David Crosby Said His Brains Ran Out of His Nose Onto the Floor in a Puddle After He Listened to a Beatles Track

David Crosby said his brains spilled out of his head after he listened to a Beatles track in the recording studio. In 1967, he visited The Beatles at EMI Studios while they were recording their album, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

David Crosby said a Beatles track blew his mind

During a 2021 interview with Uncut, one fan asked Crosby about his most memorable encounter with another musician. Crosby explained he went to visit The Beatles at EMI Studios while they were recording Sgt. Pepper in 1967. What he got to listen to blew his mind.

“One time, Stills and Hendrix and I played for a while, at Stills’ beach house,” he said. “That was pretty good. But probably the best was visiting The Beatles when they were making ‘Sgt Pepper.’ I came in and I was very high. They sat me down on a stool in the middle of the studio and rolled up two six-foot-tall speakers on either side of me.

“Then, laughing, they climbed the stairs back to the control room and left me there. And then they played ‘A Day In The Life’… At the end of that last chord, my brains just ran out my nose onto the floor in a puddle. I didn’t know what to do, I was just stupefied.”

Crosby was also a fan of The Beatles’ ‘Revolver’

Days before The Beatles released Revolver (Super Deluxe) in October 2022, Crosby spoke to Mojo (per Vermilion County First) about the innovative album. Crosby never shied away from speaking about one of his favorite bands. “A Day In The Life” wasn’t the only Beatles track that blew Crosby’s mind.

Crosby explained, “I don’t recall where and exactly when I first heard ‘Revolver;’ I just know what it did to me. ‘Rubber Soul’ was what you thought the Beatles were, but ‘Revolver’ — somebody has smoked a joint and dropped acid. Their consciousness was completely different and it’s a joy for that.”

Crosby said it was amazing how much The Beatles changed in the eight months between Rubber Soul and Revolver. “They had a more sophisticated worldview, more understanding of human emotion, their story telling had gotten better, and their musical experimentation has gone sky high. They were growing so fast you could hardly keep up.”

Ultimately, Revolver inspired Crosby to do better with his own music. “‘Revolver’ completely convinced name I was going in the right direction, playing music at the most adventurous level I could imagine.”

The Beatles song that proved to the singer-songwriter that they’d changed drastically

In 2022, Crosby told Stereogum that The Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby” showed him how drastically they’d changed between Rubber Soul and Revolver. “I was stunned, man,” he said. “I didn’t know they could grow that fast.”

Crosby said drugs had a significant hand in The Beatles’ evolution. “I didn’t realize what would happen when you gave guys like that acid and pot,” he explained. “They said, ‘Oh, well, look at this.’ And they went crazy. They went beautifully f****** nuts. They expanded their world drastically the same way their consciousness had been expanded.”

The Beatles inspired Crosby, but Crosby’s band, The Byrds, inspired them in return. Roger McGuinn bought the 12-string Rickenbacker guitar like the one George Harrison played in A Hard Day’s Night. On The Byrd’s first album, Mr. Tambourine Man, McGuinn used the guitar on “The Bells of Rhymney.” Then, the song inspired George to write “If I Needed Someone.”

So, both bands wouldn’t have been as innovative without each other.