John discusses his experiences with LSD in London in the 1960s. He describes taking LSD unintentionally at a dinner party and experiencing hallucinations. John relates taking LSD deliberately later in Los Angeles with George, Ringo, and members of The Byrds. During this trip, Peter Fonda said the line "I know what it's like to be dead," which John incorporated into the song "She Said She Said." John estimates he took LSD around a thousand times, stopping due to bad trips, before taking it again and receiving a message to destroy his ego.

1. John talks about LSD (page 49 of the book):
He relates how it was a dentist that got them into acid, at a dinner party
without telling them. They didn’t realise it was different from pot or pills.
John says it was ‘insane going around London on acid.’ ‘Let’s break a window -
we were insane.’ They thought there was a fire in a lift - it was just a little
light. They had been given a Micky Finn. John describes hallucinating and
likens the effect to opium taken in the days of Blake. John was pretty
stunned for a month or two after that. They were having fun like in Ken
Keysey’s Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, with George and Patti Boyd. They were
having jokes and John was also always doing speed (amphetamines.) That
first trip, John was doing a lot of drawing. The second trip, in L.A., was
different. They took acid (LSD) deliberately that time. They took acid at a
house they were staying at: George, Ringo, John, and some of the Byrds,
Crosby and McGuinn. There were lots of reporters around at the time. John
thought they would be found out, and how can they act normal? Peter Fonda
was there and kept saying: I know what it’s like to be dead. So John
incorporated that line into ‘She Said She Said’ on the Revolver album. (Ed:
Revolver came out in 1966, and at that time the youth culture awareness of
drugs and famous groups taking drugs told a completely different version to
John’s version of 1966. People just did not know, even the popular press had
not gone sensational on this topic.) John says after that he took a thousand
trips on acid. Only once, by mistake, did he take it in the studio. John had to
leave the studio, George Martin was looking at him funny. George (Harrison)
also took a lot of acid, and Paul took some acid, and John thinks it profoundly
shocked him. John stopped taking acid because of bad trips. He then started
again before he met Yoko, and John got a message on acid to destroy his
ego. One of Timothy Leary’s books said that ego death is coming to you. Acid
was only another mirror for John, as far as his music went. Jann Wenner
mentions ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ on Revolver and John agrees that was
referencing acid. John says Rubber Soul (their 1965 LP) was about pot
(cannabis); their time in Hamburg (1962 and 1963) was about pills; and drink
influenced them. Nothing specific. As he just mentioned, John wrote ‘She
Said She Said’ with ‘I know what it’s like to be dead’ because Peter Fonda
had come out with that.
John talks about the Beatles’ films (page 55 in the book):
John says there is another misconception that ‘Hard Day’s Night’ was a
creation by Brian Epstein (the group’s manager) and Dick Lester (who

2. directed the film.) John thinks the film wasn’t bad. Another collaborator was
Alun Owen who John saw as a phoney, a professional Liverpool man, who
characterised the Fab Four in a truly glib way. John restates that the people
involved behind the scenes did not make the film, did not make the group:
they were the ones creating. Jann tells John that many American musicians
saw ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ and that the film made rock and roll OK. John
wasn’t aware of those impacts. The single of the time ‘Day Tripper’ was a
drug reference. Between Help! and Hard Day’s Night, John got into drugs.
For Hard Day’s Night John was on pills, speed, which he’d been on since he
was seventeen. Just before the film Help! The Beatles were turned on to pot
(cannabis) and dropped drink. John took more pills and drank more than the
others because he’s more crazy. ‘Day Tripper’ wasn’t a serious message song
but after they met Bob Dylan was probably when they started to write
message songs (maybe around the time of Rubber Soul LP in 1965 - Ed.) John
says their music was less aggressive when they dropped pills and alcohol for
pot. John can’t place the sequence of Rubber Soul and Revolver but puts
Rubber Soul as the album they are talking about. That’s when they got
better musically and took over the studio. Paul made the pun with Rubber
Soul, a bit like ‘Yer Blues’, it was English Soul, which four boys worked out
for their album title. Soul but not Soul.