6 ms·

>The Beatles, one might argue, found the perfect middle ground — familiar enough to want to sing and dance along; dangerous enough to rattle parents. Heh. Whet

>The Beatles, one might argue, found the perfect middle ground — familiar enough to want to sing and dance along; dangerous enough to rattle parents. Heh. Whether you think the sexual revolution was good or bad, whether you think the Beatles had anything to do with it or not, it's a remarkable fact that parents thought their music dangerous at the time.

TheSpiceIsLife 9y ago
To be fair, they did publish a song about LSD, a drug that had only recently become popular, as I understand it.
- jerrre 9y ago
  >only recently become popular only recently was discovered even
- truculation 9y ago
  Good point. Come to think of it the article perhaps ought to have mentioned their drug-taking (since it may bear on their creativity).
- shanghaiaway 9y ago
  Beatles would not have become popular if they had not incorporated themes of drugs, sex, etc.
  - runeb 9y ago
    What? Early Beatles is all about falling in love and being in love. There are sexual undertones, sure, but your statement seems like pure trolling.
  - brooklyn_ashey 9y ago
    Not sure... The Beach Boys seemed squeaky clean at the beginning of their recording career. By the time Smile and Pet Sounds came out, I think people knew about their drug taking (great albums!!!) but many who know their early work have never heard "Our Prayer" for example. I think they got their fame on the G-rated stuff and were able to push genre boundaries later. I think it's the same with The Beatles, although I'm not positive- hard to imagine a time when people were not familiar with Sgt Pepper and The White Album...
  - nerdponx 9y ago
    What are you talking about? They were wildly popular long before they started singing anything edgy. If anything, their popularity is what allowed some of their more unusual ideas to enter the mainstream and be accepted.
- seanmcdirmid 9y ago
  If you mean Lucy in the sky with diamonds, Lennon wrote it after a picture his son Julian drew about his classmate named Lucy (who sadly passed away a few years ago). The drug connotation was applied to the song afterwards, not before; the same acronym was coincidental, while the lyrics being inspired from Alice and Wonderland was applied later to the drug movement, not the other way around (the song became an anthem for the drug, it wasn’t written that way and many of the similarities we see today are because of its adoption).
  - Liquix 9y ago
    Lennon & the band did insist this was the reason, but c'mon... You can hear the psychedelia dripping from every chord! They knew exactly what they were doing. Reminds one of how Scully & Sand's legal team insisted Orange Sunshine was ALD-52 (LSD's legal cousin) to try and avoid prosecution!
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
      That is post facto association. We only think that because the song became associated with LSD, if you heard the song in 1967 when it just came out, you wouldn’t have made the connection because the association didn’t exist yet.
      - Liquix 9y ago
        Two counterpoints: A) Lennon discovered and got very deep into LSD in 1966, mere months before Lucy in the Sky was written. He had a powerful ego death experience [1]. B) Admitting to the public that one of their hit songs was about a controversial drug was an obvious PR no-no. I guess there's no way to know for certain either way, though. [1] "When McCartney and Lennon visited the newly opened Indica bookshop, Lennon had been looking for a copy of The Portable Nietzsche but found a copy of The Psychedelic Experience by Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert, and Ralph Metzner, adapted from the translation of the Tibetan Book of the Dead by Walter Evans-Wentz, which was introduced to Leary by Aldous Huxley. Lennon bought the book, went home and followed the instructions exactly as stated in the book. It discussed an “ego death” experienced under the influence of LSD and other psychedelic drugs, supposedly essentially similar to the dying process, and requiring similar guidance." https://books.google.com/books?id=FQSLCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA240 https://books.google.com/books?id=FQSLCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA240
- timrichard 9y ago
  Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds? I saw that refuted in a documentary quite recently... Backed up by Snopes too : https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lucy-in-the-sky-with-diamonds/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lucy-in-the-sky-with-diamo...
whatyoucantsay 9y ago
And GenXers used to find Metallica edgy.
- mantas 9y ago
  Many people still find first few albums of Metallica edgy..

TheSpiceIsLife 9y ago

To be fair, they did publish a song about LSD, a drug that had only recently become popular, as I understand it.

jerrre 9y ago
>only recently become popular only recently was discovered even
truculation 9y ago
Good point. Come to think of it the article perhaps ought to have mentioned their drug-taking (since it may bear on their creativity).
shanghaiaway 9y ago
Beatles would not have become popular if they had not incorporated themes of drugs, sex, etc.
- runeb 9y ago
  What? Early Beatles is all about falling in love and being in love. There are sexual undertones, sure, but your statement seems like pure trolling.
- brooklyn_ashey 9y ago
  Not sure... The Beach Boys seemed squeaky clean at the beginning of their recording career. By the time Smile and Pet Sounds came out, I think people knew about their drug taking (great albums!!!) but many who know their early work have never heard "Our Prayer" for example. I think they got their fame on the G-rated stuff and were able to push genre boundaries later. I think it's the same with The Beatles, although I'm not positive- hard to imagine a time when people were not familiar with Sgt Pepper and The White Album...
- nerdponx 9y ago
  What are you talking about? They were wildly popular long before they started singing anything edgy. If anything, their popularity is what allowed some of their more unusual ideas to enter the mainstream and be accepted.
seanmcdirmid 9y ago
If you mean Lucy in the sky with diamonds, Lennon wrote it after a picture his son Julian drew about his classmate named Lucy (who sadly passed away a few years ago). The drug connotation was applied to the song afterwards, not before; the same acronym was coincidental, while the lyrics being inspired from Alice and Wonderland was applied later to the drug movement, not the other way around (the song became an anthem for the drug, it wasn’t written that way and many of the similarities we see today are because of its adoption).
- Liquix 9y ago
  Lennon & the band did insist this was the reason, but c'mon... You can hear the psychedelia dripping from every chord! They knew exactly what they were doing. Reminds one of how Scully & Sand's legal team insisted Orange Sunshine was ALD-52 (LSD's legal cousin) to try and avoid prosecution!
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
    That is post facto association. We only think that because the song became associated with LSD, if you heard the song in 1967 when it just came out, you wouldn’t have made the connection because the association didn’t exist yet.
    - Liquix 9y ago
      Two counterpoints: A) Lennon discovered and got very deep into LSD in 1966, mere months before Lucy in the Sky was written. He had a powerful ego death experience [1]. B) Admitting to the public that one of their hit songs was about a controversial drug was an obvious PR no-no. I guess there's no way to know for certain either way, though. [1] "When McCartney and Lennon visited the newly opened Indica bookshop, Lennon had been looking for a copy of The Portable Nietzsche but found a copy of The Psychedelic Experience by Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert, and Ralph Metzner, adapted from the translation of the Tibetan Book of the Dead by Walter Evans-Wentz, which was introduced to Leary by Aldous Huxley. Lennon bought the book, went home and followed the instructions exactly as stated in the book. It discussed an “ego death” experienced under the influence of LSD and other psychedelic drugs, supposedly essentially similar to the dying process, and requiring similar guidance." https://books.google.com/books?id=FQSLCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA240 https://books.google.com/books?id=FQSLCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA240
timrichard 9y ago
Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds? I saw that refuted in a documentary quite recently... Backed up by Snopes too : https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lucy-in-the-sky-with-diamonds/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lucy-in-the-sky-with-diamo...

whatyoucantsay 9y ago

And GenXers used to find Metallica edgy.

mantas 9y ago
Many people still find first few albums of Metallica edgy..