David Crosby, rock musician
Wonderful cynic

By the time "Abbey Road" went down, I was friends with them [the Beatles]. On the first British tour [of the Byrds] they just came around and were very kind to us. At one point we were playing in some shitty little club that was packed; I looked out and there was John Lennon...

I had an enormous amount of respect for John Lennon and I think he liked me -- at least he told other people that he was my friend. I loved him and thought he was a totally fantastic man. He had the quickest mind that you could ever ask for, fast and funny and blessed with such a dry wit it was acerbic. Lennon's approach was dry, cutting, even bittersweet and he saw stuff in a way I just loved. He was a wonderful cynic and skeptic in the best sense of those words... (London, mid-1960s)

From "Long Time Gone: The Autobiography of David Crosby," by David Crosby with Carl Gottlieb (Doubleday, 1988)

Eric Burdon, rock musician
Orgy

Sex orgies were plentiful and if for no more than childish curiosity, I wanted to find out, I wanted to know...

Within the Mayfair flat, the light from the grainy 16mm projector grinding away gave the room a strobic light effect. The film was a total bore, it looked like it had been shot in the thirties. The women were ugly and everyone was masked ... The blonde next to me on the armchair had beautiful legs. My hand went out and grabbed her round the ankle. I pulled myself across the floor and slid my hand up her legs. She looked down at me, smiled and moaned, then she pushed my hands away and cracked up laughing. "Oh no," she said, pushing me away, "I've got the biggest one in the room." In her hands was a large rubber object. She got up and walked away. I lay back down on the floor. Another head crossed the projector, casting a giant shadow on the wall. A familiar face. Click. I knew him. "Hey, how ya doing, Johnny boy?" The bright white illuminated face of an unshaven John Lennon in a pin-striped suit ducked underneath the beam of light, across the room, out of the door behind the blonde. (London, mid-1960s)

From "I Used To Be An Animal but I'm All Right Now," by Eric Burdon (Faber and Faber, 1986)

John Phillips, rock musician
Writing on Eskatrol

...to Dolly's, the original private London disco for rock stars. Mick [Jagger] and Chrissie [Shrimpton] introduced us around. We ended up sitting at a table with John Lennon. It was late and we had just arrived. We told him we wanted to get high and asked him if he could help us score some grass. He said he'd have to make a call to a friend who was in a recording studio and planning to come by anyway. He made the call. Twenty minutes later, Paul McCartney walked in with a small bag of grass.

Lennon asked Denny [Doherty], "Hey, man, have you boys ever heard of a drug called Eskatrol? You can't get it 'ere. It's like speed."

"How many do you need?" he answered.

Lennon's face lit up. "Well, all right," he said. "An American friend turned us on to it a couple of years ago. We been writin' all our songs on it for years." (London, 1966)

From "Papa John: A Music Legend's Shattering Journey Through Sex, Drugs, and Rock 'n' Roll," by John Phillips (Dolphin Books/Doubleday, 1986)

Mia Farrow, actor
Mystical plane

...the Beatles too came to Maharishi's bungalow in the afternoons.

"Whenever I meditate," John said, in his irresistible Liverpool accent, "there's a big brass band in me head."

"Write it down, write it down," recommended Maharishi.

I think of John, so off-center and quick, peering out from behind his glasses; he made me laugh, which I hadn't done in a while. And at evening assembly he used to turn his chair completely around, and look at everyone. John seemed to see everything on a mystical plane, and he thought of Maharishi as a kind of wizard. (New Delhi, 1968)

From "What Falls Away: A Memoir," by Mia Farrow (Doubleday, 1997)

Mick Fleetwood, rock musician
Mutual misery

...to the Maharishi's ashram in the foothills of the Himalayas.

...I was meditating almost all the time, and getting quite hot, like I had a fever. It turned out to be dysentery, but the local doctor diagnosed tonsillitis. I sat with John Lennon a lot, since he didn't feel well either from terrible jet lag and insomnia. He would stay up late, unable to sleep, and write the songs that appeared later on the Beatles' "White Album." When I was at my lowest, he made a drawing of a turbaned Sikh genie holding a big snake and intoning, "By the power within, and the power without, I cast your tonsil lighthouse out!"...

Sometimes, late at night, I can still hear John singing those sad songs he wrote during those evenings, like "I'm So Tired..." (Nepal, 1968)

From "Fleetwood: My Life and Adventures in Fleetwood Mac," by Mick Fleetwood with Stephen Davis (William Morrow, 1990)

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