Paul's first LSD trip with John was on March, 21, 1967.
During the recording of "Getting Better," John accidentally took LSD. After he noticed that something was wrong he
let George Martin know that he wasn't feeling well and he couldn't concentrate.
George and Paul were aware of the situation, but George Martin wasn't. He
really thought that John was just feeling ill so he took him to the roof of
Abbey Road for some air. As soon as Paul and George knew what was going on they went up to
get John. That night Paul decided to take John home (Cavendish) and drop acid
with him for the very first time.
George Martin: "We stood there for a minute or two, with
John swaying gently against my arm. 'I'm feeling better,' he announced. Then he
looked up at the stars. 'Wow,' he intoned. 'Look at that! Isn't that amazing?' I
followed his gaze. The stars did look good but they didn’t look that good. It
was very unlike John to be over the top in that way. I stared at him. He was
wired-pin-sharp and quivering, resonating away like a human tuning fork.
"No sooner had John uttered his immortal words about the
stars than George and Paul came bursting out on the roof. They had come tearing
up from the studio as soon as they found out where we were.
They knew why John was feeling unwell. Maybe everyone
else did, too - everyone except for father-figure George Martin here!
"It was very simple. John was tripping on LSD. He had
taken it by mistake, they said - he had meant to take an amphetamine tablet.
That hardly made any difference, frankly; the fact was that John was only too
likely to imagine he could fly, and launch himself off the low parapet that ran
around the roof. They had been absolutely terrified that he might do so.
"I spoke to Paul about this night many years later, and
he confirmed that he and George had been shaken rigid when they found out we
were up on the roof. They knew John was having a what you might call a bad
trip. John didn't go back to Weybridge that night; Paul took him home to his
place, in nearby Cavendish Road. They were intensely close, remember, and Paul
would do almost anything for John. So, once they were safe inside, Paul took a
tablet of LSD for the first time, 'So I could get with John’ as he put it, be with
him in his misery and fear.
"What about that for friendship?"
Paul McCartney: "I thought, Maybe this is the moment where I should
take a trip with him. It's been coming for a long time. It's often the best
way, without thinking about it too much, just slip into it. John's on it
already, so I'll sort of catch up. It was my first trip with John, or with any
of the guys. We stayed up all night, sat around and hallucinated a lot.
"Me and John, we'd known each other for a long time. Along
with George and Ringo, we were best mates. And we looked into each other's
eyes, the eye contact thing we used to do, which is fairly mind-boggling. You
dissolve into each other. But that's what we did, round about that time, that's
what we did a lot. And it was amazing. You're looking into each other's eyes
and you would want to look away, but you wouldn't, and you could see yourself
in the other person. It was a very freaky experience and I was totally blown
away.
"I would walk out into the garden - 'Oh no, I’ve got to go
back in.' It was very tiring, walking made me very tired, wasted me, always
wasted me. But 'I've got to do it, for my well-being.' In the meantime John had
been sitting around very enigmatically and I had a big vision of him as a king,
the absolute Emperor of Eternity. It was a good trip. It was great but I wanted
to go to bed after a while.
"I'd just had enough after about four or five hours. John
was quite amazed that it had struck me in that way. John said, 'Go to bed? You
won’t sleep!' 'I know that, I've still got to go to bed.' I thought, now that's
enough fun and partying, now … It's like with drink. That's enough. That was a
lot of fun, now I gotta go and sleep this off. But of course you don't just
sleep off an acid trip, so I went to bed and hallucinated a lot in bed. I
remember Mal coming up and checking that I was all right. 'Yeah, I think so.' I
mean, I could feel every inch of the house, and John seemed like some sort of
emperor in control of it all. It was quite strange. Of course he was just
sitting there, very inscrutably."
