It's easy to see why Lennon would be so infatuated by the folk singer. Dylan came from a world of New York coffee houses and Old Left socialists who demanded some level of intellectual weight from their artists. People listened to his music sitting down, quietly taking it all in. It was a far cry from both the beer halls of Hamburg, where Lennon cut his musical teeth, and the stadiums he was then playing. His artistic output after hearing Dylan suggests he was challenged and inspired by the New York troubadour's seriousness. Almost immediately, Lennon began to write more introspective and acoustic songs, first in "I'm a Loser," which was recorded in August of 1964. He finally mastered the folk form with the fully Dylan-esque "Norwegian Wood," released on 1965's Rubber Soul, in which the singer takes a detached, and somewhat stoned, look at an elusive female figure.

It's no wonder Lennon sounds stoned: In August of 1964, in New York City, Dylan introduced The Beatles to cannabis. Pot would turn out to be arguably the only bigger influence than Dylan on Lennon in 1964 and 1965. Having run for years on a steady stream of booze and amphetamines, Lennon and the rest of The Beatles began "smoking pot for breakfast," in Ringo Starr's words. The switch coincided—and perhaps provoked—a change in recording habits: By the mid-'60s, the Beatles were taking days to record songs that would once take hours, or even minutes, and, in the process, revolutionizing studio recording.

It was a nearly parallel development with the mercurial Dylan who, always a step ahead of the times, was focusing on more hallucinatory and experimental output like "Mr. Tambourine Man," by the time he met Lennon.

The two would meet again in May of 1966, during Dylan's legendary first electric tour of England. An awkward limo ride that he shared with Lennon during that tour was captured by filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker shows the strange tension between the two men. In 1970 Lennon spoke to Rolling Stone about the uncomfortable encounter: "I just remember we were both in shades and both on fucking junk. ... I was nervous as shit. I was on his territory, that's why I was so nervous."

Despite the tension, in 1966 John Lennon and Bob Dylan were more similar than they had ever been before—or ever would be again. Dylan had achieved his first major chart success with "Like a Rolling Stone" in America but was also being ridiculed by a large contingency of his former fan base who were chafed by his new electric and "commercial" sound. Lennon, himself more than a little familiar with controversy, was, in the midst the revolutionary experimentation that would become the high point of his career. Up to that point, Dylan and Lennon were on opposite ends—one a playful pop star, the other a serious social commentor—but for once they were both in the same place, experiencing the surreal trappings of fame while creating some of the best music of the 20th century. The motorcycle accident that forced Dylan to retire to Woodstock in 1966 severed that connection. The two are believed to have met only once more, in 1969.