# Were The Beatles better after they started taking drugs? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 14, 2012, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-beatles-better-after-they-started-taking-drugs/621928 "2012-05-14T21:36:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2012, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-beatles-better-after-they-started-taking-drugs/621928/62 "2012-05-18T15:40:35Z")
> [@JCorre](#): > > I opened this thread precisely to see what you would have to say about it **Wordman**. In your opinion do you appreciate the Beatles music more before or after, let’s say “Rubber Soul”? > > Let me say that I really admire your contributions to this board and esteem your opinions on musical topics in the highest regard. > > I love the band and I would say that, if put on a scale, the amount of quality songs they wrote after that album outweigh the ones they wrote before it. However mine is an amateur opinion and I’d welcome a more informed viewpoint. Really? Thank you. Well, my favorite album is _ **Revolver** _, so I must come down on the side of preferring the music from Rubber Soul and beyond. But each period is great for different reasons. - With the stuff leading up to Rubber Soul, they demonstrate great pop songcraft, just like Motown writers, Chuck Berry, The Beach Boys and the Brill Building writers like Goffin and King, Ellie Greenwich, etc. Please Please Me, I Want to Hold Your Hand, etc. are pop craft perfection. - With Help, Rubber Soul and Revolver, they take that pop song vocabulary and start to stretch it in different directions. Songs are still verse chorus verse, but move into different subject matter, use different arrangements and suggest that the pop song form can be used to make real, artistic statements, not just pop confections. Tomorrow Never Knows slips past some of these constraints and heralds the move to a new phase. - From Tomorrow Never Knows, Sgt. Pepper and beyond, they move past traditional pop songcraft and use the jumping off point of psychedelia to give more free range to their musical ideas. So, from a stepping-back standpoint: I, personally, happen to prefer their middle and late periods, but the whole point to this OP is anchored more in the fact that the Beatles had a large creative arc - and the arc was of consistent high quality even as it evolved - oh, and at key points in the arc, drugs were introduced as a factor - pot in '65 and acid a year or two later. So I don’t think the Beatles were _better_, per se, as much as their push to innovate creatively coincided with both the introduction of drugs and a wider culture at the time that was ready to push past traditional music structures and sounds. The fact that their output was high quality throughout this rather seismic transition both musically and culturally is what remains fascinating and historic. Does that help? ---
**Author:** ![JCorre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/3da27b/32.png) [@JCorre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JCorre)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2012, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-beatles-better-after-they-started-taking-drugs/621928/63 "2012-05-19T06:41:51Z")
Great analysis, thank you. ---
**Author:** ![Enola\_Gay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ab097/32.png) [@Enola\_Gay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enola_Gay)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2012, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-beatles-better-after-they-started-taking-drugs/621928/64 "2012-05-19T21:36:48Z")
> [@Rhythmdvl](#): > > Ah, likely a mixture of hyperbole and counting differences. Looks like [George Harrison agrees](http://www.musicbyday.com/the-beatles-on-marijuana-lsd-in-their-own-words/585/) with you: [quote=] I don’t think John had a thousand trips; that’s a slight exaggeration. But there was a period when we took acid a lot… [/quote] > [@Cosmic Relief](#): > > I thought acid was similar to ecstasy in that there’s a short-term tolerance that effectively prevents multiple trips in a short time period. Your receptors simply can’t respond to the drug again until they’ve had 3 days to replenish the serotonin. Now that is interesting and makes me wonder if it is then impossible to become physically addicted to lsd. You always hear about people becoming addicted to heroine, oxycontin, alcohol, etc. But I’ve never heard of an acid-addict. > [@Mister\_Rik](#): > > I’m just about finished reading Steve Jobs’ biography, and he claimed more than once that taking LSD in his youth was one of the most important things he ever did. I have never taken lsd, so I don’t know if it actually does “expand your mind”, if users just perceive it that way, if people with expansive minds are more likely to try it, or what, but here are some interesting Beatles quotes: [quote=] Ringo: I think LSD changes everybody. It certainly makes you look at things differently. George: The first time I had acid, a light bulb went on in my head and I began to have realizations which were not simply, “I think I’ll do this,” or “I think that must be because of that.” The question and answer disappeared into each other. An illumination goes on inside: in ten minutes I lived a thousand years. Paul: Pot and LSD were the two other major influences. Instead of getting totally out of it and falling over, as we would have done on Scotch, we’d end up talking very seriously [/quote] And having just read thru some of their descriptions of “bad trips”…I think ‘just say no’ group should change their strategy. Hearing about those bad trips is enough to scare anyone straight. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2012, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-beatles-better-after-they-started-taking-drugs/621928/65 "2012-05-20T01:07:42Z")
> [@Enola\_Gay](#): > > Now that is interesting and makes me wonder if it is then impossible to become physically addicted to lsd. You always hear about people becoming addicted to heroine, oxycontin, alcohol, etc. But I’ve never heard of an acid-addict. Physically no, but you can imagine how someone who feels like they’ve become one with the universe might feel like LSD is the only thing really worth doing anymore (see all the messianic LSD figures from the 60’s, Tim Leary, etc). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-beatles-better-after-they-started-taking-drugs/621928.md?page=3)