put it in our coffee: mine, John's, Cynthia's and Pattie's. He didn't take it. He had never had it himself. I'm sure he thought it was an aphrodisiac. I remember his girlfriend had enormous breasts and I think he thought that there was going to be a big gang-bang and that he was going to get to shag everybody. I really think that was his motive.

So the dentist said, 'OK, leave your car here. I'll drive you and then you can come back later.' I said 'No, no. We'll drive.' And we all got in my car and he came as well, in his car. We got to the nightclub, parked and went in.

We'd just sat down and ordered our drinks when suddenly I feel the most incredible feeling come over me. It was something like a very concentrated version of the best feeling I'd ever had in my whole life.

It was fantastic. I felt in love, not with anything or anybody in particular, but with everything. Everything was perfect, in a perfect light, and I had an overwhelming desire to go round the club telling everybody how much I loved them - people I'd never seen before.

One thing led to another, then suddenly it felt as if a bomb had made a direct hit on the nightclub and the roof had been blown off: 'What's going on here?' I pulled my senses together and I realised that the club had actually closed - all the people had gone, they'd put the lights on, and the waiters were going round bashing the tables and putting the chairs on top of them. We thought, 'Oops, we'd better get out of here!'

From the Pickwick Club the party went on to the Ad Lib on 7 Leicester Place, a popular destination among London's stars. They had arranged to meet Ringo Starr there.

We went out to the Ad Lib and these discotheques and there was incredible things going on. This guy [Riley] came with us, he was nervous, he didn't know what was going on. We were going crackers. It was insane going around London on it. When we entered the club, we thought it was on fire. And then we thought it was a premiere, but it was just an ordinary light outside. We thought, 'Shit, what's going on here?' And we were cackling in the street, and then people were shouting, 'Let's break a window.' We were just insane. We were just out of our heads. We finally got in the lift and we all thought there was a fire in the lift. It was just a little red light, and we were all screaming - it was hysterical. We all arrived on the floor, 'cause this was a discotheque that was up a building. The lift stops and the door opens and we're all going 'Aaahhhh' [ loud scream], and we just see that it's the club, and then we walk in, sit down, and the table's elongating. I think we went to eat before that, where the table went this long, just like I'd read somebody - who is it, Blake, is it? - somebody describing the effects of the opium in the old days. And I thought, 'Fuck, it's happening.' And then we went to the Ad Lib and all that. And then some singer came up to me and said, 'Can I sit next to you?' And I was going, [ loudly] ' Only if you don't talk,' 'cause I just couldn't think.

John Lennon
Lennon Remembers, Jann S Wenner

When the Ad Lib Club closed in the early hours of the following morning, George Harrison drove the others home in Pattie 's orange Mini Cooper S, which he had given to her as a present.

It was daylight and I drove everyone home - I was driving a Mini with John and Cynthia and Pattie in it. I seem to remember we were doing 18 miles an hour and I was really concentrating - because some of the time I just felt normal and then, before I knew where I was, it was all crazy again. Anyway, we got home safe and sound, and somewhere down the line John and Cynthia got home. I went to bed and lay there for, like, three years.

John Lennon revealed more about the journey to George's in his 1970 interview with Rolling Stone magazine.

George somehow or another managed to drive us home in his Mini. We were going about ten miles an hour, but it seemed like a thousand. And Pattie was saying, 'Let's jump out and play football, there's these big rugby poles' and things like that. I was getting all this sort of hysterical jokes coming out, like with speed, because I was always on that, too.

George was going, ' Don't make me laugh!' Oh God! It was just terrifying. But it was fantastic. I did some drawings at the time - I've got them somewhere - of four faces and 'we all agree with you,' things like that. I gave them to Ringo, I've lost the originals. I did a lot of drawing that night - just like that. And then George's house seemed to be just like a big submarine. I was driving it - they all went to bed and I was carrying on on me own - it seemed to float above his wall, which was eighteen foot, and I was driving it.

John Lennon
Lennon Remembers, Jann S Wenner

Lennon's wife Cynthia remembered the occasion less fondly.

John and I weren't capable of getting back to Kenwood from there, so the four of us sat up for the rest of the night as the walls moved, the plants talked, other people looked like ghouls and time stood still. It was horrific: I hated the lack of control and not knowing what was going on or what would happen next.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Beatles' story is inextricably linked with drugs. From their early pre-fame days on Benzedrine and Preludin, to the flower-power era of LSD, and onto harder drugs as the 1960s ended, here's a broadly-chronological overview of what they took and when. amzn_assoc_tracking_id = "thebeabib06-20"; amzn_assoc_ad_mode = "manual"; amzn_assoc_ad_type = "smart"; amzn_assoc_marketplace = "amazon"; amzn_assoc_region =...

# data[].attributes.headline
 Joe Cocker, With a Little Help from My Friends Beatles Cover

# data[].attributes.subject
 Joe Cocker, With a Little Help from My Friends Beatles Cover

# data[].attributes.body
1969 performance at Woodstock

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
JOE COCKER  With A Little Help From My Friends  1969 Woodstock

# data[].attributes.body
Somewhere out there, in the multiverse of infinite possibilities, exists a world where the Beatles recorded "Helter Skelter," decided to stop cutting their hair, and never looked back. While that world might only be a dream, the next best thing comes by way of Cambridge, England's Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats, a band whose psychedelic proto-metal excursions evoke the melody of a Fab Four fronted by Charles Manson, along with the creeping menace of early Black Sabbath.

