Episode 095 - A Change of Note

In the last episode, we looked at two critically important events that happened in August of 1964 that would eventually have truly profound effects on Western culture, as well as on world history in general. On August 7, the US Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and 21 days later, on August 28, Bob Dylan got together with the Beatles in their New York City hotel suite for a casual evening of fun.

Again, neither event seemed overly important at the time, but in the long run, they were truly critical. By a nearly unanimous vote, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution effectively gave President Lydon Johnson “carte blanche” to direct the American military operation in Southeast Asia however he saw fit.  

A few weeks later, at the party New York, Bob Dylan got John, Paul, George, and Ringo high on marijuana for the first time in their lives, blowing the doors of perception wide open for them.  And significantly, in their altered state, he told them that he admired their songs, but the problem was that they weren’t about anything. This casual comment proved to be deeply moving to them in terms of their creativity.  

The last episode was titled, “Tale of Two Seeds,” and that’s exactly what it was because two very different seeds had been planted. And within a rather short period of time, both of those seeds would sprout and start growing like wildfire, and ultimately, one would be the undoing of the other.

But let’s veer off a little here for a quick reminder of what this sequence of episodes is all about. As I’ve mentioned a few times earlier, the underlying theme of all of this is the evolution of consciousness that began to take place in a very serious way back then and has continued, through to this day, although often quite subtly.

As the series has unfolded, we’ve gotten some terrific feedback from our subscribers, but there has been one question that has come up a few times and I’d like to address it briefly. The question is, “What do you mean by the term “evolution of consciousness?”

It’s really quite simple. Essentially, we each live in two worlds - our external world and our internal world. Our external world consists of everything that is happening around us on the outside, which generally involves our friends, our family, our career, our home, our car, our pets, and so on. And on the other hand, our internal world relates to everything that is going on within us – our thoughts, our feelings, our knowledge and understandings, our memoires, etc.

The term, “consciousness” simply refers to this inner world of ours, which holds the mass composite of all the intelligence that is within each one of us on an individual basis.  When our consciousness grows toward the positive, it turns us into better human beings, and the term “evolution of consciousness” is used to simply identify this wonderfully powerful kind of positive inner growth.

Now, human society is largely a reflection of the overall state of consciousness of the human beings in it, so the more highly evolved our individual consciousness becomes, the better the chances we have of living in a kinder and more humane society.  In other words, better people will always create a better world.

In this regard, history has shown that the artists of any age usually play very significant roles in stimulating the inner growth of the people of their time. Along these lines, although I haven’t been able to find out who said it, I once came across a great quote about the role of the artist in society. It divided people into two categories.

The first one is made up of society’s solid, reliable, hard-working people, the ones who go to work every day and do all the things we need to keep our lives going. It said that these are the people who make the world go around. But it said that the job of an artist isn’t to make the world go around. The job of the artists is to make the world go forward. As a wanna-be artist, painting the colors of words onto the canvass of ideas, I found the idea to be quite inspiring.   

So, with all that being said, let’s go back to the Beatles in August of 1964. Apparently, when Dylan got them stoned that night, it began a bit of a love affair between the lads and the weed. As happened to so many of us upon our first exposure to the mind-altering powers of THC, they began perceiving things in a very different way. After that, getting high on marijuana became a normal part of their abnormal lives, and their music, along with everything else about them began to undergo a slow, but dramatic metamorphosis.

Small and subtle as it was, I clearly remember the first time I became conscious of a definite change in their music in December of 1964. I was in tenth grade, finishing my first semester of high school and a new Beatles album had just come out called Beatles 65.  It was always a major event whenever a new one of their albums came out and this was no different.

All the songs were remarkably great, as they always were, but there was one that seemed just a bit different. John Lennon was singing. His voice had become incredibly familiar to me and always made me happy. The song was about a lost love, but instead of just being sad, it seemed to have a new sense of pathos in it. And in the slow introduction, I couldn’t believe the words that I heard him sing. “I’m a loser. I’m a loser. And I’m not what I appear to be.”

