Looking for a Source of Diversion

A dentist in London laid it on George, me and wives, without telling us, at a dinner party at his house. He was a friend of George's and our dentist at the time, and he just put it in our coffee or something. He didn't know what it was; it's all the same thing with that sort of middle-class London swinger, or whatever. They had all heard about it, and they didn't know it was different from pot or pills, and they gave us it. He said, 'I advise you not to leave,' and we thought he was trying to keep us for an orgy in his house, and we didn't want to know, and we went to Ad Lib and these discotheques, and there were these incredible things going on.
It was insane, going around London. When we went to the club we thought it was on fire, (...). We thought, 'Shit, what's going on here?' We were cackling in the streets, and people were shouting, 'Let's break a window,' you know; it was just insane. We were just out of our heads. When we finally got on the lift, we all thought it was on fire, but there was just a little red light. We were all screaming like that, and we were all hot and hysterical, (...).
God, it was just terrifying, but it was fantastic. I did some drawings at the time, I've got them somewhere, of four faces saying, 'We agree with you!' (...). And then George's house seemed to be just like a big submarine. I was driving it, they all went to bed, I was carrying on in it, it seemed to float above his wall which was eighteen foot, and I was driving it.
(...) The second time we had it was in LA. We were on tour in one of those houses, Doris Day's house or wherever it was we used to stay, and the three of us took it, Ringo, George and I. (...).
Peter Fonda came, and that was another thing. He kept saying [in a whisper], 'I know what it's like to be dead,' and we said, 'What?' and he kept saying it. We were saying, 'For Christ's sake, shut up, we don't want to know,' and he kept going on about it (...).



John Lennon interviewed by Jann S. Wanner for Rolling Stone Magazine, January 21, 1971.