According to George Case, one of the most significant dates
in the chronicle of the 1960swas that day in August, 1964 when Bob Dylan shared
his stash of pot with the Beatles. At their first meeting, the distance between
the pop sensations and the esteemed folksinger was crossed on the rope bridge
of cannabis. The Beatles had energized themselves since their backbeat days in Hamburg on the
artificial rush of amphetamines, but marijuana slowed the rotation of their
world, conjuring a comfortable reflective bubble within the tumult of
Beatlemania.
In Out of Our Heads:
Rock’n’Roll Before the Drugs Wore Off (published by Backbeat Books), Case
argues that the Beatles’ music was never the same after that fateful encounter.
Rubber Soul was marijuana in words
and music and the launch pad into the psychedelic explorations of Revolver and Sgt. Pepper. And in the wake of the British Invasion, where the
Beatles went, so went the youth of the world.
Nowadays drug trafficking is no longer the pursuit of romantic outlaws but unregulated capitalism at its most vicious; beyond the warm embrace of ganja is only the wasteland of crack and crank, the flourishing methadone industry and the casualties of heroin. It’s difficult for many people to remember that drugs were once considered the key to a better future, not just an anesthetic against the pain and confusion of the present. And given the neo-Puritan climate in which endless coffee refills have replaced the two-martini lunch and lighting a cigarette in a bar is becoming a crime, it’s also hard to recall a time when Willie Nelson smoked a joint in the White House and harder drugs were hidden in plain sight wherever rock music was heard.
Making the case for the role of illicit drugs in the revolution rock underwent in the ‘60s, the Canadian author reminds us that pot, psychedelics, cocaine and heroin were not merely lifestyle accessories for musicians but integral to the sound and vision of the music itself. He sometimes overreaches: The Outsider’s pop soul hit “Time Won’t Let Me” hardly qualifies as psychedelia. Also, Case seems unaware that the term “groovy” was already hipster lingo in the big band era and was not necessarily linked with sex and drugs and rock’n’roll. Occasionally he hits a wrong note. Calling the Byrds “moderately successful” overlooks their string of hits and enormous influence.
However, Case’s thesis holds up to scrutiny. The “classic rock” of the ‘60s and ‘70s would have sounded different—and might not have been so classic—had it not been under the influence of drugs.
Make no mistake: Out of Our Heads is no mindless celebration of hedonism and drug abuse. Case quotes Ringo Starr on the value of mind-altering chemicals the day before a session, “you’d have that creative memory,” but that anything actually recorded while stoned “was shit, absolute shit.” He critiques the great mountebank of psychedelic revelation, Timothy Leary, and paints depressing pictures of the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin in their druggiest phases. As the ‘60s turned into the ‘70s, his chronicle becomes a sad litany of drug-related death: Brian Jones, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, John Bonham, Keith Moon and later, Richard Manuel and Jerry Garcia. Sly Stone and Keith Richards could be classed with the living dead. Case is quick to add that no one ever died from smoking too much pot.
Case’s analysis of the long hangover after classic rock ended is also provocative. The misuse of drugs, pervasive in our society, has become the topic of journalists and politicians, not the muse of musicians. Sometime after the ‘70s, the cultural gravity of rock receded, reduced to Playstation games and product purchased online and on the cheap. Unlike some pathetic characters passing themselves off as alternative rockers and the soulless contenders of American Idol, the great musicians of classic rock actually could play and sing with feeling, their talents honed organically in front of audiences.
The music Case loves “was written and played intuitively—self-taught, often improvised music of drunk, stoned, very earnest, and very young people.” The technology of the ‘60s posed creative challenges to be overcome, unlike the prefabricated boxes confining the postmodern imagination. By making everything available with the click of a mouse, the Internet has drained the music scene of mystery. It’s all very sobering and not much fun.
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