Paul McCartney isn’t known as the most well-versed of his peers when it comes to drugs. He and his Beatles bandmates did their fair share, but they didn’t end up with the same kind of reputation as their edgier counterparts. Drugs, for the Beatles, were seen as more of an artistic pursuit than an addiction. It completely changed their career trajectory. McCartney was the longest holdout on LSD. Eventually, though, he did join his bandmates in partaking in the hallucinogen. Below, learn more about the first time McCartney took the drug, in particular, how it affected his relationship with John Lennon.
Paul McCartney: “It’s More Than Peer Pressure, It’s Fear Pressure”
Though fans aren’t sure of the exact date when McCartney took LSD for the first time, conversations from the Beatle himself pinpoint it to December of 1965. McCartney was more so into weed. McCartney had been trying to hold out on LSD, but eventually the “peer pressure” from Lennon and his other bandmates got to him.
“I was more ready for the drink or a little bit of pot or something,” McCartney once recalled. “I’d not wanted to do it, I’d held off like a lot of people were trying to, but there was massive peer pressure. And within a band, it’s more than peer pressure, it’s fear pressure.”
“It becomes trebled, more than just your mates, it’s, ‘Hey, man, this whole band’s had acid, why are you holding out? What’s the reason, what is it about you? So I knew I would have to out of peer pressure alone,” he added. “And that night I thought, well, this is as good a time as any, so I said, ‘Go on then, fine.’ So we all did it.”
Though he might have wanted to hold out, he ended up falling in love with LSD. He once claimed it opened his eyes. He even went so far as to say the drug could be used for the betterment of the world.
“It [LSD] opened my eyes,” McCartney once said. “We only use one-tenth of our brain. Just think of what we could accomplish if we could only tap that hidden part! It would mean a whole new world if the politicians would take LSD. There wouldn’t be any more war or poverty or famine.”
McCartney’s “Freaky Experience” on LSD
One facet of Paul McCartney’s LSD trip that he’s made sure to mention is how it strengthened his relationship with Lennon. He described a “freaky experience” with his writing partner, wherein he saw himself in Lennon.
“We looked into each other’s eyes, the eye contact thing we used to do, which is fairly mind-boggling,” McCartney once said of his experience taking LSD with Lennon. “You dissolve into each other. But that’s what we did, round about that time, that’s what we did a lot. And it was amazing. You’re looking into each other’s eyes and you would want to look away, but you wouldn’t, and you could see yourself in the other person. It was a very freaky experience, and I was totally blown away.”
Even if we didn’t have quotes like these, it’s easy to spot when LSD changed the Beatles. Their sound took a stark shift in the middle of the ’60s, denoting their introduction to psychedelics. That shift is seen as a positive by many Beatles fans. And, according to the band, it also helped their relationships.
