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It goes without saying that Bob Dylan<\/strong> is one of the most influential musicians in history, as anyone with a passing familiarity of rock history knows. But the folk-rock icon’s impact on his peers goes beyond chord structure and lyrical composition, as one particularly entertaining anecdote from the annals of rock history involving the Beatles proves.<\/p>\n In August of 1964, the Beatles were staying at the Delmonico Hotel near Manhattan\u2019s Central Park, according to the Beatles Bible<\/a><\/em>, digging into a room service dinner, when Dylan showed up for a visit.<\/p>\n After being introduced to the band by a mutual friend, the writer Al Aronowitz<\/strong>, Dylan was offered some champagne…but apparently, he preferred “cheap wine” instead. Since there wasn’t any budget booze on hand, Dylan suggested they “smoke grass” instead. When the Beatles’ manager, Brian Epstein<\/strong>, admitted that the band didn’t have much experience with marijuana, Dylan was shocked…all because he apparently misheard the lyrics to one of their biggest hits.<\/p>\n As Peter Brown<\/strong> wrote in The Love You Make: An Insider’s Story of the Beatles<\/a><\/em>, Dylan “looked disbelievingly from face to face” following Epstein’s admission.<\/p>\n \u201c’But what about your song?’ he asked. ‘The one about getting high?'”<\/p>\n Brown continued: “The Beatles were stupefied. ‘Which song?’ John managed to ask. Dylan said, ‘You know\u2026’ and then he sang, ‘and when I touch you I get high, I get high\u2026'”<\/p>\n Of course, those aren’t really the words to “I Want to Hold Your Hand” (the actual lyric is “I can’t hide, I can’t hide, I can’t hide”), but plenty of other listeners have made the same mistake. And the Beatles apparently weren’t completely new to weed at the time, as George Harrison<\/strong> explained in Anthology<\/em><\/a>, but their first experience with the substance was underwhelming.<\/p>\n “We first got marijuana from an older drummer with another group in Liverpool. We didn\u2019t actually try it until after we\u2019d been to Hamburg,” Harrison explained. “I remember we smoked it in the band room in a gig in Southport and we all learnt to do the Twist that night, which was popular at the time. We were all seeing if we could do it. Everybody was saying, \u2018This stuff isn\u2019t doing anything.\u2019 It was like that old joke where a party is going on and two hippies are up floating on the ceiling, and one is saying to the other, \u2018This stuff doesn\u2019t work, man.\u2019”<\/p>\n Smoking with Dylan, however, proved to be a more enjoyable experience.<\/p>\n “I don\u2019t remember much what we talked about,” recalled John Lennon<\/strong> in Anthology<\/em><\/a>. “We were smoking dope, drinking wine and generally being rock \u2019n\u2019 rollers and having a laugh, you know, and surrealism. It was party time.”<\/p>\n Paul McCartney<\/strong> shared similarly hilarious memories of the evening in Many Years From Now<\/em><\/a> by Barry Miles<\/strong>.<\/p>\n “I remember asking Mal, our road manager, for what seemed like years and years, \u2018Have you got a pencil?\u2019 But of course everyone was so stoned they couldn\u2019t produce a pencil, let alone a combination of pencil and paper,” McCartney said.<\/p>\n “I\u2019d been going through this thing of levels, during the evening,” he continued. “And at each level I\u2019d meet all these people again. \u2018Hahaha! It\u2019s you!\u2019 And then I\u2019d metamorphose on to another level. Anyway, Mal gave me this little slip of paper in the morning, and written on it was, \u2018There are seven levels!\u2019 Actually it wasn\u2019t bad. Not bad for an amateur. And we pissed ourselves laughing. I mean, \u2018What the f\u2014k\u2019s that? What the f\u2014k are the seven levels?\u2019 But looking back, it\u2019s actually a pretty succinct comment; it ties in with a lot of major religions but I didn\u2019t know that then.”<\/p>\n Whatever happened that night, it’s safe to say that millions of fans would have given just about anything to see it all go down firsthand.<\/p>\n Related: John Lennon Thought This Bob Dylan Song Was So ‘Pathetic’ and ‘Embarrassing’ He Wrote a Parody<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n This story was originally reported by Parade<\/a> on Oct 18, 2025, where it first appeared in the News<\/a> section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It goes without saying that Bob Dylan is one of the most influential musicians in history, as anyone with a passing familiarity of rock history knows. But the folk-rock icon’s impact on his peers goes beyond chord structure and lyrical composition, as one particularly entertaining anecdote from the annals of rock history involving the Beatles […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2100264,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[29332,346029,397025,368916,32894],"class_list":["post-2100263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-bob-dylan","tag-brian-epstein","tag-peter-brown","tag-rock-history","tag-the-beatles"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/How-Bob-Dylan-Got-a-Beatles-Lyric-Wrong-and-Went.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2100263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2100263"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2100263\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2100265,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2100263\/revisions\/2100265"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2100264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2100263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2100263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2100263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Bob Dylan and the Beatles shared a ‘surreal’ evening<\/h2>\n