‘Who gave the drugs to the Beatles? I didn’t invent those things. I bought it from someone who got it from somebody. We never invented the stuff.’ – John Lennon

Riding So High charts the Beatles’ extraordinary odyssey from teenage drinking and pill-popping, to cannabis, LSD, the psychedelic Summer of Love and the darkness beyond.

Drugs were central to the Beatles’ story from the beginning. The acid, pills and powders helped form bonds, provided escape from the chaos of Beatlemania, and inspired colossal leaps in songwriting and recording. But they also led to break-ups, breakdowns, drug busts and prison.

The only full-length study of the Beatles and drugs, Riding So High tells of getting stoned, kaleidoscope eyes, excess, loss and redemption, with a far-out cast including speeding Beatniks, a rogue dentist, a script-happy aristocratic doctor, corrupt police officers and Hollywood Vampires. ‘The deeper you go, the higher you fly…’

‘An essential new work in Beatles historiography.’ – Erin Torkelson Weber, author of The Beatles and the Historians