How Bob Dylan Pranked The Beatles The 1st Time They Got High Together
The Beatles and Bob Dylan had a complicated relationship. They adored him and put him on a pedestal. John Lennon said Yoko Ono was as important to his career as Dylan and Paul McCartney combined, which was a massive compliment to all three of them. He respected their music, which contrasted how Dylan pranked The Beatles when he got them high for the first time.
Bob Dylan pranked The Beatles by pushing them out of their chairs the first time they got high
The Beatles routinely consumed pep pills to make it through their long nights performing in Hamburg, Germany. They were no strangers to drugs when they met Dylan and got high with him in late 1964. Yet the drugs they used in Germany were secretly acquired prescription pills, not illegal substances like marijuana that the singer gave to the band.
The troubadour turning the Fab Four onto pot might have been one the most impactful moments in classic rock history. The Beatles changed their sound, becoming more mature and experimental songwriters.
But that was only after they learned how to handle themselves while stoned. John, Paul, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr could barely move the first time they got high. Dylan took that opportunity to prank The Beatles by using them like dominoes.
Journalist Chris Hutchins and Beatles friend/road manager Neil Aspinall saw Dylan having some fun with the Fab Four when they peeked into The Beatles hotel suite the night they first got high:
“Seated on five chairs arranged in a line were the Fab Four and their manager, Brian Epstein, all stoned,” Hutchins recalled (via 150 Glimpses of The Beatles). “Every now and again, a man standing at one end of the line would push the closest Beatle off his chair and, in a domino effect, each would knock the next one off, ending with Brian, who would collapse to the floor laughing helplessly, setting the others off. It was a surreal scene, made more bizarre by the fact that the man doing the pushing was Bob Dylan.”
Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, and Starr were virtually catatonic when they first got high on pot. He often sang about serious social issues, but Dylan couldn’t resist having some fun with The Beatles by turning them into human dominoes.
The Beatles and Bob Dylan formed a mutual admiration society. Like many other things in the 1960s, that relationship became more complicated later in the decade.
Dylan impacted The Beatles, but John Lennon still freely criticized him
It didn’t take The Beatles long to absorb Dylans’s influence into their music once they met, got high with, and were pranked by him. The band said the song “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away” off the Help! soundtrack was influenced by the performer born Robert Zimmerman. John took inspiration from his counterpart and wrote several Beatles songs inspired by Dylan.
Still, Lennon never hesitated to call out Dylan’s music when he didn’t feel it was up to snuff.
The bespectacled Beatle said the Dylan song “Gotta Serve Somebody” was embarrassing and pathetic for such a talented musician. Lennon got ticked off whenever Dylan said The Beatles learned a lot of what they knew from him. If anything, that was a two-way street. Sure, Dylan inspired the Fab Four, but he happened to make some of his best albums of the 1960s — Highway 61 Revisited, Blonde on Blonde, John Wesley Harding — after meeting The Beatles. Eventually, John’s appreciation for Dylan’s music decreased while the American learned to love Lennon’s music even more.
Yet John’s harsh words about Dylan might have come from a place of deeply-rooted love. After all, he frequently criticized Paul McCartney’s music during their time as Beatles bandmates (though he admired some of Macca’s music). John loved Elvis Presley but insulted the King in his own home the only time they met.
Dylan pranked the stoned Beatles by treating them like dominoes when they got high together in 1964. The band’s road manager and a journalist witnessed the whole thing. It was a playful moment between the singer and the Fab Four before their relationship became more complicated later in the 1960s.
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