I was pretty surprised. To me, he seemed to be the coolest superstar in the whole world, which to my young mind made him one of my major heroes. And now, I am hearing this greatly influential voice tell me that in actuality, he’s really  a loser and he’s not what he appears to be.

And there were some pretty deep ideas in the rest of the lyrics as well. “Although I laugh and I act like a clown, beneath this mask, I am wearing a frown. My tears are falling like rain from the sky. Is it for her or myself that I cry? What have I done to deserve such a fate? I realize I have left it too late. And so it’s true, pride comes before a fall. I’m telling you so that you won’t lose all. I’m a loser. I’m a loser. And I’m not what I appear to be.”

It's not like it was that all that big of a deal for me, but still, something seemed noticeably different. Clearly it was a break-up song, but also clearly, it was not a song that didn’t mean anything.

I didn’t notice it at the time, but in a larger sense, some initial seeds of concepts of change were being planted in my subconscious mind. “Maybe I’m a loser too, and maybe I’m not what I appear to be. And you know what? Maybe this whole world isn’t what it appears to be. And what about life itself? Maybe life isn’t what it appears to be, either. These are really important questions and you don’t really know a thing about this kind of stuff, do you?” 

These hadn’t exactly formed into thoughts yet, just somewhat ethereal feelings and of course, I had no answers. Far from it. I didn’t even have any questions. Again, it was just a subtle feeling, like on a very deep level, a curtain of some kind was about to be lifted. Again, these were the earliest of times for me. It would be several years before I would find myself being forced to explore the treacherous terrain of self-deception.

As far as the  society was concerned, at this point, it's important to remember that during the mid-sixties, as well as for at least the ten years that followed, the Beatles were by far, the most influential force in popular music. Of course, there were many other tremendous musicians during that time as well, far too many to mention here. But the Beatles always led the way, coaxing the culture down the yellow brick road for at least a decade. 

All in all, a truly remarkable output of rock music became the primary source of influence to the seventy million American baby boomers. With their radios and record players constantly blasting the beat, it became the soundtrack of their lives as they made their way through the incredibly influential years that led them into becoming the people they eventually became.

By the way, on a completely different track, let’s take a look at a few statistics regarding Southeast Asia as the year of 1964 came to a close. At the close of 1963, the US had 16.300 “advisors” active in South Vietnam and 122 of them had been killed that year.  By the end of 1964, the number had increased by over 40% to 23,300 and 216 of them had been killed. Not that anyone was paying any attention to it. These weren’t particularly alarming numbers and Vietnam could have been on the moon as far at the general public was concerned. A vast majority of the American population had never even heard of it.

But the Beatles music had definitely begun to change. It started out with a random song here and there, but the same way that random rocks trickling down the side of a mountain can suddenly catalyze a massive avalanche, in many significant ways, the Beatles were about to change the world.

In this regard, one evening in April of 1965 marked the beginning of their next phase, as their newly elevated path was unexpectedly launched into hyperspace.

John Lennon and George Harrison, along with their wives, went to dinner at the home of their dentist. The dentist served them a meal, followed by coffee and dessert, and it seemed like he made sure that John and George drank all their coffee. Then, a short while later, he told them that he had spiked their coffee with LSD.

Of course, dosing someone with LSD without their consent is a terrible thing to do. History has taught, as Timothy Leary’s research at Harvard had proclaimed much earlier, that the drug can wreak severely negative impacts when done in the wrong way at the wrong time.

Fortunately for the couples at dinner that night, even though it turned out to be a bit of a crazy ride, they still remained safe. But both George and John had some deeply profound experiences. But that’s enough for right now. As you can imagine, we’re coming into some interesting territory in the coming episodes, so as always, keep your eyes, mind and heart open, and let’s get together in the next one.