Bob Dylan Introduced The Beatles To Marijuana And Changed Music Forever, On This Day In 1964

If you ever wondered who took the clean cut members of the Beatles and turned them into psychedelic, soul searching songwriters, look no further than Bob Dylan. On this day in 1964 (so the story goes), Dylan introduced John, Paul, George, and Ringo to the glories of smoking marijuana.

Dylan, who had just played a show with Robbie Robertson, Levon Helm and co. at Forest Hills Stadium, arrived to meet the Beatles at the Delmonico Hotel in New York, and he almost immediately whipped out a joint to smoke with the mop-topped foursome. Manager Brian Epstein announced the band’s lack of “experience”. While the band relayed stories to Dylan of trying marijuana once in 1960, they said it hadn’t worked. Dylan clearly had the goods, as the Beatles would go on to get ridiculous high on that fateful evening in New York

Dylan had apparently misheard the lyrics to “I Want to Hold Your Hand” as “I get high” instead of “I can’t hide”, and showed up to meet the Beatles ready to smoke. When John Lennon told him the correct lyrics, Dylan responded incredulously and basically shoved joints in the Beatles’ face all night long. Lennon would relive the experience on a later date, remarking, “I don’t remember much what we talked about. We were smoking dope, drinking wine and generally being rock ‘n’ rollers and having a laugh, you know, and surrealism. It was party time.”

Paul McCartney insisted that one of the Beatles crew follow him around writing down all of his stoned ideas, believing that he was “thinking for the first time” and apparently coming up with a system of “seven levels” that he progressed through during the experience. Read about his version of the story below:

“I’d been going through this thing of levels, during the evening. And at each level I’d meet all these people again. ‘Ha ha ha! It’s you!’ And then I’d metamorphose on to another level…Mal gave me this little slip of paper in the morning, and written on it was, ‘There are seven levels!’ Actually it wasn’t bad. Not bad for an amateur. And we pissed ourselves laughing. I mean, ‘What the f—‘s that? What the f— are the seven levels?’ But looking back, it’s actually a pretty succinct comment. It ties in with a lot of major religions, but I didn’t know that then.”

Sounds like Paul should put down the pipe ASAP.

Thanks to Bob Dylan for blowing the Beatles’ minds in 1964. Without you, we likely wouldn’t have Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band or Abbey Road!