John Lennon is a perfect example of an artist who created music that defined an era. His iconic song Imagine is known as an anthem of the counterculture movement as it encapsulates many of the ideals counterculture campaigned for and promotes peace and unity.
The Beatles too, created songs that soundtracked a world in the midst of a cultural revolution. Although the counterculture movement failed to abolish hate, The Beatles, alongside a new generation of artists helped to redefine culture at the time and it is a movement that is everlasting.
During this era, mind-altering substances such as LSD grew in popularity, particularly among rock musicians and Lennon was no exception. He labelled one song from that era of transforamtion as a “dope song”.
The reality of the 1960s is that drug use and artistry went hand in hand and often influenced one another.
The Beatles themselves were known to dabble with LSD and their sound changed following their discovery of the hallucinogenic drug.
They transformed their pop bops to songs into music that was important and required a degree of thought behind it. They became more experimental and had new eastern influences that weaved through their music.
In his book Lennon: The Definitive Biography, Ray Coleman mentions a conversation at a party at Brian Epstein’s house, just prior to the release of the Beatles’ album Sgt. Pepper, Coleman said: “We spoke a little about the state of the music scene, and he (Lennon) said there was one ‘dope’ record which he couldn’t get off his mind. He couldn’t remember the title. All other pop music of that period was ‘crap’, one of his favourite words at that time.”
“Next day John phoned me,” Coleman added. Lennon said: “I remembered after I’d gone what record it is that I can’t stop playing. It’s that dope song, Procol Harum’s Whiter Shade of Pale.
“It’s the best song I’ve heard for a while. You play it when you take some acid and … whoooooooo.”
The track went to number one in the UK in 1967 and has since been associated with experience of the taking drugs throughout the decade and it has been described as the song that defined that decade for Lennon.