Paul McCartney takes LSD for the first time

On the evening of December 13, 1965, Paul McCartney and John Lennon visited the Scotch of St James club in London. There they met Viv Prince, drummer with the Pretty Things, John Entwistle, bass player for The Who, and Nicky Browne, the wife of Tara Browne, the 20-year-old Guinness heir and friend of Paul and John.

Nicky invited the group back to her and Tara’s house in Eaton Row, Belgravia, to continue the evening. Only Paul and Viv Prince accepted the invitation, along with dancer Patrick Kerr.

At the house, Tara took some LSD and offered it to Paul. Paul had never taken LSD before and was the last of the Beatles not to have tried it: John and George Harrison had first taken LSD in the spring of 1965, and later did so again with Ringo Starr at a party in Los Angeles on August 24.

Paul would take LSD again with John on March 21, 1967, during the recording of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.”

In the early hours of December 14, Viv Prince, the twenty-one-year-old recently deported drummer of the Pretty Things, an R & B band from London that made the Stones look well-groomed, restrained, and conventional, arrived at the Scotch with the Who’s bass player, John Entwistle. The two of them had just driven 120 miles down from Norwich, where the Who had played the Federation Club on Oak Street with Prince deputizing for Keith Moon, who was out of action for two weeks with whooping cough. At the Scotch they met Paul, John, and Tara Browne’s wife, Nicky. She invited Prince back to the couple’s mews cottage in Belgravia along with Paul, John, dancer Patrick Kerr, and a few attractive girls. John declined the offer, because he’d promised to get back to Cynthia at their home in Weybridge.

From “Beatles ’66: The Revolutionary Year” by Steve Turner

Tara was taking acid on blotting paper in the toilet. He invited me to have some. I said, ‘I’m not sure, you know.’ I was more ready for the drink or a little bit of pot or something. 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. 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.

We stayed up all night. It was quite spacy. Everything becomes more sensitive. Later, I was to have some more pleasant trips with the guys and outdoors, which was nicer. I was never that in love with it all, but it was a thing you did. I remember John saying, “You never are the same after it,’ and I don’t think any of us ever were. It was such a mind-expanding thing. I saw paisley shapes and weird things, and for a guy who wasn’t that keen on getting that weird, there was a disturbing element to it. I remember looking at my shirtsleeves and seeing they were dirty and not being too pleased with that, whereas normally you wouldn’t even notice. But you noticed and you heard. Everything was supersensitive.

We sat around all evening. Viv Prince was great fun. Someone said, “Do you want a drink?’ And every one would say, ‘No thanks, don’t need drink, this is plenty.’ If anything, we might smoke a joint. But Viv demolished the drinks tray: ‘Oh yeah, a drink!’ Cockney drummer with the Pretty Things. ‘Orrright, yeah! Nah, does‘ anyone want a drink? I fink I’ll ’ave one of them.’ And he had the whisky and he had everything. He was having a trip but his was somehow a more wired version than anyone else’s. In the morning we ended up sending him out for ciggies.

Then one of the serious secretaries from our office rang about an engagement I had; she had traced me to here. ‘Um, can’t talk now. Important business’ or something. I just got out of it. ‘But you’re supposed to be at the office.’ ‘No. I’ve got flu.’ Anything I could think. I got out of that one because there was no way I could go to the office after that.

Paul McCartney – From “Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now” by Barry Miles, 1997

Going further

The Beatles Diary Volume 1: The Beatles Years

With greatly expanded text, this is the most revealing and frank personal 30-year chronicle of the group ever written. Insider Barry Miles covers the Beatles story from childhood to the break-up of the group.

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