# data[].attributes.attachment_caption
“Quite a lot of people thought Dear Prudence was our original,” 

# data[].attributes.headline
Siouxsie And The Banshees - Dear Prudence

# data[].attributes.subject
Siouxsie And The Banshees - Dear Prudence

# data[].attributes.body
This version of the song became Siouxsie’s biggest U.K. hit, peaking at no.3 in the charts.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Siouxsie And The Banshees - Dear Prudence (Official Music Video)

# data[].attributes.body
The Beatles’ use of LSD decreased after the 1967 ‘Summer of Love’, and the band publicly denounced the drug on August 26th, instead pledging their belief in Transcendental Meditation. One of the song's written in the new era was 'The Inner Light' (written by George Harrison), issued in 1968 as the "Lady Madonna" B-side. A testament to Harrison's profound love of Indian music, The Concert for George opens with a mini-set led by sitar player Anoushka Shankar and Jeff Lynne and Dhani Harrison for a spellbinding version of the song.

# data[].attributes.body
"LSD was the self-knowledge which pointed the way" - John Lennon 1967

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
It was a moment of cultural significance when The Beatles, who were deemed as four whiter-than-white personalities that could never put a foot wrong, admitted their affinity for the psychedelic drug LSD.

The drug, which had only emerged as a common recreational party enhancer during the mid-1960s, entered the worlds of John Lennon and George Harrison, who took their first hit under the tutelage of the 'Demon Dentist' John Riley. In a period of counterculture revolution, Riley apparently 'dosed' the two Beatles during a night on the tiles in the spring of 1965. From there, the Liverpudlians would never look back, and the world would be forever thankful for the renewed creative vigour.

While The Beatles were no strangers to drug use before Riley's dosage in 1965, having experimented with a range of stimulants and cannabis over the years in the lead up to this moment, it was their introduction to LSD that would have the most significant effect on their career. It not only caused a major shift in the sound of their music - which can be heard notably on Revolver and Sgt. Pepper - but it also caused a chasmic shift in public opinion of the band and their public personas.

The pivotal evening, which saw Riley invite John and Cynthia Lennon, George Harrison and Pattie Boyd to dinner at his central London apartment, would be one of the most significant in the history of The Beatles. The evening was a usual dinner party until the mood changed shortly after the meal, a moment in which Riley handed out coffee that had been secretly laced with LSD. At the time that Harrison and Lennon consumed the mind-altering drug, it was still legal, and the general public remained blissfully unaware of its existence.

After a particularly mind-bending evening, The Beatles expanded on their exploration, taking on their second LSD trip a few months later while attending an afternoon party in Los Angeles, a time in which they were on a break from a chaotic US tour. Although Paul McCartney refused to take part in proceedings, that didn't stop Ringo Starr from joining George and John - and they were in an esteemed company, too, as the likes of Eleanor Bron, Pete Fonda and The Byrds all rubbed shoulders.

This trip would be one that provided the source of inspiration for John Lennon song 'She Said She Said', an effort that later featured on Revolver. Lennon was inspired by the actor Peter Fonda who, during the party, told the bespectacled Beatle on numerous occasions throughout the trip, "I know what it's like to be dead," which ended up being a focal lyric of the Beatles classic.

The frequent trips gave the Fab Four a new sense of mindfulness and freedom, one that not only poured itself into their music but also made them more honest with the press in the process. After Paul McCartney was convinced to join his bandmates into the world of acid, he was later famously quizzed by a newspaper about his psychedelic indulgence, and he chose to tell the truth rather than take the easy route out. It was a decision that ultimately made The Beatles public enemy number one, calling an end to their already fading clean-cut image.

(Credit: Alamy)

"I never felt any responsibility, being a so-called idol," John Lennon said to Hunter Davies in 1967. "It's wrong of people to expect it. What they are doing is putting their responsibilities on us, as Paul said to the newspapers when he admitted taking LSD. If they were worried about him being responsible, they should have been responsible enough and not printed it, if they were genuinely worried about people copying.

"LSD was the self-knowledge which pointed the way," Lennon said in the same interview. "I was suddenly struck by great visions when I first took acid. But you've got to be looking for it before you can possibly find it. Perhaps I was looking without realising it. Perhaps I would have found it anyway. It would have just taken longer".

The swirling and changing culture that The Beatles had found themselves engrossed within first made its way into their music on 'Tomorrow Never Knows', a song that featured lyrics adapted from Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert's 1964 book, The Psychedelic Experience. Delving deeper still, that effort was itself a reworking of the ancient Tibetan Book of the Dead, work that is considered the bible in the aforementioned sub-culture. There are references throughout Revolver relating to acid and, building on that, Sgt. Pepper is a remarkable slice of psychedelia that remains an utter delight from start to finish.

The Beatles' use of LSD decreased after the 1967 'Summer of Love', and the band publically denounced the drug on August 26th, instead pledging their belief in Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's system of Transcendental Meditation. The world of hallucinogenics was one that John Lennon would carry on revisiting - even if it was only on a few occasions a year - as he sought out a form of resetting his mind and demons as well as providing the world with gorgeous music along the way.
Follow Far Out Magazine across our social channels, on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
It was a moment of cultural significance when The Beatles, who were deemed as four whiter-than-white personalities that could never put a foot wrong, admitted their affinity for the psychedelic drug LSD.