Leary & The Beatles

Late night inebriated pub conversations seem to often get around to the topic of whether or not the Beatles deserve the credit for having irreversibly changed the sound of rock and roll forever, a claim which this article is not attempting to challenge; however, I do take issue with the verdict on the exact moment when the Fab Four allegedly changed Rock history.  Many critics assert that the defining moment was their first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show, though even a cursory glance at the musical landscape of that time will show that their sound of that period was not largely different from many of their musical contemporaries of the era including the Rolling Stones, Gerry and the Pacemakers, and the Animals.  Instead, I would argue that the Beatles changed the sound of rock permanently in August 1966 when the Four, beginning to largely eschew touring in favour of extended recording sessions in the studio, hammered out the experimental album, Revolver.  Revolver was arguably the first recording of the burgeoning Psychadelic Era which, with it's heavy emphasis on expanding consciousness, would blow wide the primarily conventional format of rock into areas nobody could have anticipated even at the start of the 1960s.

Beginning to dabble with psychedelics, the approach of the Beatles when creating music became radically varied, some songs featuring full orchestration, others classic pop tunes, while still others ventured down the path of the heavily avant-garde.  The most extreme cut on the album is the final song, "Tomorrow Never Knows", an acid trip experiment.  Lennon, in a book store looking for a copy of The Portable Nietzsche, instead found a copy of The Psychedelic Experience by Dr. Timothy Leary, which contained the advice: "When in doubt, relax, turn off your mind, float downstream".  Lennon bought the book, went home and dropped acid, then followed the instructions exactly as stated in the book.  The resulting song featured lyrics adapted from Leary's book, including the above advice, tinny heavily phased vocals, reversed guitar solos, and sped up tape loops.

Dr. Timothy Leary began to champion lysergic acid diethylamide as a tool for recreating one's own psyche while at Harvard, using the psychedelic drug to experiment on convicted felons.  His theory was that by using the correct dosage in conjunction with the right set (what one brings to the experience) and setting, preferably under the guidance of trained professionals, the drug could alter human behaviour in drastically beneficial ways  by re-imprinting negative experiences as positive ones, thereby effectively re-tuning one's personality.  As Leary's experiments garnered more and more notoriety, pressure was put on Harvard, both from fellow faculty members with reservations about the experiments, and from wealthy and influential parents; Leary's position was terminated in May 1963, ostensibly for missing too many lecture classes.  Leary's experiments, however, continued.  He had gathered the interest of a group of wealthy siblings named the Hitchcocks who acquired for Leary an immense mansion which was named the Millbrook Estate which swiftly became infamous for the increasing lack of scientific rigour as experiments degenerated into endless acid parties.  He later wrote about the time: "We saw ourselves as anthropologists from the twenty-first century inhabiting a time module set somewhere in the dark ages of the 1960s. On this space colony we were attempting to create a new paganism and a new dedication to life as art."

The Beatles, too, were delving deeper and deeper into the psychedelic world, and pulling the rest of the rock world with them... their magnum opus, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is rife with acid influences and musical experimentation; the album's numerous and varied genres include music hall, jazz, rock and roll, western classical, sound collage and traditional Indian.  The closing song on the album, "A Day in the Life" was banned by the BBC for including the line "I'd love to turn you on," a play on Leary's motto 'Tune In, Turn On, Drop Out' - at the time both Lennon and McCartney denied the line contained any drug-related reference, however years later McCartney's appearance in The Beatles Anthology video commenting on the lyric makes it clear that the reference was most definitely deliberate.  In addition, "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" was long considered an acrostic ode to LSD, though Lennon denied this for the remainder of his life, claiming that the song was inspired by a drawing created by his son Julian.

It's easy to forget today that prior to the release of Sgt. Pepper most youth-oriented popular music was created for Top 40 AM radio consumption; music was largely collected on 45s, and when albums were purchased nobody expected the songs to be collected together through a theme, or considered them works of art.  The impact of the Pepper album on the public was immediately palpable, however the influence it created within the music industry itself was monumental and irreversible, provoking a legion of other bands to experiment both musically and pharmaceutically.  The sounds of bands like the Byrds and the Yardbirds began to evolve from traditional folk and British blues into compositions with a heavy Eastern Zen vibe, while more and more up and coming bands like Jefferson Airplane, Big Brother and the Holding Company and the Grateful Dead centered their entire image around the mind expanding aspect of rock and roll.

Leary, meanwhile, was eventually busted for possession of half a joint, which he claimed the arresting officer had planted on him, and was sentenced to 30 years in prison, though, fortunately for him, this judgement was later reversed by the Supreme Court.  On the day his conviction was overturned, Leary announced his candidacy for the Governor of California race, against former b-movie actor Ronald Reagan.  John Lennon subsequently wrote the campaign song for Leary's race, "Come Together", based on his slogan "Come together, join the party" and invited the psychedelic guru to join their Bed-In at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal, where he participated in the recording of the anthem "Give Peace A Chance", and is mentioned by name in the last verse.  His personal victories were to be increasingly short-lived, though.  In January of 1970 Leary was sentenced to ten years for his 1968 offense, and a further ten was added later while in custody for a previous arrest in 1965.  When Leary arrived in prison he was given personality aptitude tests he himself had created, knowing which answers were most advantageous, he answered in a manner which indicated that he was a quiet conventional person who would be useful in gardening and forestry: he was subsequently assigned gardening work in a low security prison, and in September 1970 (the same month Jimi Hendrix overdosed) he escaped.  By the time he was caught and arrested in 1973 with rumours flying around that he was turning stool pigeon to the FBI, the Psychedelic Era was effectively dead, but the damage had been done and rock and roll would never again be bound to conventional sounds and methods, experimentation became less and less the exception, and instead became the rule.  Even today, experimental rock rules.