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When the Beatles met the Byrds
A consciousness forming of Rock and Roll royalty
It was August 24, 1965, just weeks after the Watts Riots. The Beatles came to Los Angeles to perform at the Hollywood Bowl. For the duration of their stay, they rented a house in Benedict Canyon owned by Zga Zga Gabor. It would serve as a launching pad for their immersion into Hollywood.
The Fab Four invited the Byrds over for a pool party. David Crosby and Roger McGuinn invited actor Peter Fonda to join them. When Fonda arrived, Crosby gave him a hit of LSD. The drug was still legal at the time and made famous by Dr Timothy Leary. Leary was a pioneer and outspoken advocate of the therapeutic use of psychedelics and a darling of sixties counter culture.
Crosby, McGuinn and Fonda spent the rest of that day and night tripping with the Beatles. The only holdout was Paul McCartney who abstained. Instead, Paul pursued a liaison with actress Peggy Lipton elsewhere on the premises. Fonda ended up babbling to Harrison and Lennon about “knowing what it was like to be dead” while showing off a childhood scar from a gun accident .
Lennon was put off by Fonda’s morbid rant and told him to shut up. Lennon’s and Fonda’s exchange would form the basis for the Beatles’ song She Said She Said on the Revolver album.
