Paul McCartney Said His Bandmates Used ‘Fear Pressure’ to Get Him to Take LSD

While three of his Beatles bandmates were happily taking LSD, Paul McCartney remained hesitant to try the drug. He worried it would permanently affect him and didn’t want to take the risk. At the same time, though, he felt increasing pressure from his bandmates to take it. They all found the experience life-changing and wanted McCartney on the same wavelength. He explained that he eventually caved to “fear pressure.”

Paul McCartney took LSD long after his bandmates first tried it

John Lennon and George Harrison initially ingested LSD unknowingly, but they quickly grew fond of the drug. They found it easy to convince Ringo Starr to try it, and they soon set to work on McCartney. They didn’t think they could relate to him if he didn’t try it.

“John and I had decided that Paul and Ringo had to have acid because we couldn’t relate to them anymore,” Harrison said, per Rolling Stone. “Not just on the one level — we couldn’t relate to them on any level, because acid had changed us so much. It was such a mammoth experience that it was unexplainable. It was something that had to be experienced, because you could spend the rest of your life trying to explain what it made you feel and think. It was all too important to John and me.”

McCartney didn’t want to try it, though. He worried about lasting effects and held out for much longer than his bandmates. Eventually, though, the pressure became too much.

“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,” he said in the book Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now by Barry Miles. “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.”

Paul McCartney said he didn’t like LSD as much as his bandmates

McCartney tried LSD for the first time with his friend Tara Browne. He didn’t like it as much as his bandmates seemed to, but he had a pleasant enough experience.

“We stayed up all night. It was quite spacy,” he said. “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.”

He did find that he’d been right about it having lasting effects, though. McCartney believed the drug changed him forever, though not in a bad way.

“I remember John saying, ‘You never are the same after it,’ and I don’t think any of us ever were,” he said. “It was such a mind-expanding thing.”

Which of The Beatles’ albums was most influenced by LSD?

The Beatles created albums under the influence of various substances. 1965’s Rubber Soul was their “pot album.” The following year, Revolver became their “acid album.”

“The final track on Revolver, ‘Tomorrow Never Knows,’ was definitely John’s,” McCartney said in The Beatles Anthology. “Round about this time people were starting to experiment with drugs, including LSD.”

Songs like “Tomorrow Never Knows” were psychedelic, making it clear to listeners what type of substance had fueled the songwriting.