When the Beatles went east in 1967

Lewis Lapham was there when the Beatles sought enlightenment in India. And now he has written the book

by Matt Goody

The longtime political essayist of the American left, Harper’s magazine editor Lewis Lapham, has written a small book about the Beatles’ trip to Rishikesh, India, in the winter of 1968. Prior to his work with Harper’s, Lapham worked as a freelance writer and was often hired by the Saturday Evening Post. In February 1968, the Post commissioned him to write a two-piece investigation of the Beatles’ trip to the Maharishi Mahesh’s ashram in Rishikesh, in the hope of uncovering the celebrity fascination with transcendental meditation. After discovering the article several decades later, an editor at Melville House asked Lapham to revisit the article and produce a book focused on Lapham’s brief encounter with the most popular rock band in the world, during one of the most tumultuous periods in the band’s career. Luckily, Lapham still had thorough notes from the trip, and used these, along with a revised version of the original article, to write With the Beatles, which was released in October of last year.

On a recent trip to New York City, I had the opportunity to attend a book reading by Lapham at Coliseum Books in midtown Manhattan. Most people in attendance were clearly both Harper’s readers and Beatles enthusiasts. Everyone wanted to find out why a political essayist was speaking and writing about a topic that has typically been of interest only to music aficionados.

It was clear from the outset that music and popular culture are not Lapham’s things, as he had little expertise with rock culture or his audience’s familiarity with all-things Beatles. He readily admitted that, while he was friends with Thelonius Monk and Ornette Coleman and familiar with the jazz music in the ’60s, he had little understanding of pop or rock music popular in 1967–68. To give an example, when attempting to underscore just how prevalent the Beatles were in the culture of the ’60s, Lapham said the only equivalent that was remotely similar today would be the popularity of Bruce Springsteen. Nobody in the crowd piped up to tell Lapham that Springsteen was far more popular amongst youth in the early ’80s than today.

Yet as Lapham began to address the audience’s questions, his project gained clarity and significance. Lapham has an unparalleled ability to provide political and cultural context to any subject he discusses, and when asked why this particular period in Beatles history was of import, he responded by adeptly rooting the hippies’ naive Orientalist interest in Indian culture and religion within a period of significant political change. As the Beatles retreated to India after the “Summer of Love,” optimistic about the possibilities of peace and harmony being achieved through transcendental meditation, their optimism quickly turned to disillusionment with the Maharishi and his teachings. (There was no direct response to how this disillusionment arose, but Lapham hinted that the Maharishi had a keen interest in the teenage flower girls in the camp.)

Lapham clearly sees a parallel between the Beatles’ mounting disenchantment during their holiday in India and the cynicism that arose amongst ’60s youth seeking political change. In short, the “Summer of Love” in ’67 turned into a year of violence in ’68. As the Beatles sat on the banks of the Ganges questioning their motives, Martin Luther King was assassinated, and as the year wore on, Robert Kennedy was killed, riots broke out at the Democratic Convention, and the reactionary Right began their rise to power with the election of Richard Nixon.

Several people in the audience, after hearing this insightful analysis of the Beatles’ disastrous trip to India, saw, not surprisingly, a correlation to current events with the mounting disapproval of the occupation of Iraq. Lapham didn’t see the connection. He stated that the book was released only because he was asked by the publisher, creating the impression that he was simply doing it for the money. But it would be overly simplistic to suggest that Lapham is living up to the mantra “rock ’n’ roll is here to pay.” While reams of paper have been used by rock journalists to opine about the Beatles’ trip to India and the influence it had on song lyrics or the eventual break-up of the group, few of these writers have looked beyond the reaches of the band to see any greater meaning in the event.

Lapham’s discussion at Coliseum Books, and his book With the Beatles, offers a unique and refreshing outsider’s perspective on a small event that was symbolic of larger, shifting trends in the youth movement of the ’60s.

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