photo #1566985

DISCLAIMER - I have never taken LSD, nor do I endorse the use of it or other illicit drugs. I collect vinyl records of cultural interest. THAT is MY drug of choice. I am not only a broadcaster, but also a record collector. Or maybe I should say.. record ACCUMULATOR. A recent acquisition.. the 1967 soundtrack album of Timothy Leary's, "Tune In, Turn On, Drop Out'. Leary had explained this phrase in his autobiography, 'Flashback', published in 1983. That explanation is as follows - 'Turn on' meant go within to activate your neural and genetic equipment. Become sensitive to the many and various levels of consciousness and the specific triggers engaging them. Drugs were one way to accomplish this end. 'Tune in' meant interact harmoniously with the world around you—externalize, materialize, express your new internal perspectives. 'Drop out' suggested an active, selective, graceful process of detachment from involuntary or unconscious commitments. 'Drop Out' meant self-reliance, a discovery of one's singularity, a commitment to mobility, choice, and change. Unhappily, my explanations of this sequence of personal development are often misinterpreted to mean 'Get stoned and abandon all constructive activity'.The Psychedelic Rock group The Strawberry Alarm Clock would parody this line in their 1967 single, ;Incense And Peppermints' as thus - 'Turn on, tune in, turn your eyes around'... I'd always enjoyed that song.. but I didn't really grasp the concept of the meaning until many years later. I mean, I was still a kid then. The phrase was, in one way or another, used in many other Psychedelic songs of the day.