Drug influence in music/art/writing/creativity in general

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how do you all feel about the use of drugs as a source of artistic inspriation?

I think that for instance: The Beatles best works were made during their acid phase: Revolver-Magical Mystery Tour-Sgt Peppers. a definate break from their bubble-gum pop start, quite separate from the post-Yoko era...

also how could you encapsulate William Burroughs with out the Junk (heroin), or Piccaso without the Absinthe?

I think the certain drugs (like LSD) can be useful in stimulating ideas in the creative mind.

I don't believe they can make a non-creative person creative.

Drugs don't make art, people do.

Burroughs was also a homosexual and Picasso wasn't into Absinthe, Toulouse Lautrec was the most famous and had suffered as a child. (post script: I was wrong about Picasso's drinking habits, my apologies)

I think those into the the self medicater's had it there to begin with. But yeah some had insights brought on by other things. I kind of doubt the drugs or booze was the real inspiration. I have pretty much decided that those are just parts of the many heads of the beast. There is a deeper core.

Lennon didn't get his inspiration from LSD (I don't think the deep inspiration), he was well read and lived a rough upbringing. He also had a mental condition, he was fully aware he was different as a kid.

Lennon is a bit of a hero to me. His Come Together was sheer genius. Rip himself apart and show you how to build it yourself, all in a short poetic song that had wonderful music to it. Strawberry fields is full of duality and he knew what he was saying. He pointed straight back to it in Glass Onion. As much as the press could rip him apart, no one, no one could do it better then he could to himself. That's pain man, that's pain. And all he wanted was a little peace.

Eeehh...

When I'm stoned, a lot of really creative ideas and whatnot come flying into my head. I just wish I write them down. I attribute it to the pot helping me create the idea.

I'm so grateful I've never felt the need. . .

I agree 100%.

Tim

I think drugs just help further extrapolate whats already there in a person. Pretty much when you smoke, trip, or roll, your putting yourself in a position where your diving further into your emotions - taking a much more sublime mental and emotional state than you realistically could sober - but it only unlocking what was potentially already there.

The one thing I do like about drugs in music though, they do bring out that multilayer intensity. I feel like a lot of the whole darklight feel - ie. beauty in darker sounds as well as the real multilayer stuff where its effectively beautiful music but has a real seared and burned, partially corrupted undertone; drugs helped make all those avenues meet and particularly so in music where those layers seem so abstractly connected that if you let yourself get immersed into what you really listening to, even dead sober, it really pulls at your head from different angles and has you feeling f'd up and disoriented (not just electronic, you have plenty of rock and rap that really hits this intensely as well).

The other part of course, it creates new worlds. Not so much always synaesthesia, but seeing certain elements in things exaggerated helps you to really bring things out that you wouldn't have been able to think of as easily if you didn't have an artificially induced shift in state of mind. I know people who've never done drugs can't relate to it, think drugs for creativity is a cop-out but for anyone who has been there and done it, and has responsibly, its actually hard not to feel sorry for people in a way who haven't just because there's a whole side of reality that gets obstructed from site in most cases.

Remember Mario? It's a whole KINGDOM of mushrooms! Eat the 'shroom, get "higher"--er...taller. Plus, you just KNOW they made up that theme song when they were high.... XD

Burroughs sexuality was varied he had strong homo-erotic tendancies, but to just say he was 100% queer would be wrong, he had a wife who he "accidentally" shot in the face while drunk in mexico, he claimed she was the love of his life.

as for Lennon, He is somewhat of a psychedelic diety to me, you can't deny drugs grately influnced him. "Tomorrow Never Knows" never would have been written or conceputalized with out acid, and it basically was the begining of electronic music with that reversed loop, "She said, She said" Is about an acid trip Lennon had where Peter Fonda freaked him out by telling him about how he died on the operating table as a boy. "Strawberry fields" was conceptualised, written, and recorded on acid by Lennon. Sure creativity and talent had to be there before, I never denied that, otherwise Charlie Manson wouldent have failed as a songwriter but the best thing that ever happened to the Beatles was when they were dosed...

Agreed, it was an attempt to say there were certainly other influences in his life that I think had as much bearing as his junk habit.

I wish I knew off hand a Lennon interview he did. He discusses his seeing things differently as a kid. He also discussed some of the drug influences as well.

I can't seem to leave this post alone. Keeps drawing me back, lol. I had the link for the discussion The Beatles did of who did what, the collaborations others made to various songs and their comments on the inspirations. It was very well done. It may take a while to find again.

I know that most psychodelic rock in the 1960s was usually drug inspired, though I tend to iqnore that aspect and look at it in a abstract artistic and creative way.

Back when I recorded most of my ambient, I smoked a good deal of marijuana. I didnt do it in order to help myself express my emotions through music though as most musicians do. If anything I think it helped me with motivation to even bother touching my keyboard though.